Ageless

Chapter 1: The Plunge

I will never forget the day my husband Malcolm aged 1000 years.

It was, after all, the quickest shower he had ever taken.

Well, maybe I don't remember all of it. I'll concede that the beginning of the day starts a bit fuzzy, but I'll fill in the blanks as best I can.

It was a dull Monday morning, and the sunlight began to peak through the cracks in the blinds through our curtain-less windows; abrasive, intrusive, as well as any other foul words that end in -ive. Malcolm was always quick on his feet, myself perpetually groggy and slow in the early hours of the morning due to a genetically inherited resistance to the sound of alarm clocks, so it came as no surprise that he beat me to the bathroom on that fateful day. If he hadn't, I couldn't even begin to think how different our lives would have turned out.

I rolled over in bed and swore to myself. Malcolm savors a morning shower like my father savors a fine Cuban cigar, taking his time, singing along with his smart phone's tinny speakers as it plays the same David Bowie live album over and over again on repeat. I estimated it would be at least half an hour before the bathroom would be free from his tyrannical reign, and by then, any lofty ambitions of making it to work on time would have been crushed as the feverish delusions of a mad woman.

Or so I thought.

Fifteen seconds later and he had returned, red in the face and wearing nothing but a towel, looking very much in a hurry.

At that point, I might have asked him what was wrong. Or maybe if he had clogged the toilet again. Those specific details have been forever lost in the folds of a fading memory.

His response could have been, "No, nothing is wrong," or, "I didn't clog the toilet, it did that by itself," but that part wasn't really that important. What came next was a bit more interesting, because it went something like, "There's no easy way to say this, but I've just fallen through a wormhole in our bathtub and spent the last 1000 years in another dimension."

Then he walked over to the bed and picked me up in his arms. "And I've built something for us there. A new life. Come on, I'll show you."

Up until that point, everything was still a blur. What happened next though, remains crystal clear to this day.

* * *

Malcolm squeezed my hand. We stood in front of the bathtub, feeling a bit foolish. Well, I was at least. I knew this was all a joke, but for some reason my heart was was hammering like a drum. "Close your eyes babe," he said.

"Why?" I asked. "I don't want to miss anything. This whole dimension jumping is not exactly something one does every day, after all." I could see a spider crawling it's way across the bottom of the tub, a dark speck in a sea of cream, zig-zagging its way towards the drain.

"Do you trust me?"

I looked at my husband. "Would I be standing in a bathroom like this if I didn't?"

"You're humoring me. I get it. But I'm not lying." One lock of hair fell out of my tight bun and hung loosely in front of my face. Malcolm reached out and brushed it out of the way so that he could stare me in the face. "Hey, I love you. Now close your eyes."

I took a deep breath. "Okay."

He clasped my hand again, and I squeezed it until the knuckles turned white. I felt him slip a small piece of paper into my palm. I looked up at him quizzically, but he was already facing forward at the wall. "On the count of three, then we'll do it."

"Do what?"

He ignored me. "One. Two. Three!"

I shut my eyes and felt a sharp jerk on my hand, and then my navel, and then suddenly the floor was gone and I was flying. I could feel wind and particles whipping by my face. I wanted to scream, but was afraid if I opened my mouth then something might fly in it.