The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 26, 2019

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Mateo gently removed his face from Leona’s. She gave him her best evil smile. Then she turned around and grabbed an infant from Carol’s arms. “Mateo Matic, say hello to your son, Theo.”

“What!?”

“I’m kidding,” she laughed. “He’s my baby brother. Half-brother.”

Carol pursed her lips. “Wasn’t funny when you told us you were going to do that joke, and it isn’t funny now that you’ve actually done it.”

Leona handed Theo to Mateo. “Funny from this side. How was your trip, honey?”

“Instant,” Mateo replied. “Theo does sound like he’s named after me.” He lifted the baby’s hand with his finger and shook it politely. “Little odd.”

She took Theo back. “It’s a family name. Er...well, not really. But my dad says he was incapable of naming him anything else; like it was already his name, and we were just discovering that fact.”

Everyone went to bed. Leona’s father and stepmother were on a vacation, so Carol and Randall were taking care of little Theo. He was technically Leona’s responsibility but she, of course, had classes to worry about. They were more than willing to pick up the slack, having felt a deficit since the onset of Mateo’s condition. Frida’s father passed not long after Mateo’s last departure. He lived long enough to see Frida’s engagement to her now-husband, but not long enough to be there for the wedding. Kyle was better than ever, and had all but moved on with his life. He was back to being a lawyer, and was rumored to be a far more genuine one than before.

Upon waking, Mateo snuck out of the house again. He needed some alone time. It was selfish of him, but he had just spent the last several days dealing with all this. It was true that he would be completely alone in only a few weeks when everyone would be dead, but he couldn’t help it. He and his friends liked to hang out at the large cemetery on the edge of town, but there was a smaller one in the middle of nowhere that only he knew of. That was his secret hiding place. There, he could find some of the oldest graves he had ever seen. There were those who had died in the early 19th century. It was peaceful and calm, and not just metaphorically. It was literally calm. Something about the formation of the trees, or maybe by divine choice, made the air milder than just outside of its borders. When it was cold outside, the secret cemetery would be warmer, and during the summer heat, it would be cooler.

He leaned up against a headstone and began to pray with his birth mother’s rosary. “Sorry to disturb you,” came a voice from the side. He opened his eyes and saw a middle-aged woman dressed in two coats. It was much too warm for that. She took the first one off and stuffed it in a bag. “Could you tell me where I am?” She removed a bottle of water from her bag and took a long drink from it.

“I don’t think there’s a name for this graveyard,” Mateo answered.

“No, I mean...I mean the city,” she clarified.

That was an odd question, but she was dressed in more layers than necessary. She must have been a nomad. “We’re a few miles Southwest of Sherwood Lake. In Topeka, Kansas.”

“Oh, wow,” she said. “That’s not far from home.”

“Where do you live?”

“Kansas City. I don’t suppose you were driving that way.”

“I wasn’t.” She was deeply saddened, clearly having been far from home for a long time. He had selfishly left his family at home and come to cemetery to pray. This was a sign. It was a very Catholic sign. She needed help, and he was the only one around. The chances that she would be here at this special place during the one day of the year that he was in the timestream were too low. She needed to get to Kansas City, so he was going to take her there. “But I am now.”

They stepped into the truck and headed out. She introduced herself as Daria. When he introduced himself with his full name, she laughed. “Are you joking?”

“No, why?”

“That’s my name too,” she claimed. “I’m Daria Matic.”

“Ah, well. It’s my birth father’s name. I never met him.”

She sat in silence for a good long while. At a glance, it looked like she was working something out in her head. “His first name wouldn’t happen to be Mario, would it?”

He freaked out, and his first instinct was to stop the car. But he remained calm, and kept driving. There were very few things that Mateo knew about his father. One was his first name, one was his last name, and the other was that he hated pickles. That’s all his birth mother had ever said. In fact, the third one had slipped out in the middle of dinner once, and she treated it like a matter of national security; like she had just committed treason. He tried looking for him, only for intellectual reasons, but he could find no trail. Mario Matic was a ghost. “Oh, my God. Are we related?”

“Looks like it. Are you a traveler?” she asked. She emphasized the word in a way that made it seem like she wasn’t just talking about a person who goes to other places. Traveler was a category. It was a species.

This time, he did stop the car. “On my 28th birthday, I traveled forward in time exactly one year. I get one day every year, and then I’m forced to move on. My girlfriend...I mean, my friend calls it a timeslip.”

“Oh, interesting,” Daria said thoughtfully.

“Do you do that too?” he asked, not sure what answer he was looking for.

“I’ve never heard of any time travel. I’m a teleporter. Like you, I can’t control it. But there doesn’t appear to be a pattern. When I start having dry mouth, I have a few minutes to gather my things, and then I’m gone.”

“I don’t get dry mouth. I get really tired before it happens, but it’s always at midnight anyway, so I don’t know if that’s part of it.”

“Yeah, I call that my indicator. Speaking of which, I’m really thirsty.”

“Well, we can stop somewhere. Oh...” He realized what she meant. She was about to leave again. “We’re not done with our conversation!”

She rummaged through her bag to make sure she had everything she needed. “I am certain that we will see each other again. These journeys are controlled by someone, and they know we didn’t have enough time. That was surely done on purpose. But I have to get out of here. If someone is too close to me, I risk bringing them along. It’s not uncommon for me to end up in Antarctica.” She tried to open the door.

“Oh, it gets stuck,” he apologized. “You have to—just...here.” He leaned over to get it for her.

“No!” she screamed, but it was too late. They disappeared.

They were still in a sitting position when they teleported out, so they fell to the concrete upon arrival. “Had a little too much to drink?” a stranger asked jokingly as he passed by with his friends. Mateo got to his feet and looked up to where he could see the Eiffel Tower. “Heavenly father, we’re in Paris,” he exclaimed.

“No,” Daria said. She moved his head over so that he could see the Arc de Triomphe. Those two landmarks were not that close together. And they weren’t that small. No, they weren’t in Paris. They were Vegas. Either way, he wouldn’t get back to his family for another year, at least.

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Siftens Landing Part IV

Click here for the first installment of this series.

Click here for the second installment of this series.
Click here for the third installment of this series.

Allison Siften’s younger brother, Junior would turn out to be the cause of the explosion. While all six of the parents went out to search for Moe, he and Libby Lander were asked to keep the two youngest children from the new family company. They had a lot in common with Sandra and Johnny Kapka. They liked playing video games, they hated conformists, and they couldn’t care less that their families were in this weird unspoken feud. While Libby and Johnny played against each other in a racing game, Sandra watched with an air of superiority, and Junior sat restlessly. He wanted to do something interesting. He wanted to do something fun. He wanted to do something dangerous. “I have some firecrackers,” he announced.

The other three stood up from the couch immediately. “Let’s go!” Johnny said excitedly.

They spent the rest of the day shooting off fireworks clear on the other side of the forest, so they wouldn’t get caught. They had found another thing in common; a love for destruction. They were quickly unsatisfied with the firecrackers themselves, and started rigging them to blow up other things. A computer monitor here, a bottle of cola there. They tried to use a pile of dead grass as shrapnel, but it wasn’t as glorious as they had hoped. Once they had depleted their supplies, Junior said, “We could always get the Ferocity Sunstrikers.”

“What are Ferocity Sunstrikers?” Sandra asked.
“They’re the biggest firecrackers ever created by human man,” Libby explained. “And they aren’t his. They belong to my dad.”“They’re basically legal bombs,” Junior continued. They went back down to the houses to retrieve the legendary fireworks from the Landers’ garage. The box got caught on some rope that someone had put in front of it. Junior tugged and pulled, trying to get it out. He was always so impatient and thoughtless. After one last try, he fell to his back. The box opened, spilling the Ferocity Sunstrikers. One of them started rolling down the garage and out to the driveway. They tried to catch it, but it was too fast. Junior had no idea how, but the Sunstriker activated and shot across the lawn. They watched as it flew right into his own garage, and exploded, sending a massive plume of fire up through the house, and out of the roof. Click here for the final installment...

Microstory 40: Take a Hike

Yesterday, I was in the middle of my four-hour walk when a girl suddenly came down a hill and sidled up next to me to ask what I was doing. Not really something you do in a civilized society. People tend to leave me alone during my hikes. When I told her what I was doing, she asked if she could walk with me. I reluctantly agreed, ya know, in case she too had a knife. I politely answered her questions, and asked her a few of my own; which is against my nature. It felt less like a conversation, and more like an interview. Nearly a half hour later, I tried to turn to the left, but she stopped me and asked where I was going. I was heading toward an industrial area, and she was clearly perturbed by it. But that was my plan. I’ll go out for an hour, maybe two, with no idea where I’m going. But I map out my longer hikes since I may have to make sure I get to a road that safely goes under a highway, or over a stream. And we were past the point of no return. If I took any other route, it would be too long before I reached home. She said that there weren’t any restaurants in that area, and she was hoping we would grab a bite to eat. I cautiously asked her if she was homeless. She nodded and hung her head. “If you needed money, you could have just asked. You didn’t have to walk all this way with me.”

“I was hoping to pretend like it was a date, and you would pay for a meal anyway,” she answered. I considered my options for a few moments. I explained to her that she would be risking coming home with me, but that I would be risking letting her into my house, and that I could either give her twenty bucks and walk away, or we could risk it together. She hesitantly agreed. I woke up today half-expecting my television and computer to be gone, but everything was fine, so I guess I just have a roommate now.

Microstory 39: Keyless Entry

Last night, while I was taking a bag of bad ham from the freezer and putting it in a trash bag, I saw something dripping from it. It was probably just water, but I wanted to be cautious. After I was finished with rolling the trash to the curb, I wiped the kitchen floor with disinfectant, cutting myself off from the sink. I didn’t want to use the bathroom sink because I needed to wash my arms too. Instead of just waiting, though, I decided to hop over the place where I had cleaned. I apparently underestimated the range of my reach. My socks slipped on the disinfectant and I fell to my back, scraping my feet against the edge of cabinet under the sink. I quickly jumped back up and washed my hands. That was more important than dealing with the pain. I could have broken my leg, I still think I would have washed up first. Once I was done, I looked down and saw a little baggie on the floor. I must have knocked it from its hiding place under the cabinet. Inside was a small object that looked like a vehicle’s keyless entry device. I pushed the the button and heard a chirp from the basement. I pushed it again. Another chirp. Was there an invisible car in my basement? I put on pants, grabbed my wooden training sword, and carefully walked downstairs. The chirps were coming from the far wall. I hovered the device a few inches from the wall and pressed the button once more. The wall receded and disappeared into a pocket, revealing a room filled with jars of food and MRE’s. A disheveled and dirty man was in the corner, eating some rice. “Is Cthulhu defeated?” he asked.

Microstory 38: The Sock

“When I was eight years old, I lost a sock in the dryer. It had a green, then blue, then another green stripe at the top. The sole was red, and the base of it had a print of soccer balls. I loved all of my socks, and had one pair for every major sport. My older brother told me that dryers operate at a particular frequency; one that opens up wormholes to other dimensions, and that socks are just the right size to slip through on occasion. He wasn’t being mean. He used a fictional story to validate my overdramatic reaction to something so innocuous. Since then, I’ve been through a few dryers, and lived in several places. When I moved here to Japan, I brought with me very few of my possessions. Somehow, though, when I was doing laundry a few months ago, I found my soccer sock in the dryer. I blinked and shook my head, trying to rationalize it. It probably wasn’t the same sock. It couldn’t be. But it is. It’s the exact design that I remember. There’s even a small hole on a part of the sole that doesn’t usually tear. It’s the same sock, I’m telling you. How did it get here? Had my brother been right? Did dryers open up wormholes? That’s ridiculous, of course. But I’ve always been open to believing in miracles, and I’m not sure that this one doesn’t apply. I wasn’t in a great place when it showed up, and maybe that’s why it came back.”

“That’s an interesting story. But you should probably consider removing your framed sock from the wall for the next party your host.”

“Fair point.”

Microstory 37: Life Hacks

Draw eyeballs on your eyelids. That way, while you’re sleeping at work, your boss will think you’re an idiot and fire you. This is for when you’re trying to get fired. | I used to work at the DMV. Wait, that’s not a life hack. That’s just a fact. No, wait, I mean it’s a lie. | There are over seven billion people in the world, and you only need to kill one of them to be a murderer. This is in case you don’t know the rules for murder. | The next sentence is true. The previous sentence is true. Hold on, I think I did that wrong. | Cows can climb upstairs, but they can’t climb downstairs. So, if you want a bunch of cows in your basement, you’re going to half to build it above ground. | Every once in a while, tell your mirror that you know they’re watching you. If there’s no one there, no big deal. If someone is there, it’s a pretty big deal. You should move. | Lift with your back. | Sleep in a headstand. | There’s a preschool in New York that’s designed for adults. You get to fingerpaint, have naptime, and do show-and-tell. That’s not the life hack. The life hack is don’t go there, you creeper. | You can remove permanent marker from a whiteboard by drawing over it with a dry-erase marker first, and then erasing all of it. Okay, that one wasn’t a joke; it really works. I discovered this on my own when I was, like, 8.

Microstory 36: Questions or Comments

Late at night many years ago I was soaking in a bath when I noticed the label on the shampoo bottle. It had a phone number listed near the bottom for questions or comments. So I called the number. A young man named Sean answered the phone, evidently surprised to be getting a call. I got the impression that he had other things to do, and the phone usually just sat there...in case. I proceeded to tell him this fabricated story about being raised by wolves, and never having used shampoo before. I was excited to find that he knew that I was referencing a bit from stand-up comedian who was noting the irony in shampoo directions. We carried on a conversation for hours, segueing across multiple topics. We eventually discovered that we both had this unusual passion for research. We hated school, but we liked exploring and learning new things. He sounded relieved to be getting a break from the monotony of his job. Then things took a turn for him. His supervisor, who had started listening in on the call at some point, jumped in and asked me if there was anything else I needed help with. It was clear that if I wanted to talk about anything other than shampoo, I would have to look elsewhere. We hung up. The next morning, Sean called me from his home phone and admitted that he had memorized my phone number from the customer service management screen before being fired. We kept talking, and ultimately decided to go into business together. And today, we run one of the largest Question and Answer boards on the internet.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 25, 2018

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Mateo fell asleep again after catching up with his parents. A lot had happened over the course of the year. They continued to make up stories about his adventures overseas. He had reportedly spent the bulk of his time in Africa, but had recently begun work in Central Asia. Kyle was released from the facility, but still received some care, and was not at 100%. Frida started a relationship with a man she met at Veterans Affairs. He was particularly helpful with providing her father with the medications and services that he needed. They didn’t think he would live to see Christmas, though.

In the morning, Mateo sent Frida a text message, asking for Leona’s address. He snuck out of the house to speak to her. His parents wanted to figure out what they were going to do about it together. She had been unrealistically receptive to their lies that he hadn’t really disappeared; that she had been dreaming, or even hallucinating. He didn’t know her at all, but something told him that she was faking her acceptance. He just didn’t know what she was planning to do with such information. She lived in the dorms of a college that was only about an hour away, having graduated from high school a semester early. His car had been repossessed by the bank during his first disappearance, so he stole his father’s truck and drove off.

“I’ve been expecting you,” she said after opening the door. “My roommate is in class. We have plenty of time to talk.”

“What do you think you know?”

“I may be bad at math, but I can do simple arithmetic,” she explained. “You disappeared one day, and were reported back a year later. Then you weren’t seen for another year. And then another. And then one year ago I saw you pop out of existence in your living room. I’ve done my research. That’s called timeslipping. It’s when you travel through time but don’t use some kind of machine or device, and have no control of it. The fact that you return exactly one year later suggests either a superior intelligence, or this weak theory I have regarding the Earth’s revolution around the sun. Despite the solar year being one of our primary sources of mapping out and making sense of the cosmos, it has very little to do with the organization of the universe as a whole. The fact is that the most likely culprit responsible for your condition is an unfathomable entity, like God.”

“Wow. When you say you’ve done your research, you’re not lying.”

“You’re the reason I’m taking both physics and a religious studies course for my first semester.”

“You don’t have to do any of this, Leona. This isn’t your concern.”

“It’s going to take...” she started to say, “well, it’s going to take four days, but I will figure out how to explain this. I may not be able to stop it, but we will at least understand the physics.”

“Leona...”

“And in only three days, I won’t be too young for you, and you’ll be able to stop looking at me like a lost puppy dog.”

“But you just said it. Three days. This has been plaguing my parents for years, but it hasn’t even been a week for me. I don’t even know your last name.”

“It’s Delaney.”

“Right. That’s all I needed. Crash course on Leona Delaney. Now I tell you all my secrets, and let you waste four years of your life getting a degree in a field you’re not actually interested in.”

“I’ll study physics and philosophy if I want to. And you can do literally nothing about it.”

“We’ll never be together. And I think you know that. You may even like it. Being a hung up on a guy you can only see once a year. Pretty romantic. Like a fairytale. It ends only with your death. Don’t let yourself be alone when that happens.”

“If anyone else had said something like that to me, I would kick them out of my room. But I have 365 days to get over it, and only a few hours to see you. I’m not going to waste what little time we have. I don’t care how you feel about me, and I can’t help how I feel. Hell, you may wake up tomorrow and find me married to someone else. So what does it matter to you what I do now? You have an unavoidably distorted perspective of the world.”

He had no response.

“Great,” she continued. You wanna get some breakfast? I’ll tell you about how the apes have taken over the world, and how sea otters can talk now.” They spent the rest of the morning getting to know each other. It could have been incredibly awkward, but it wasn’t. She was refreshingly easy to talk to, and it was certainly a relief to have an open conversation with someone other than his parents. She talked about what the current president was doing, the latest celebrity nonsense, and the subtle advances in technology. Automated vehicles were gaining some heavy ground, with legislation already passed in the majority of states, allowing some level of hands-free driving.

Randall and Carol were not happy with his decision to handle the “problem of Leona” on his own. But they were most upset about losing half a day with him. They had a late lunch together, and invited Frida and her boyfriend over for dinner and games. It was a well-deserved break from all the drama. By having those two there, they were forced to pretend like their lives were perfectly normal. No timeslipping talk at the table.

Leona came over just after eleven o’clock and assured them of her kindhearted intentions. They had a late-night snack of ice cream, and stayed up talking until 11:58. They then hugged and said their goodbyes. Just before the strike of midnight, Leona planted a passionate kiss on Mateo’s lips. He was gone before he could react. One year later, he jumped back into the time stream, only to be quickly overwhelmed by a second kiss from her. Sneaky snake.

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