When I woke up, it was raining. It seemed like I had woken up at the time I had gotten to wherever I was, because there was a hobo who was so startled that he dropped his beer and ran off screaming, “Lord, save me! I’ve seen the Devil!”
My LOKI beeped. There was a big, red, virtual button that’s read TRANSFORM on the touchscreen. I pressed it and immediately a tingling sensation started going through my body starting from the head and going to the feet. When I looked at my arms, they had reverted to white unarmored skin and my LOKI had reverted to a weird wristwatch. Not as weird as the LOKI itself, but instead of having two hands, it had numbers on the face that changed every minute.
I walked out of the alley the first thing I noticed were the automobiles parked up and down the street, they were all… different. There were so many different shapes and colors, and they were fast! I walked through streets and began to hear whispers and I felt people staring at me.
“Mommy, why does that man look so… old?” a little girl said to her mother as she looked at me oddly.
“Quiet, he’s probably on the way to some reenactment.” The mother scolded the child.
Old? I was only 19 (I think)! Also, reenactment? I thought those were only for wars. Then I realized I was still in my army uniform.
I found that I had no money and I had seen a pawn shop that was a few blocks away, so I looked for stuff I could sell. Then I remembered some baseball cards Alan had given me before he went to the war. Even though I didn’t collect them, he said they would bring good fortune.
$2000 dollars. The dealer was so happy he squealed. Now that I had money, I needed clothes, since I had started hearing people saying, “Hey, that’s the guy in the World War Two outfit!”
There was a big glass pane with a mannequin in a suit that had a 30% off sign. Above the window there was another sign that said J.C.Penny. I remembered J.C.Penny was the place Alan would go to pick up girls, since they flocked to the store. It seems that’s still the case. Compared to the women’s section, the men’s section was an ant.
I bought a camo shirt, cargo pants, and got the heck out of there. When I walked out I saw the letters LIC
KET in bright red letters. I walked up the street and saw the whole sign. PUBLIC MARKET CENTER. Didn’t Pike Place market have a big sign like that? I was in Seattle, Washington. I was one town from home! Back in my time I had read that a lot of Japanese were rounded up from the market on February 19, 1942. I saw a man throw out his newspaper so I fished it out. The date on it said February 28, 2012. Almost seventy years since I had been drafted into the army.
I became aware that my watch was beeping. An arrow was flashing and pointing forward and to the left. I walked that way and didn’t see anything. I looked at the watch and the arrow was facing the way I had just come. I looked at the ground and saw what looked like a vinyl only smaller and shinier. As I picked it up the arrow followed it. When I held it above the watch, the watch screen said press with three arrows pointing to a button on the side of the watch. When I pressed it, the watch turned into the LOKI. As soon as I did a blue light ran up and down the disk. The LOKI then read, stun acquired, please discard CD.
I flung the disk into the Puget Sound.
