12 Minutes
short story for a jukebox song
An extra-exciting week for me with MJ Polk ‘s Week #27 Stories from the Jukebox Newsletter for the Valentine’s song prompt offering. ❤️
❤️ I picked the song: My favorites from the 80’s, Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time”
If you missed the newsletter, want to see who won last week, or are ready to write your story, poem, or non-fiction and submit…
Twelve Minutes
Five.
Four.
Three.
Two.
One.
Engage accelerator.
My eyes are open. I do not close them anymore. I have been on this trip so many times that fear and pain are nothing more than a memory of a scar on flesh. Real by default. Reality by perception. Input received, reality of the moment. Imagination. Dreams. Thought. Memory. Sensation. It is my choice to accept or reject. I refuse.
Acceptance is insanity. I learned this, witnessing the others before me, dragged away, blood and skin beneath their fingernails. Faces half torn away. This is my twenty-seventh trip. Four times more than any other mindnaut. They call me an anomaly, want to run tests, and learn what makes me different. They want more like me, but they will never have them. I plan on dying with my secret.
The capsule trembles, blue and white bands turn in opposing directions around my head, picking up speed. I do not know how the Atlas works. I am no scientist. Barely human in my keepers’ eyes. A thousand invisible needles pierce through skull bone and into brain. Time is meaningless. I am only a tool without control. The tearing begins, shredding me, ripping out, removing that unnamed part from the body. Oyster from the shell. I hear an ocean.
It’s where I met him the very first time.
I spiral into the space between time and minds. It is no different than seeing the universe through a high-powered telescope. The lie I tell them, anyway. Imagine you stand in the midst of galaxies as a giant. A God. Spectacular displays before your eminence. Symphonic cacophony of creation, bursting fantastic arrays of spinning orbs, shooting colors, exploding stars. My body shakes, tears flooding my eyes, witness to the divine. Throat thunders a sound with no escape. Mouth taped. I am gone.
I enter his world, light streaming in through the window, lighting his profile. He lifts a steaming cup to his lips and sips. I imagine the taste of its contents. Savory. No sugar. I witnessed it with him at another time. A beat before the sigh. I know his rhythm, after twenty-six times, though it took only five. Five times twelve minutes. It is my job as a mindnaut. A time spy sent to pick the brain of the enemy. Mind mapping. Return and report on the enemy’s intent. What the keepers failed to expect was that I would fall in love with mine.
He sets the cup down, turns, and reaches for me. I allow myself to experience this reality. Touch. The reason I came for the last time. I watch his hand lower with a rise of anticipation to know the sensation of his love upon me. Warm and weighted. I have witnessed, and now I know. A soft whimper brings his dark brows together.
“There, there,” he says, sliding from his wooden chair. He crouches at my side, watching. I absorb every beloved detail of his rough, lined face. I have witnessed it before, in reflection. This is real. Personal. Eye to eye. I see care there, inside his. Love. Time after time, I have come to him to steal his secrets. I only did it twice. After that, I made up convincing lies.
This was not a wicked man, as the keepers professed. A man who spoke with kindness to his daughter, the housekeeper, and a dog. One who planted flowers in the ground with caring hands. Who wrote letters about life and love to friends and relations. This man has stood on the beach to see the sun climb into the sky and again in the evening to watch the stars glitter in the dark of night. This is the man I choose to know, things I have witnessed in twelve minutes, twenty-six times. He is not an enemy in my reality.
He smooths his hand over me when another whimper comes. “It’s okay, love. I knew this day would come.”
With care, he scoops me into his arms, holding me to his chest. Rising, he settles back into his chair, turning toward the window. The sun warms us both, and then a rumble rolls inside his chest. Soft and deep, he begins to sing. A song about days on the beach, about the sea, about the sky, about a man and his dog. Gently, he strokes and continues crooning just above a whisper, until my eyes become slits. Cares of the world slip far away from me. This is the touch of strong hands with kindness. At last, this is love. This reality, mine.
A heart skips its beats and comes a long gasp. I will not make a return trip. Divine timing leads me away. The last I witness is the man’s shuddering sorrow.
“Goodbye, my sweetest pet,” he sobs, under his breath.
I drift with a memory, a light of reality, into the dark. I am gone.
Thank you for reading,
Anne