The Race to Freedom

Maria 1

She gasped, suddenly! A gaping mouth of danger rushed into her sight as she realized she was staring off the edge of a cliff. She scrambled away from the edge, imagining the plummet toward the glowingly sharp and fatal rocks below. Where in good's name was she?

It was hot. The air was thick with it. She had never experienced anything so hot, not even from those occasional days in the summer where the sun would blast wave after wave of sweltering temperatures to the point that she had to herself with a flapping hand every other minute if she didn't want to melt into a silly human puddle. That would be quite the tale. 

Ahead of her was endless stretches of bright blue water. Its beauty mesmerized her for a moment, she wasn't accustomed to the sea, her castle residing so outrageously far inland. The great expanse of ocean was more beautiful than anything she had ever seen. 

But she had bigger troubles. Everything was... unfamiliar, like exploring a whole new world. It was as if she was exploring one of her wild cousin Anton's bizarre imagined landscapes, but in reality. There were bright rocks, and yellow wildlife that blew gently in the wind. None of the usual trees and damp mossy ground surrounding Ludlow Castle. Maybe she was dreaming? No, it felt exceedingly real. Her dreams were hazy affairs with little substance. The pain in her thigh, among other things, was far too  meticulous. 

She stepped over a rubble of stones and reedy twigs that snapped as her pointed leather shoes stepped over and around them. There were weirdly strange and spiked plants too. She dared not touch them; they looked like formidable monsters of a hostile plant universe. 

"Ayooooooo" she called out in a soft high voice. "I daresay, does anyone hear these cries?" She looked down and tutted loudly at the sight of her bright blue gown getting dirty. It was so hot though, she almost wanted to rip it off her and just flounder away in her undershirt and knickerbockers!  

"Yes" a deep voice said plainly.  Then suddenly, a man appeared. His attire was bizarre, tight fitting and sticking to his body like a second skin. It was jet black and made him look like a painted wooden soldier except without any of the uniform decoration. He spoke with a very weird voice, pronouncing many words wrong. If she hadn't been so relieved to see someone, she would have been shocked.

"Excuse me, sir,... before you continue" she began, staring at him directly. He would not give eye contact but rather stared at a nearby bush. "Where on earth are we?" 

"3000 AD apparently" he said, again with that funny voice. 

"Apologies, but I do not understand" she tells him matter-of-factly. 

"We've been sent here. Didn't you get the 2D hologram?" 

"I have no idea what any of those words mean, sir".

It amused him to witness someone so clueless, someone so locked in the past. But he supposed, he  too was locked in his own version of the past also.

"Are you literally from European Medieval Times or something?"

"If that is an insult, how dare you!" She said, burning with affronted indignation. Why couldn't he just speak normally. She was almost convinced he was playing games, except for the clothing. Maybe he was just as weird as the environment. Or perhaps, a chilling thought inside of her murmured, she was the weird one. 

"What year is it?" He asked her plainly.

"The date is the 11th of November, 1583" she told him plainly. 

"That's wrong".

"Stop behaving like a lunatic". 

"It's 3000 babeh" 

"I am not a baby!" 

"Trust me, I'm just as freaked out as you. Only a few hours ago, I was wandering through the woods in Tennessee on the 11th of November, 2131. That's in America for your information, but I suppose you don't know where that is".

She scoffed, taking a few instinctive steps back and away. "You're quite the comedy man. I should recommend you to a friend of mine. William is constantly looking for fresh male talent for his plays and you look quite the part to put on new performances". 

He laughed, eyes widening at the suspicion of who she was talking about. "What's your name?"

"I am called Maria, and what of you?"

"Name's Salvo, pleased to meet you"

I wish I could say the same about you, Salvo, she thought to herself. 

"Were you talking about William Shakespeare?"

"Aha! I knew it! You are being an actor and pretending to be weird, putting on a bizarre voice and pronouncing all the words wrong somewhat to make this whole situation far weirder!"

He chuckled at that, looking down at the ground and trailing a metal-laced boot in the yellow dirt. "Naw, that's not it. I'm just from far away and we speak different here". 

"I've never heard such a dialect before". Perhaps the man was telling the truth about everything. 

"Listen, your friend Shakespeare is a timeless classic that has never been forgotten by your people. Or in fact any people around the world. Some of the most respected and intelligent human beings on this planet use lines from his plays to help convey meaning and intellect into their arguments to help solve some of these world's ****ed up problems, believe me". 

She sighed. She couldn't twist her head around this man's tale. It was just far too perplexing and strange, but so was everything. She just wanted to return to Ludlow Castle. She was needed there. She ran that castle like a well-functioned society. What would they do without her? 

"Salvo Sir" she said to him. "I do not understand you. But if you are sincere, thank you for the great enlightenment". She was astounded she still had a shred of courtesy left within her. Looking around again, she could now see from her vantage point the beginning of some kind of perverse forest to her right. Hunting game and berries could be found there, and who knows what else. Without even informing the strange man of her intentions, she strode off in that direction. 

She was dancing upon the intrepidity of the edge; the edge of the cliff felt all the more real than ever.  While she had not flung herself wildly off, and while she had no control over this strange man Salvo following her, it seemed as if the world had decided to toss her off the realms of sanity and normality already, and it was her responsibility as a woman to climb back to the top.