Time Winders

He heard a sound he absolutely could not identify.

He sat up in bed. After fifty years living in the same house, he knew every single, solitary sound it could make. He hadn’t built it, exactly, but he and his wife had done so many repairs on it over the decades that it was — for all intents and purposes — hand-built, as was most of the furniture, the cabinetry, and the floorboards.

And that didn’t sound like any of them.

He put one bare foot on the floor. He didn’t have a gun (his wife wouldn’t let him, and he just kind of stuck to that after she died); he was all alone and absolutely terrified.

He didn’t know what to think. He had no money, no real valuables. He didn’t really value the house’s contents, but in all likelihood, someone else might. If they didn’t want money (how many were there?), then maybe they just craved violence. Maybe they just wanted to kill him, maybe terrorize him first.

He sat, frozen with uncertainty, listening to the Grandmother clock downstairs tock away, listening to the stairs creak on their own — always the fourth step from the bottom (as an engineer, he knew it was because of temperature changes between night and day, but it was unnerving nonetheless), listening to the refrigerator hum and the rafters pop, the neighbor’s dog in the distance whimper occasionally because it wanted inside.

He could easily identify those sounds (and sleep through them), but this was different, and … foreign, and it was inside the house, in the living room. He took in a long, drawn out, quiet breath, just thinking, and in that moment, that timeless moment when we are all tested, his fear slowly melted away and thawed into a new realization of self.

Like a broken vase with a hole in the bottom (he swore he could feel it), panic released its grip from his mind, trickled slowly down his spine, and drained out the souls of his feet. It was replaced by a sadness filling him up like a blue mist.

What did he have to live for, anyway? He was an old man, his wife was dead; heck, even the dog was gone. He didn’t have the heart to get another pet. He didn’t know how many years he had left, but at his age, death couldn’t be too far away. He was resigned to it.

The sound in the living room changed from a rustle/thump to a soft brush. Unable to categorize it, he thought it sounded like a cat covered in leaves, arching its back on the wooden floor.

He slowly pushed aside the blanket and put his other foot on the floor. There was no bedside phone; he and his wife didn’t want to be disturbed while sleeping in all of a Sunday morning … and doing other stuff. (Why couldn’t he have the wit to put a phone upstairs, but turn off the ringer?) He didn’t own a cell phone, and a cordless phone seemed superfluous.

So, now he couldn’t call the police from up here, that’s for sure. But then, he never had the need before.

The rustling was getting more frantic. It sounded like the ‘cat’ was having a fit. In any case, it wasn’t coming upstairs; he’d have to go down to greet it.

He walked barefoot downstairs, straining what was left of his hearing to locate it. He carefully stepped over the fourth-from-the-bottom stair, descended the last few steps, and peeked into the living room.

Nothing. He could hear it, but he couldn’t see it. It was behind the large sofa in the middle of the floor. Was it an animal? How on Earth did it get in here? He walked slowly around the sofa.

It was a woman, and she was having a seizure.

“My, God,” he whispered. He knelt painfully by her side, hearing his knee pop.

“Can I help you? What’s wrong?”

She couldn’t speak; her jaw was clamped tightly shut. There was absolutely no fear or panic in her eyes (perhaps she’d been through this before?), and — unusual for a seizure — she was looking right at him. Whatever it was that was afflicting her, it was affecting her body, not her mind. He was torn between putting something between her teeth and calling an ambulance.

“I’ll call an ambulance,” he said, rising as quickly as he could.

She clamped a hand on his wrist, and — just like that — he no longer thought to make the call. He knew he should, but he didn’t want to. Barring that option, he blinked and looked around for something to put in her mouth to keep her from breaking her own jaw, if that was possible.

He found a magazine and knelt again (God it hurt his joints to kneel on the cold, hard floor), trying to pry open her teeth to get it in there. When her mouth was open just a bit, she hissed through her front teeth, “Teeaaaa.”

He sat back a bit. Did she just say …?

“Hohhhtt … teeaaaa. Pleeeeaasse,” she managed, through clenched teeth.

He was flummoxed. She needed a doctor, but he wasn’t ‘allowed’ to call emergency services, and now she wanted him to make her a hot cup of tea?

“Nowwwww,” she said, begging with her eyes, her hand again clamped around his wrist.

He didn’t know quite what to do except go in the kitchen and make her a steaming hot cup of tea.

Slowly, grunting with the effort, he rose and went into the kitchen, feeling terrible that he was leaving her there. He looked at the coffee pot on the stove and decided the microwave would be faster.

He made a cup of tea as fast as he could, took a sip, decided it was too hot, and added an ice cube. He knelt down on his aching knees next to her, put a hand behind her neck and raised her head, feeling all the while that this was just a bad idea. What if she choked? Her teeth were clamped shut so tightly, if she vomited it had nowhere to go.

She took a small sip through gritted teeth, and the effect was immediate. Her lips parted more — he could see her jaw unclench, even in the relative dark — and that allowed him to get more tea down her throat. She relaxed all over and the shakes quieted down to a simmer.

“Thanks,” she said hoarsely. He lowered her down, mostly because it hurt his back to hold her up. She supported her own weight and sat up, leaning heavily on one arm. He had absolutely no idea what to say.

“Do you need anymore?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No, thank you.” He set the teacup aside, reaching over the sofa back to put it on the seat so he wouldn’t trip over it in the morning. He would clean it up then. He looked around the room.

Absolutely nothing was disturbed. Nothing appeared to be removed, and a long, squinting look through the dark revealed that the front door was still locked. He didn’t feel particularly threatened, although he did feel terribly violated. In any case, wandering around doing an inventory check didn’t seem appropriate right now, so, instead, he sat back and looked at her.

She was young, about 30, he’d guess, and (he hated to notice under the circumstances) quite pretty. She wore a dark mid-length dress with dark leggings and suede ankle-boots with gum soles — dressed like a cat burglar. She had no knapsack, no tools, no weapons, although she wore what he couldn’t help but think of as a Batman utility belt: flexible with little pockets all the way around. He supposed she used something in there to break in, because he knew for a fact that all the windows downstairs were locked, so maybe she jimmied one.

She leaned on one arm, her breathing smoothing out, and watched him. He was a patient man — and cautious. He decided to let her speak first. Wartime service had taught him to gather more information than give out, especially when dealing with an unknown entity.

Finally she said, “I’m not a thief.”

“You haven’t taken anything,” was all he replied.

She nodded. “I’ll go now. Sorry to have disturbed you.”

He was going to call the police as soon as she left — no need to telegraph that now. He assiduously avoided looking at the downstairs phone. She got up slowly, never taking her eyes off him. When she stood looking down on him, for the first time she softened as she realized how frail he looked. She held out a hand, palm up.

“Can I help you up?”

He glanced at her hand, looked into her face, and decided there was no trick waiting for him. They locked wrists and he grunted as he got up.

Finally standing, he straightened his pajamas, angry and embarrassed at needing help, accepting help, and being helpless in front of a complete stranger in his own home. He decided to be civil, nothing more.

She turned to go. He started to tell her, sarcastically, that the front door was the other way when she froze. She cocked an ear, as if she could hear something coming from the ceiling. He listened, hearing nothing. Then, as a look of horror spread across her face, he heard it, too: a high-pitched whine. No doubt, that’s why she heard it first. His hearing wasn’t so good these days, and was never as good as a woman’s, especially at the higher registers. But now, it was getting loud fast — a shrill, squealing whine, with an underlying grinding growl to it.

“You’ve got to be kidding me …” she said, looking up and over her left shoulder. He looked up, and saw nothing, then studied her face.

Her look of complete surprise and fear made him run cold. Under enemy fire in the field, when he didn’t know which way to jump or what to do, he’d learned to read his buddies’ reactions: it saved his skin more than once, where others died. Just now, watching her, he was very afraid, because she was.

He looked up again as the sound grew more threatening, and part of the ceiling and wall slowly started to burn in a circular pattern. Not burn, exactly, but churn, picking up speed. A second later and he could see up into the bedroom. (How was that possible? he thought.) She clamped a strong hand on his wrist.

“Let’s go!” she shouted, over the din, and jumped with one foot, pulling him along, just as the ceiling collapsed around them.

They were standing in a field and the sun was shining. How could that be? A second ago it was nighttime. He became terribly disoriented. Not only had the time and scenery changed, but the ground had also shifted — not shifted, exactly, but went from hardwood floor to dirt, just like that. Yet, they’d only taken a single step.

Her hand was still wrapped around his wrist (how could she be that strong?) and he didn’t mean to, but stumbled just enough to slow her down. Then came the grinding sound again. He looked back over his shoulder and the sky started to churn in a circular pattern, following them once again, but there was no machinery. She pulled him up.

“Keep moving!” she shouted and jumped again, taking him with her.

They stepped onto an old parking lot. His knees buckled; she kept him from falling this time. It was hot, and his bare feet burned. He looked over his shoulder; he couldn’t help it. Then the sound came: the sky and even some pavement started to twist and dissolve, although the ‘hole’ in the air was much smaller this time.

“Move!”

He tried to jump — he really did — but the ground changed texture and height, as well. He didn’t know what to prepare for.

They were standing on a grassy plain. It was still daytime, but wet, like just after a rainstorm. His chest grew tight, and panic set in. He knew instinctively she was trying to save him — from what, he didn’t know — otherwise she would have abandoned him. But this was going to kill him if he didn’t get his medication. His free hand gripped his pectoral muscles.

“Please,” he said. She still had a vise grip on his wrist. He heard the sound. With a faraway rational part of his mind, he knew there were larger and larger gaps in time between their ‘jumping,’ and the hole appearing behind them. But it wasn’t long enough to rest.

“I need …” he started to say, but without warning this time, she yanked him so hard it took his breath away.

They landed in a sugar cane field; he’d seen them in Hawaii. It was after a controlled burn, and the air smelled of burnt sugar. Normally he loved that smell, but now his chest squeezed. This time his knees hit the ground.

“I need …” he gasped, “my pills.” He was on nitroglycerin. He’d already had his first cardiac episode and he kept them by the bedside. By the bedside. Not in his pajama pockets. He knew he was well on his way to his next heart attack if she didn’t get him to a doctor.

She turned to look at him. For the first time, it seemed to him, she finally saw him as a person and not a piece of luggage to jerk around. She drew a deep breath, which he took to mean she’d made a decision, and touched his shoulder.

The chest pain disappeared. In fact, he felt no pain whatsoever. But more than that, he felt good — really, really good, in a way that he couldn’t even begin to describe. He wasn’t high, he was light.

At first he thought, however irrationally, that she’d given him speed or some kind of upper, but a second later he knew that wasn’t right. For the first time in decades, it felt as if he could actually shoulder the burden of his body. He instinctively looked at the backs of his hands.

“My, God!” They were young! All the ropey veins and age spots, all the wrinkles and knotty knuckles were gone. They were the smooth, strong hands of a young man. They hadn’t looked that way in fifty years. He looked at his arms: same thing. Did she hypnotize him?

The growling noise began again. It was distinctly quieter, now, and slower this time. He could barely stop looking at his hands to risk a peek. The hole in the air was quite small, relatively speaking, and growing sluggishly, now.

“C’mon,” she said, pulling him up by his arm. Her urgency hadn’t dissipated one bit, but she didn’t have to lift so hard. He stood — almost bouncing up — and took a step …

… and his foot came down on asphalt. He didn’t stumble, let alone fall. The next time, and the next, they stepped in unison. After three more jumps, they were in a daylit field.

She let go of his hand, turned and listened, watching the air intently. He remained utterly silent. After about a minute, she sighed and turned to face him.

“It’s gone,” she said, and he understood that meant it wouldn’t be back. She sat down hard, and he went to her side just as she flopped onto her back.

“Are you all right?” he asked. She straightened out her legs and touched his wrist. “I’m going to take a nap, now — about four hours. Don’t go more than twelve feet away.” She closed her eyes and threw an arm over her face to block out the noonday sun. He was torn between letting her sleep — whatever she had just done was obviously exhausting — and asking a quick question. His curiosity won out.

“Where are we?” he asked, hoping she wouldn’t be mysterious about it. She wasn’t.

“Flanders,” she replied, and with that, she dropped off to sleep and immediately began snoring.