The movement never stops, a voice beside him shouts, a familiar hand claps him on the back as they move through the march's crowd, and the asphalt all but falls out from under his feet. At this point in his life, Raymond Chestnut is accustomed to strange, unbelievable, almost miraculous things happening to him. Allison, a miracle herself, and her family, had reached their hands into the center of his world and turned it inside out.
But that had been weeks and weeks ago, when time stood still for him and the woman he loved all but disappeared from it. He hasn't forgotten her, sees her in the blanket tucked over the back of the sofa, in the pristine set of hot rollers on the bathroom vanity, in the photos that line the wall, in the mug she cleaned and left in the left side of the sink on the day she left.
Ray is no stranger to confusing, bewildering, unexplainable things, but as the earth shakes underfoot, as the crowd seems to fade into a blur of white noise, as his vision blacks out the edges, he's afraid.
It's the fear that drives him to frantically ask questions at orientations, makes him raise his voice and demand a lawyer, demand police presence (though what the police will do for him is laughable, but they'd be better than these assholes, right?). But they explain portals and time travel and foreign technology, stuff a packet of papers in his hands, and usher him into a car. A car that both looks strange, with its sleek leather seats and bright display in the console. The radio doesn't crackle, the music sounds clean, and the city outside is massive. Screens and lights and cars, people dressed even more strangely (like Allison had been, when she arrived) and he finds he gasps for breath, having held it in disbelief.
"You say this was Florida?"
He's asked half a dozen times and the driver all but ignores him, because how he went from a crowded march on a Dallas street to sitting in the back of a car in Eglaf, Florida, he's got no good idea. Well, he does, but it starts with portals and ends with time travel and he suddenly wishes Allison was here to help make sense of it. If she could. He's not even certain he understands where she went, only that she's gone.
He stands at the gates to the apartments once he's released, staring up at the building in disbelief. Ray adjusts the hat on his head, smooths out the lines of his jacket, and starts toward the door.
ɪ ʜᴀᴅ ᴛᴏ ғɪɴᴅ ʏᴏᴜ ᴛᴇʟʟ ʏᴏᴜ ɪ ɴᴇᴇᴅ ʏᴏᴜ;
But that had been weeks and weeks ago, when time stood still for him and the woman he loved all but disappeared from it. He hasn't forgotten her, sees her in the blanket tucked over the back of the sofa, in the pristine set of hot rollers on the bathroom vanity, in the photos that line the wall, in the mug she cleaned and left in the left side of the sink on the day she left.
Ray is no stranger to confusing, bewildering, unexplainable things, but as the earth shakes underfoot, as the crowd seems to fade into a blur of white noise, as his vision blacks out the edges, he's afraid.
It's the fear that drives him to frantically ask questions at orientations, makes him raise his voice and demand a lawyer, demand police presence (though what the police will do for him is laughable, but they'd be better than these assholes, right?). But they explain portals and time travel and foreign technology, stuff a packet of papers in his hands, and usher him into a car. A car that both looks strange, with its sleek leather seats and bright display in the console. The radio doesn't crackle, the music sounds clean, and the city outside is massive. Screens and lights and cars, people dressed even more strangely (like Allison had been, when she arrived) and he finds he gasps for breath, having held it in disbelief.
"You say this was Florida?"
He's asked half a dozen times and the driver all but ignores him, because how he went from a crowded march on a Dallas street to sitting in the back of a car in Eglaf, Florida, he's got no good idea. Well, he does, but it starts with portals and ends with time travel and he suddenly wishes Allison was here to help make sense of it. If she could. He's not even certain he understands where she went, only that she's gone.
He stands at the gates to the apartments once he's released, staring up at the building in disbelief. Ray adjusts the hat on his head, smooths out the lines of his jacket, and starts toward the door.