by Stingray Hopper
Em’s eyes darted from side to side, capturing the details of the room she was in. The walls were Santorini-white, including the floor, giving her the feeling of either being in an asylum or on a cloud. She was sitting in a generic blue chair with wooden armrests, characteristic of the seats provided to customers in a bank. In front of her was a black card table with paper airplanes and small black drones sitting atop it. One drone rose from the table and floated listlessly in the air. Em watched it, wondering without care why she was here in this room and what significance the drones had. Did she make them? Em turned her head to her left. Her best friend, Dan, was sitting beside her.
He’s here, she thought warmly. His right arm was lifted with his hand extended toward the drone. Dan flicked his wrist, and the drone flew higher. With another flick, it darted to the right. Em wasn’t surprised at the sight of her friend, but was more so confused by his ability to play with the drone. Did the drones have an infrared sensor? Did that mean Dan was emitting heat? If so, how fascinating. She stared at Dan and smiled, unsure if she should speak. Would her voice break the illusion, or even worse, wake her up? Because she didn’t know, Em played it safe and remained silent. It had been six months since Dan’s death and every waking moment since then Em prayed that, come nightfall, Dan would find her in her dreams.
Em opened her mouth to finally say something, but where would she begin? She shut her eyes to think, however, when she opened her eyes back up she was inside the construct of time itself.
“Wait, I know where I am,” Em said to herself incredulously as she stood in the familiar darkness, allowing her senses to calibrate to simultaneously being in the past, present and future.
“I’d like to see Dan’s timeline,” she spoke into the blackness. A bold, neon green line belonging to Dan with thin, transistor-like grid lines enveloped her. Em studied the timeline - dense and pulsing with encounters from all his lives - hoping she’d locate the version of Dan she was sitting next to just a moment ago. Em passed locked files of Dan as an Asian child, an indigenous old woman with wrinkled skin and a general in the federation colonizing exoplanets. Eventually, Em found her Dan. There was a recording of a kindergarten-aged Dan pushing a young version of herself on a swing on their first day of elementary school. She also saw him as a teenager at one of his varsity basketball games getting into a fight with another player after a flagrant foul was called. Em stopped in front of a scene of him, still a teenager, peering down at her from his bedroom window as she exited a car from one of her first dates.
“Always the protector,” she murmured. Once the young Em made it safely inside her home, Dan walked over to the wall opposite his bed. There, a picture of her was taped up. Dan kissed the photo, then turned off his light.
“I love you, too,” Em whispered. There were other scenes of herself and Dan playing out on the timeline like a movie montage. Em touched a visual of them sitting close together on her apartment stoop. Her touch caused his thoughts to play aloud.
“I think I’ll love you forever,” Dan thought as he pretended to listen to Em talk about some nothingness or other. “I just need to figure out how to make you love me back. Then I can tell you how much I hate your new hairstyle,” his thoughts continued. “If I kissed you right now, would you hit me?”
Despite Em’s better judgment, she tapped on another visual. It was she and Dan lying in bed together during the intimate relationship they had right after college. They’d just finished moving Dan into their first apartment and the feelings of sheer exhaustion and love Em felt on that day, so many years ago, flooded her now as she stood there inside time, watching their life replay against the black projector.
“What were your thoughts?” Em asked the visual, then touched it to hear the audio.
“How do I tell you she’s pregnant?” Dan thought as he stared at a sleeping Em. “I shouldn’t have cheated. I wish to God I hadn’t cheated. You’re going to leave me. I’ll go crazy if I lose you. I hate you sometimes. I love you so much more than you love me, and I accept that, but I fucked up, so you’ll never fully accept me.” Dan’s thoughts raced as he wiped a tear from his face, then kissed Em lightly on her lips. She leaned into his affection and embraced him.
Em felt her emotions bubble and glanced away from the scene that would soon turn into his confession and their breakup.
“I’m sure I’m not here to be angry. Stay focused,” she told herself. Em attempted to view timeline instances of this Dan without herself in them, but they were encrypted with security protections, preventing her from viewing the files. How much did Dan remember? Did he know he was dead? Did he know her?
Em closed her eyes again, and when she opened them, she was back in the nondescript blue chair. The infrasound from the whirring drone flying around the room soothed her spirit. She was calm as she turned toward her best friend.
“Hi, Dan.”
“Hey, Em,” Dan responded. He knows my name, she thought encouragingly. He recognizes me. Em felt a gentle wave of excitement in her gut. He sounded exactly like himself.
“You look good,” Em said, not sure where to take the conversation. She wondered how long she had until she woke up.
“Thanks,” Dan replied. “I feel…. I don’t know, I feel kind of…. I’m getting used to everything. My eyes are seeing everything. And I feel everything. It’s like information overload. I…”
“Dan, do you want me to tell you how you died?” Em interrupted. As soon as the words escaped her lips, she regretted her bluntness. “Em, you don’t even know where he is on his timeline,” she silently reminded herself.
“Sorry, Dan,” Em apologized. “I shouldn’t have said that. Um, do you know who Chris and Nia are?” She asked. Dan nodded.
“They’re my kids,” he replied.
“Yes. Do you know how you got here? To this place?”
“Yeah, but it’s crazy because I feel like I never left here. It’s hard to describe, but I feel like I’m finally back home.” Dan stared at a paper airplane on the table and lifted it into the air with his gaze. As his eyes shifted from left to right, so did the gliding of the plane.
“Do you know how you got here?” Dan asked Em. She was taken aback. Em stared at Dan, and in that moment she entered hyperconsciousness. Em and Dan were no longer sitting in chairs in the Santorini-white room and the drones were gone. Dan was standing right in front of her, grinning and beautiful.
“Oh, my God!” Em exhaled. Dan looked radiant against the blackness they were now surrounded by.
“I love you, Dan,” Em blurted, afraid he’d fade into the blackness. “Know that I love you and I always have. I didn’t tell you enough when you were alive, but you were my best friend and the only person who ever really understood me. I’ve been praying from the day I learned you passed away that you’d find me in my dreams and I could tell you, and you did. You found me. My God, you were able to get me here.” Em paused, expecting Dan to disappear, but when he remained in front of her, she giggled at the surreal euphoria of it all.
“Can I hug you?” Em asked, tentatively holding out her arms toward Dan. “Will I be able to feel you or will you evaporate back into my imagination… ?”
Find out Dan’s answer and more in the upcoming “Iridescence” anthology.
Stingray Hopper is a sci-fi writer and tech enthusiast residing in Los Angeles, CA. She is a production manager who writes Science Fiction and Literary Fiction. Her hobbies include reading, writing, playing tennis and hiking. Stingray is also interested in robotics, quantum physics, and chemistry.
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