Seeing is Becoming: Garage Door (Part I)

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Vearden Haywood was getting ready to leave his house in Oklahoma. Four thousand miles away, Saga Einarsson was trekking through the rainforests of the Amazon. They had not seen each other since college. Saga didn’t even have a social media presence, so Vearden had no idea that she was a traveling photographer. While he was brushing his teeth and making sure that his cell phone was charged all the way, Saga felt a tremor. She looked around for shelter, but found nothing. It ended quickly, and she looked ahead again. Things had changed. Her environment looked remarkably different. She was still in the rainforest, but the arrangement of trees and flowers had been altered. Did she lose time? There was a roar behind her, and she began to run.

Vearden looked at himself in the mirror with the feeling of apathy and a bit of nausea. He didn’t want to go. He stood there, staring into space, for a few moments before sitting down on the couch and flipping on his TV. He had recently cleared out his recordings so there was nothing to watch but the late morning trash. He eventually just fell asleep from the depression.

His phone woke him up hours later. He grabbed it and answered, “yeah?—Yeah, I know.—I could lie and say that I thought it was tomorrow, but I just wasn’t in the mood.—Probably won’t be in the mood tomorrow, no.—You would not do that.—Okay, fine. I’ll be there, I promise...in two days.—All right, tomorrow morning. First thing.” He growled and let his phone fall back to the nightstand. It was only then that he realized he was in his bed instead of the couch. How did he get there?

The next day, Vearden completed his routine and made it out to the garage. He breathed in deeply but held most of it in; letting air out little by little. He haphazardly slapped the door opener several times before finally getting lucky. As he began to walk around the back to the driver’s side door, he saw the outside. It was not his driveway. It was some kind of wooded area. He looked behind him through the glass on the door to the backyard. That all looked normal, but in front of him was a different place entirely.

He cautiously dipped his feet across the border. It didn’t feel any different; as if that was just how it was supposed to be. He slowly made progress until he was fully past the line. He looked back. His house was nowhere to be seen, except for the frame of the garage. He dropped his bag to the ground and began to explore the immediate area. He was able to touch the leaves and feel the breeze on his face. So, it wasn’t just a visual hallucination. It was most likely a dream. He didn’t technically remember waking up, but that was old news. His brain made a point of erasing the memories of monotony.

While he was watching a flying insect that resembled a bee, he started to hear screaming. He looked up and saw a woman racing towards him. She stopped for a half second when she saw him up ahead. “Don’t let the door close!”

“What?”

“Make sure the door stays open!” she called up to him.

Then he saw what she was running from. A large creature was chasing her. It was nearly three meters tall, muscular, and angry. Just as Vearden was looking for a sturdy stick to use as a weapon, the creature caught up with the woman.  It was only then that he realized she was his old college roommate. Maybe this was all real. Maybe they had fallen into another dimension. Maybe this was happening all over the world. Saga fought back hard, managing to keep the creature at bay. Vearden ran up and joined in. Together, they were able to knock the creature to its back. “Get to my house. Go all the way into the kitchen.”

“If your door closes, we’ll be trapped here forever.”

There was a howl in the distance. The creature on the ground howled back to it. They were clearly intelligent enough to communicate with each other. “Then you better get going,” Vearden told her.

While Saga was running for the door, they could hear it begin to close on its own. Whatever had brought them there wanted them to stay. Vearden collided with the creature. It fought using strategy and patience. Even though it didn’t seem to say anything, it was thinking through its actions. Creature wasn’t a very good name for it, but that was all he had. It even carried a sheathed sword. He continued to punch and kick at it. He had never received any formal combat training, so it was just his instinct to keep as much distance as possible between them.

He got a few opportunities to look over to his house. He could see Saga straining to hold the garage door open. There was a sensor that kept it from hitting you in the head, but that was being overridden. “Just get inside!” he yelled to her.

“I can’t do that!”

“Either we both die, or just me! Please!”

As he continued to lose his fight with the creature, she continued to lose her fight with the door. He could only see her legs, and then just her feet. And then the door was all the way down. He could still see her through the little windows, pounding and screaming, trying to get the door back open. But it was slowly fading away. It would soon be gone, and he would be trapped. But at least she was safe.

The creature’s friend appeared through the trees, causing him to take his eyes off of the first one for a moment. It took its chance to stab him in the stomach.

“No!” Saga cried from inside the garage, her voice growing fainter as she held the word.

Knowing that his wound was fatal anyway, he decided to cause as much damage as he could muster. He shoved the sword deeper in so that it came out of his back. He twisted around and slit the creature’s stomach open. Then he jumped backwards and crashed into the second creature, stabbing it so they were both on a skewer. He fell to the ground on top of it. The first one was approaching him, his wound closing up quickly. Apparently they had a healing factor. That’s perfect. Vearden struggled to the pull the sword out of the other creature’s stomach, and out of his own. He released it just in time to trip the first creature and let it fall on the sword. He was in a creature sandwich, their blood mixing together throughout their three wounds.

He gathered all the strength he had left and rolled it off of his body. They were already starting to heal again. He swung the sword behind him like a baseball bat, and cut off their heads, hoping that they would not be able to survive that level of trauma.

Saga ran up just in time to watch Vearden’s wound close up, leaving not so much as a scar. “You heal like they do,” she said

“You were supposed to be inside.”

“I was inside. When it disappeared, it left me behind. Someone wants us here.”

“Where are we?”

“Another planet.”

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Microstory 65: Gravity Transfunctioners

I’ve received a lot of messages over the years, desperately asking me how ships are able to fly. There has been some confusion as to how a vessel could be capable of lifting itself from surfaces without any obvious means of propulsion. People tend to expect to see some kind of jet stream, or arcing electricity, or even explosions. Ships are also relatively quiet, which seems to be pretty unsettling to those who do not understand it. They’re used to loud shuttles being forced into the sky, with pieces falling off as fuel is expended. I’ve been looking through the specifications, manuals, and textbooks that I have attained from various intergalactic organizations in order to help me tell my so-called “fictional” stories. They’re pretty long-winded and overly complex about the science behind antigravity and spaceflight. But then I came across this cute little blurb that a rocket surgeon came up with to explain to his young daughter why he no longer had a job. The following explanation of gravity transfunctioners is several thousand years old: When unobtanium is injected into the turboencabulator, it reverses the polarity of the phlebotinum core which creates a quantum tunnel through which the sonic hand can wave the gravitons in the same direction that the user wants an object to move.

Microstory 64: The Package

My parents are on vacation in Hawaii, so I’ve been going to their house every few days to grab the mail and water some plants. When I get there today, I see a package. The label has their address, but it lists two names that I do not recognize. I send a text message to my mother, and she tells me that one of the people listed lives to the West of them, while the other lives to the East. She must be busy, because I don’t get a response when I ask which house I should take it to. It seems strange to me that two people who live in separate houses would both receive a single package. Perhaps the sender realized this and decided to split the difference by sending it to the house in between them. I flip a proverbial coin and walk over to place the package at the West house. When I get back to my parents’ I see the package has returned. And it must be the same package. I don’t have an eidetic memory, or anything, but the creases on the cardboard and the marks on the corners are the same as I remember them. If it’s just a duplicate, it’s a very good one. I take it back over to the West house, but the same thing happens again. I decide that the package magically knows where it’s supposed to be, and will default to the beginning until it’s put in the right place, so I take it over to the East house. Yet again, I find that it has defaulted to my parents’ porch. Before I can think of a third option, I hear ticking. On instinct, I run towards the street, but it isn’t far enough. The package explodes and sends me colliding into my car. When I wake up hours later at the hospital, the police inform me that the explosion stretched across all three houses, killing all those inside.

Microstory 63: Martian Law 101

According to Martian Law, it is illegal to recruit a civilian for investigations (e.g. wearing a wire near criminals to obtain a confession). This would place undue risk on the civilian. Whether they have committed crimes of their own is irrelevant. They are never responsible for the enforcement of the law. Martian Law allows for emergency civilian deputizing when manpower is low. They are allowed to pursue and arrest, but still not investigate, and their arrests are subject to much more scrutiny than a trained officer’s arrests would be. There is no such thing as fruits of the poisonous tree. If an officer finds incriminating evidence, they’re fine. If they pursue evidence, but find none, they’re in trouble, so they better be pretty darn sure there’s something to find. Martian law enforcement holds jurisdiction over any culture in the biverse that forms anytime after Mars, the exception being Earth. The reason Earth is protected by Martian Law, but not subject to it, dates back to a policy formed billions of years ago that no one remembers. The idea that Earth must be protected, but free from interference, is so old and inherent that no one knows when or how this cosmological rule went into effect. There are only two cultures that resist the Martians, and the rest of the universe is in a constant state of war with them. For the most part, however, The Exiles just want to be left alone. The Thuriamen, on the other hand, believe their own laws to be superior. Rather, they do not care whether they’re superior or not; they are seeking control either way.

The tree from which poisonous fruit falls.

Microstory 62: Kerguelen

The Kerguelen Islands are an island chain located in the southern Indian Ocean. They are considered to be one of the most isolated places in the world. Despite sometimes being referred to as “Desolation Islands” there is no lack of plants and animals. One such of these animals has managed to remain outside of catalogs and most other records. The Great Kerguelen Coleobeast is a majestic creature, twice as massive as an elephant, that resembles an anglerfish that has formed hind legs in the back and these sort of fin things in the front. There is only one Coleobeast in the world. It is functionally immortal, capable of a process called transdifferentiation, much like a certain type of jellyfish. If the Coleobeast feels threatened, or becomes sick, it will revert itself to the pupal stage of development. The most interesting aspect of this animal is its mucus, which contains natural antibacterial properties. The animal was discovered in 1772, but went into hiding shortly thereafter. It wasn’t until the mid-20th century that its mucus was extracted and repurposed as your average, everyday hand sanitizer.

New Headshots!

I got new headshots a couple weeks back. These are as opposed to the old headshots which were nonexistent. Click on each one of the following and it will take you to its respective social media account of mine:

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Microstory 61: Grace

In the universe of my canonical stories, most people identify as bisexual. The number of true monosexuals is to a very low extreme. And I say true monosexuals, because there is a not insignificant number of people belonging to a religious order called the Amadesins who all claim that sexuality is a choice, and that they all choose to be heterosexual. Amadesis is an amalgamation of Mormonism and Scientology, but also exhibits the absolute worst aspects of any and all other religions. The rest of society recognizes the difference between love, sex, and procreation. They understand that you can have one without the other two. With modern technology, even procreation is now possible without sex. Back in the day, homosexual relationships were slightly discouraged, but only to foster the increase in population. This led to a few still-standing traditions, along with the misguided Amadesin movement. In an opposite-sex relationship, the resulting child will usually inherit the surname of the father. This is because of earlier theories that children received more than half of their DNA from their mothers. The father being able to pass down his name was symbolic way of balancing out the contribution, and the practice remains to day for simplicity, and to have some kind of standard. Similarly, in the case of same-sex relationships, one caregiving parent will also be a genetic parent, while the other caregiver is not. The child will usually use the name of the non-genetic parent.

Because of the prevalence of bisexuality, the words boyfriend and girlfriend do not exist. Besides sounding juvenile and unsophisticated, it would never occur to society to use such gender-specific terms. Instead, they use gracer and gracie. These are technically opposites of each other, but are used interchangeably, and respectively mean “one who favors” and “one who is favored”. It’s possible to refer to someone who either favors you, or you favor, but with unreciprocated feelings (i.e. crushes). Clarifying language will be used for these situations. There is another reason for using these terms instead of limiting words like partner, companion, or significant other. They perceive romantic relationships to reside on the same spectrum as friendships; only to a higher degree. Even though emphasis was placed on population sustainability millennia ago, pairings solely for the purpose of propagating the species were never part of common practice. A marriage of two people who were not friends would have always been seen as strange. Arranged marriages did exist in some cultures, specifically Amadesis, but it was pretty taboo.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 30, 2023

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Amidst the blaring of the oncoming train, he could hear someone in the distance screaming, “Leona! Get off!”

Mateo turned to find Leona Delaney racing towards him. “We have to go!” she cried. She took him by the shoulders.

“I can’t move!”

“We have to jump off!”

Leona reached out, trying to get them to the edge of the bridge, but he tripped. His left leg refused to hold him up. The train was a few meters away, and he only had to crawl a few feet to clear it, but it was just too much for his body. He wanted Leona to get away without him, but even convincing her of that would take too long. Just before the train overcame them, he felt a third hand on his back.

Mateo fell to his back. The train was gone. The bridge was gone. The sky was gone. He was in a lecture hall of some kind. Between him and Leona was Aunt Daria.

“Oh my God,” Mateo said, grasping his leg; the full force of the pain attacking him now that the adrenaline had gone down. “Daria? How did you find me?”

“I didn’t,” Daria replied. “I call that a slingshot. When I feel like someone is choking me, along with the dry mouth, I know that I’m only going to be at my next destination for a few seconds. That’s usually how long I have to save someone’s life. The powers that be put me on those missions occasionally. The people I save always end up being senators or rock musicians. I’ve never been there for a family member. You must be pretty important to them.”

“Who are these people?”

“Couldn’t tell you. But they must exist. It can’t be random. The law of probability doesn’t allow it.”

Leona let him lean on her and started leading them out of the room. “We need to get you to a hospital. Foothills is under ten minutes away.”

“How do you know that? Where are we?”

“We’re in the Duane Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder. This is where I go to school. Which you would know if you hadn’t abandoned us.”

“How did you find me?” Mateo asked after managing to get into the backseat of her car.

Leona pushed a button and started the car. “Boulder Medical Center. Foothills,” she instructed the navigation system. “Emergency Entrance.” The car backed out and started to drive on its own. “Cybil, call Carol.”

There was a beep from the car, whose name was apparently Cybil. “Calling Carol,” it—rather, she said.

Mateo’s mother’s voice came from the speakers, “Leona, what happened?”

“We’re fine. Daria pulled us out just in time. He’s broken his leg, so we’re headed to Foothills Hospital.”

“We’ll meet you there.”

“Who’s we?” Mateo asked after the call ended.

“My boss was there during your last jump, so he knew exactly where you would be,” Leona answered while she inspected his leg.

“Your boss?”

“Professor Andrews. He actually saw you disappear, along with several other people in the car. They were pretty freaked out about it. Some people were worried about terrorism, but you fortunately never gave your identification, so there was no real proof that you were still on the train during that leg of the trip...pardon the pun.”

“And you just happened to start grad school at the same college as the guy I talked to on the train to Utah?”

“Duke snatched your bag secretly, and tracked us down. It’s been a year, remember? We got to know each other, and he put in a recommendation for me. I’m one of his teaching assistants. In the meantime, we discuss what’s happening with you.”

“What have you figured out?”

“Just about jack shit.”

“Language!”

“I’m not fifteen years old anymore. Anyway, back to the subject, we did design a special machine that should give us some data that you couldn’t have gotten from a regular ol’ hospital back in Topeka. Our main concern is determining what happens to the space around you when you disappear, and what happens to the space when you come back. Our current observations don’t make a whole lot of sense. I’ve seen first hand that Daria can take people with her, but you can’t. What exactly is the difference between hugging another person, and holding onto a bag, or even your clothes?”

“Well, my father was alive at the time. So that was a difference.”

“Physics doesn’t care whether you’re a living organism or not. It’s all just a matter of matter.” She leaned over and gave him a passionate but rather conservative kiss. “But I care.” Then she slapped him. “Don’t you ever run away from me again. Do you hear me?”

“My God, you’ve really grown up.”

“You’ve been dealing with this for less than two weeks while the rest of us are living in real time. Your entire life is consumed by this. But for me, it’s Tuesday.”

“It’s Thursday,” Daria piped in.

“Never mind. We’re here.”

A couple hours later, Mateo watched in amazement as a 3D printer formed a cast designed to fit his leg perfectly. It looked like nothing he had seen before. It wasn’t completely closed, but a web of plastic connections, almost like fishnet stockings. If Spiderman ever got hurt, this was the cast he would wear. Once it was finished, he put his pants on over it, and you couldn’t even tell that it was there. The nurse tried to give him medication for the pain, but Professor Duke Andrews walked in just in time to stop her. “Sorry, Mateo,” he said. “But the cast is bad enough. I can’t have these drugs interfering with our experiment.”

“Sir, I do not know who you are, but this is a medical decision...” Duke pulled her aside to talk her out of causing problems. Carol came over and gave him a hug.

“Are you going to slap me too?” he asked of her.

Carol turned to Leona. “Did you slap my son?”

“I admit to nothing.”

Daria stood up and took charge. “My nephew needs to get some sleep. I suggest we go back to wherever it is you people live so that he can rest.”

“I need to run some tests before he disappears,” Duke complained.

“And you will get your chance. You have over twenty hours left. But for now, let’s go. Someone needs to deal with the discharge papers.” She physically ushered them out of the room so that only she and Mateo remained.

“I think I would have liked you as an aunt. Whatever the motives of these people, the...powers that be, they better be worth me losing three of my parents and you.”

“That brings me to the second reason I’m back.” She took something out of her pocket and handed it to him. It looked not unlike a flash drive, but it definitely wasn’t that.

“Computers use these nowadays?”

She coughed. “The way I understand it, the technology required to access this device won’t exist for another couple centuries, or was it millennia?”

“I thought you weren’t a time traveler.”

She smiled lovingly and took a drink of water from his cup. “I’m not. But I’ve met some people since you’ve been gone.”

“Daria,” he started to say.

“I don’t know you. But I love you.” With that, she disappeared.

Mateo went back to his mother’s new Colorado house and slept the rest of the day away in a bed designated for him. They woke him up that night and drove him back to the university. Duke took blood samples, saliva samples, and other samples. As midnight approached, they had him lie in a machine that looked like the glass coffin from Snow White.

“The machine is going to run nonstop for the entire year,” Duke explained to him. I imagine the data during that time will provide us with zero insight, but we’re doing it anyway. We’ll see you later.”

Both his mom and Leona told him that they loved him. Then midnight.

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