NINE TIME MACHINES: Do you want to undo your entire life on planet earth?

CHAPTER 11

Hazel calls around eleven to say an angel bought us lunch again. Funny, how I never meet any of those angels. It's always Hazel-the-Holy they choose to communicate with. Whether it's because her heart is pure or that she's a Rubrum, I'll never know. But, God! If you're listening, this will be the perfect time to assign me a personal angel. I'm at the end of my rope and waiting for you to prove I haven't been going mad talking to myself all these years. I pack my makeup on, to 'cover the ugliness that hides my true face', like Ebony taught me, and take my time getting to the dining room. As usual, my trek is delayed by trying to decipher the many symbols on the hallway walls. Some I now understand through the accident called research. But others are still Aramaic to me.

Thirty minutes later, I enter the grand building that houses the office, dining, ironing and oval rooms, and the matron's quarters upstairs. Lunch is trapped in the poisonous prison of a white Styrofoam box. And I surprise my own self by not complaining. As usual, I struggle with the two clips until one of them breaks. It's a basic rice and codfish, not even seasoned the right way, and looks almost no different than when it left the package.

"Smells great," I offer with as much enthusiasm as my hypocrisy can drum up.

Hazel takes the bait. "Tastes good too."

I dig in hoping hunger will deaden my taste buds. But each spoonful goes down like cement mix. Well, find me that guy who said never to judge a book by the cover. You dig the hole and I'll make sure he's good and dead. My eyes stray to Hazel's almost empty box. Is this a case of one man's meat and another's poison, or just someone who's never had a good meal in her life? She shoves the last of it in her mouth and I give up trying to understand.