Decoding the Cypher of Time and Space

2014, Maine, America, Charlotte

Charlotte leaned over the edge of her twin-sized bed as the emptiness of the room around her started to sink in. The walls had been stripped of their contents, stray pencils and pens put in their proper places. Every stain that had once found home on her floor had been chemically removed, leaving her sanctuary with an everlasting aroma of the purge. She had sold all her clutter, her favorite novels gone from her shelves and familiar faces of stuffed animals now in other people’s possessions. The only memories left in her room were candles for fighting off the chemical burn of the cleaning solution and her plethora of empty journals. Three days until she was to be sent off to the college of her dreams, yet Charlotte still had not had her big adventure. Growing up on tales of dragons and serpents with knights in shining armor and clever wizards of lore. A reality that lacked magic and fascination was the only thing she had known for the past eighteen years of her life.

This absence of meaning and thrill was the cause of her nightmares. Charlotte mustered up the last of her strength to pull herself to the edge of her bed, the springs giving and squeaking under the shift of weight. “Only two in the morning?” She sighed glancing at the analogue clock resting on her nightstand. She had hopped it would have at least been four, a time when it was sensible to go downstairs and find food.             

“Might was well try to read something…” The only book remaining in her possession was Dickens Tale of Two Cities, a love story that had captivated Charlottes romantic heart ages ago, “Now where is that bloody light?” She whispered as her hands felt through the dark. Finally she came across the chords to her little lamp and moved to finding the outlet. “Dammit,” her fingers found the two faithful holes in the wall but to no avail could she get the two to line up. “Lamps are overrated anywho,” and the hunt turned to matches.

“Ive got you this time,” finding her torn little matchbox on the edge of the nightstand where it always rested. With an experienced flick of her wrist Charlotte lit up her match, illuminating the room with a warm golden light before quickly catching the darkened wick of her candle. The soft light soon spread across the empty room, showing all the little cracks and empty corners of a room normally teaming with trinkets. “Aster, is that you?” A chuckle escaped her lips as her started down the now discovered feline who had been lurking in the corner of the room. At the mention of his name he sauntered over to her bed and leapt up upon her lap, knocking the book out of her hands. The graceful cat was a common friend around her house, always a shout away and present in a moments notice. He was the most noble of study partners and in the past few weeks of college preparations her only real friend.

“Aster I told you to run off. You know what the parents think about you being in my room.” The black and white tom-cat rubbed his temple against the base of her chin, cuddling and molding to her body. “I guess you can stay,”  she leaned back, putting the book in its old place and blowing the candle out before trying to find sleep again.  “You’re a strange cat? You know that right?”

As Charlotte escaped into the warmth of her bed and the adventures of her dreams she was too busy to notice the open window that the cat had snuck through and the alarmingly cold draft he had brought with him.  The light of the small neighborhood keeping the stars at bay, as change finally started to soak into Charlotte’s life.

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“Not good, not good,” the man who had before been a collapsed heap was now up and running around the intricate console in the middle of an illuminated room. “Don’t do this to me now” he pleaded with the machine as it wailed and moaned with the grinding of metals. He frantically pulled different assortments of levers, trying to evoke a positive reaction from the flashing tower.

“Sexy, please.” He stroked the mechanism tenderly. The clashing and churning of alloys began to subside. The man, dressed in converse complimented by a suit and tie fell back to the ground. “You always preferred flattery, you brilliant thing you.” An exhausted laugh filling the chamber as his long chestnut hair, damped by sweat fell into his eyes. “Where are we off to now may I ask? Seeing how you insist on going somewhere,” the machine responded with a series of clicks and moans. “No still not good! America?” Lifting himself from the floor he started pulling levers and pressing buttons again. “You know Americans bore me, or do they? I don’t know yet” his uncertainty growing as the chamber started to lose stability, swaying back and forth viciously, tossing the man around like a rag-doll.

In a new effort to gain control of his toy a screen descended in front of him with a complicated display of the United States. “Northern Maine, 2014, Suburbia? That’s where you want to take me?” He patted the screen and waved it off. “If you say so…Geronimo!!” he exclaimed with a full bodied shout of joy as the machine tumbled and tossed. With a clash that could wake an entire world the machine came to a halt, and a noise that resembled the scrape of keys over piano cables replaced the metallic groans. “Time to see what America has for me this time,” and with a burst of passion he leapt over the guardrail around the center counsel and head longed for the little door.

______

“Aster…. Aster?” Charlotte had awoken to a strange clash outside her window and a missing alley cat. Hoisting herself out of her warm blanket cocoon and on to the unforgiving cold of her hardwood floors she glanced at the clock. A clock that before had read two before and  now read eleven. “But? How?” In a frenzy she grabbed the faithful clock and memorized it. “That’s impossible.” The room around her was still dark and the house was quite. She quickly put the clock back on the stand and accepted that her previous waking must have been a dream as well as the absurd crash. “Oh my window is still open…I don’t remember even touching you?” She strode over to the quaint little hole in her wall and slammed the window shut, having had enough of the night so far. But on the other side of the glass was her charming little cat, begging her to reopen her window, with an aggravated flick she opened it a smidge and the feline squeezed his way through.

With new found energy the cat began to weave in-between her legs, rubbing up against her. His emerald eyes locked with her grey and he jumped back onto the window ledge, meowing incessantly at the outside world.  “Aster please, I just let you in, make up your mind.” And she reopened the window, this time instead of leaving her he just sat there and stared. A low threatening growl growing in the middle of his chest as he surveyed the little street.

The street had always been mundane and typical; fire hydrants, lights posts, a tree on every lot. There was something amiss on the pleasant lane that night and Aster had caught on.  Up against the old sycamore tree in front of Charlottes home a raggedy man in his mid twenties was leaning against the tree looking at her house. Charlotte caught a fleeting glimpse of the figure before turning away in fear. “It is eleven at night, and there is a fellow outside of MY house.” She grabbed her cat, tearing him away from his post and ran back to the bed.  “This is a dream, and we are going to go back to sleep, and when we wake up it will be time to go to college and live my life. No man against my tree is going to stop that.” She buried herself under her blankets, searching for the warmth that had been there moments before.  Her cat squirmed and fought her, finally breaking free and running out of her room and through the cat door in the front of the house.

“ASTER COME BACK YOU FOOL.” She screamed after him, her hands quickly covering her mouth in fear of alerting the man outside that she was awake.

“Oh well aren’t you a beautiful little creature,” a tender voice resonated outside of her window. There was a meow of approval from her cat.

Her mind was racing, should she go back to bed and hope he would be gone in the morning? Was he a catnapper? A kidnapper?  Aster apparently approved of him and he never approached strangers. Just as all the possibilities flooded her mind there was a curt knock on her window.  She slowly uncovered one of her eyes from under the blanket, peering out to see who could be there on her ground floor bed room window. There stood a man dressed sharply, holding her tom-cat under one arm, and with the open hand a buzzing mechanism that eminated green light. In that instant their two eyes met, and Charlotte ducked back under her covers as the man opened the window and simply came in.