A Loop in Time (5 page)

When Susan came out of the bedroom she noticed that the television wasn’t on yet. She watched for a minute as John walked around the room as if he was looking for something, and then he looked at the television, then he returned to looking around the room.

“What are you doing?” she finally asked.

“Trying to turn on the TV,” he replied. He was a little perplexed.

“From the couch?” she asked.

“Is there a button somewhere? I can’t seem to find it.”

She giggled at him, “No button. You turn the volume knob and it comes on.”

“The volume knob? I never would have thought of that. How do you change channels?”

“You get up and turn the channel knob. You don’t have knobs in the future?”

“I guess not. It doesn’t sound familiar, getting up all the time to change channels. Doesn’t it get tiring?”

“It’s not a big deal; there are only three channels. Just pick your favorite and go with it.” Susan explained.

“Only three? That doesn’t sound like a lot.”

“Don’t tell me you have four channels in the future? Man, how nice that would be. There would be so much more selection.”

“Um,” he thought for a minute. “I would say, probably at least four, maybe even five. I don’t remember, but it seems to me that three isn’t the number.”

“Wow, I can’t wait for that new channel to come out. Do you suppose it will be soon?” Susan’s voice betrayed her excitement.

“Sometime in the next forty- five years I suppose.”

Susan sighed, “Now you are teasing me.”

“Just a little.”

Susan turned on the TV and then turned it onto the nightly news. When she was done, she sat on the couch. John sat down in the chair, but then popped right back up.

“Oops, I forgot to warn you, one of the springs broke.”

“I think I just got impaled. Can I sit by you?”

She giggled again. “Of course, it’s a big couch and I don’t bite.”

“Darn,” John said, but then he immediately regretted it. She just scowled at him. He could tell though that she was suppressing a smile.

When he sat down, he watched the show for a minute then commented, “There is something wrong with your color.”

“I can’t afford a color television on a nurse’s salary. Besides the networks just started broadcasting in color. Hardly anyone has one of those new fancy TVs.”

“Oh,” he said. He was thinking that he had landed in the stone ages.

He had been watching about a half an hour when his curiosity got the best of him. “Do you have to watch the commercials?”

“I guess we can get up and change the channel, but they seemed to be synchronized. All of the channels have them at the same time. Don’t tell me they don’t have commercials in the future.”

“I’m pretty sure they do.”

After an hour or so, Susan got up to make dinner. John followed her into the kitchen. “Can I help?” he asked.

She looked surprised, “No, I don’t need you underfoot. I can cook, you know?”

“I wasn’t trying to insult you.” He was a little defensive.

“After telling me that you wanted to do all of the driving and now you want to cook, you can see how I took that.”

“I didn’t say I wanted to cook, I just want to help.” It had seemed like the polite thing to do when he started out, but now it was not looking so good.

“You can help by staying out of the kitchen and letting me cook. I have never met a man who was any good in the kitchen.”

“Okay, now you’re insulting me. One of these days I will surprise you.”

“Hmmf,” was all she said in response and then went back to her cooking. ‘A man cooking in my kitchen? That will be the day.’ The future was looking weirder and weirder. She didn’t know if she wanted any part of it.

That night the two of them set down to a dinner of meat loaf. John smiled when he tasted it. “You are right, you can cook. This is good.”

She just smiled. She was still back on the part of, ‘a man who thinks he can cook in my kitchen.’

After dinner John was hands off and just watched her clean up. He didn’t dare ask to help again and risk her taking it all wrong. They watched some more TV. There were programs that John thought he might have heard of, but wasn’t sure. He was frustrated with his memory loss.

That night, he went to bed on a lumpy mattress. He thought the floor might be more comfortable, but when he tried it, it was worse, so he went back to the bed. He tossed and turned and finally around two in the morning, he fell asleep.

It was dark as John sat down in the cockpit of the plane. When he pushed a few buttons, the flight displays came to life. There were computer screens giving him the airplane status from fuel status to oil pressure and everything in between.

“Moondog, everything looks good from up here. Go through your preflight checklist.”

“Roger, Control, going through the list.” John looked over to the side where a built in metal clipboard hung. He went through each item one by one. Flaps, brakes, stabilizer and ailerons. They all checked out good. “Preflight good,” John reported.

“Roger that. Clear to start your engines, Moondoggy.”

“Roger, starting engines.” A loud roar started up behind him as he pulled the engine start switch. It settled down to a deep hum. He checked his engine status and oil pressure. “Engine running good, Control.”

“Roger, you are clear to taxi out to runway 32.”

“Copy.” John put the throttle forward until the plane started to roll. When he left the hanger and got out into the bright sunshine, he put down the sun screen on his visor. It didn’t take long for John to align himself with the runway. “Ready for takeoff.”

“Roger, Moondog, you are cleared for takeoff.”

“Copy.” John pushed the throttle forward and the low hum went to a dull roar as the plane started to vibrate. John released the brakes and soon the plane was building speed as it rolled down the runway. When the speed was sufficient, John pulled back on the yoke and the plane sliced gently up through the air. It did not take long before he could see the runway far below him.

“Moondog, get to a cruising height of 35,000 feet.”

“Roger, Control.” John watched as the world passed by below him. He was up above some mountain peaks that were snow capped. He recognized the city of Denver below him.

John leveled off the plane, then reported in. “At the cruising altitude, Control.”

“Roger, Moondog, it is time to activate the auxiliary drive.”

“Roger,” John said and reached for the button marked ‘Vmax3 Drive.’ When he hit the button the plane jumped forward and his head was pushed backwards in his seat.

He looked at his controls when it smoothed out some. “Holding steady at Mach 0.5, Control.”

“Roger that, we are reading the same thing.”

Suddenly John heard a loud pop behind him and the plane started buffeting wildly. The stick was shaking and all of the aural warnings went off all at the same time. “Massive system failure.”

“We’re losing him,” the normally calm controller was yelling.

“I’m still here,” John insisted.

“We’re losing him!” Then the headset went dead.

“Control, do you read me? Control?”

Then the flames started.

John sat bolt upright in bed. To his surprise, Susan was sitting on the edge of his bed and she calmly put her hands on his shoulders. “Are you okay? I could hear you yelling from my room.”

She didn’t have time to get dressed; she just came running in. She was wearing a faded pink nightgown that she would have been embarrassed to be seen in if she had thought it through.

“I was having a nightmare, fire and alarms in my plane. I had to get out.” John was sweating profusely.

“I wonder who Control is and why they can’t seem to hear you,” she said as she took the sleeve of her nightgown and dabbed the sweat away.

“I am sorry to have bothered you. What was I yelling?”

“You kept yelling over and over, ‘can you hear me, Control?’ No one seemed to respond though.”

“No, I lost them. I guess I lost them 45 years from now.” He sighed. It was then he noticed how she was dressed and that her nightgown probably revealed a little more than she intended.

She saw him looking, but she didn’t care. There were more important things here than modesty. It would embarrass her more to go running off anyway. “You get some sleep. I have the early shift at work so I have to go get in the shower. I will ask Doctor Ralston about that yard work job, if you are interested. Nothing like being bored in someone else’s house where you can’t do anything.”

“Yes, I’m interested,” he said as he sat back.

When she went to get ready he watched her go. He enjoyed looking at her and it made him feel just a little guilty. ‘No hanky panky,’ he reminded himself.

When she was gone, he got up and got dressed. He only had the one set of clothes and they were going to be mighty uncomfortable by the end of the week. He would need any money he could get.

She came out of the shower in just a towel, but went immediately to her room. She didn’t even notice that he had gotten up. He was looking in the refrigerator, wondering if he could get away with cooking an omelet. He decided against it and went and sat down in the living room. He had brought the James Bond book back from the hospital so he started to read it.

When Susan came out she was in her nurse’s uniform. “Oh, you got up. I thought that you would have gone back to sleep.”

“I didn’t want to face the night demons again,” he explained.

“Did you figure out anymore about yourself in your dream?” She was half listening as she got out a frying pan and some eggs and bacon.

“I saw the plane that I was flying. It had swept wings and was all black. It wasn’t smooth but had weird angles. Oh, and I heard my call sign. They called me Moondog.”

She peeked around the corner, “Moondog, huh? Can I call you that?”

“No, it’s part of my nightmare.”

“What type of wings did you say your plane had?” She broke open four eggs into the pan and started the bacon in another one.

“Swept wings. It’s where the wing tip is at an angle from the fuselage.”

“Hmm, never heard of that.” She then went back to cooking.

“You aren’t going to tell the base everything I relate to you, are you?” He was suddenly suspicious, especially after Andy had been assigned to spy on him.

“They don’t care. They are just worried about the droves of wounded soldiers that are making their way here from the aid stations in Vietnam. They patch the guys up and then we get to rebuild them as best as we can.”

 She dished the eggs and bacon onto two plates, added some toast and set them down on the table. “Breakfast, then I have to go to work. Do not do the dishes. I will get them when I get home.” She smiled at the thought, “I have never had to say that to a man before.”

“There is a first for everything,” John replied.

She ate quickly and then was out the laundry room door. John ate at a much slower pace.

“Well, what can I do around here to earn my keep?” He asked himself out loud. He took one look at the front door. It was missing half its paint. He tried the handle, it wasn’t locked, but when he pulled on it, it would not budge.

He stood back to appraise the situation. There was a small chain that hung down. The door was so stuck that Susan had not ever latched the chain. John went outside and turned the knob. Putting his shoulder into it, he lunged at the door. It opened with a loud pop. He instinctively looked around to see if anyone had heard it and was thinking that he was breaking in. Nobody was outside that early in the morning so he examined the door. It had swollen against the jamb due to the lack of paint. The hinge was also loose and the door frame was gapped away from the wall studs so the door was out of square. He went off to look for some tools, but after looking all over all he found was a finishing hammer. There were no nails or screws either. All he could do at that point was to force the door back closed and do up the chain.

When Susan arrived at work she was met by Doctor Ralston. “So I hear you have a live in boy friend.” He sounded more than just a little bit jealous.

“You were going to kick him out onto the street. I am just giving him a place to stay for a few days until he can get a job and get settled. Besides, he is not my boyfriend.”

“Really?” he replied, but he wasn’t waiting for an answer as he started to walk off.

“Fine, I will prove it. I will go out with you on Friday.”

That got the Doctor’s interest and he turned around. “Um, yes, okay,” he stammered. She had taken him by surprise. “I will pick you up at eight.”

“Eight? That is way too late for dinner. You will pick me up at five.” She was being demanding.

“Yes of course, five it is, on ah, Friday. I will pick you up at five.”

“What should I wear?” she asked.

This took him completely by surprise. “Um, what do you normally wear?”

“Well if I am going to a diner, I wear my regular clothes, but if you are taking me to somewhere fancy, I will wear a nice dress.”

“Yes, of course. Wear the nicest dress you have, and we will go to the fanciest place in town.” He had gotten his confidence back.

“Great, I will see you then.” She walked off and started making her rounds. Most of the beds were now full. The battle to reopen the highway had started and the young men were paying for it with their lives and body parts.

 When Susan got home that night, she was tired and her feet were sore. She had put in extra time because there were so many more wounded. She turned on the television and sat down. “Later on I am going to go get a pizza, but for now I am getting off my feet for a while.”

“They don’t deliver the pizza?” John asked.

“Not in this town, they don’t.”

“I can go get it.”

Susan chuckled. “You don’t have a driver’s license, remember. You don’t have anything, no identification, no social security card. All you have is a burnt up flight suit.”

“I can make you dinner then.”

“You stay out of my kitchen.”

John sighed, “Or what? We just won’t tell anyone that I cooked so you won’t be embarrassed. I mean, if that is what is bothering you.”

Susan looked at John, and then she considered how tired she was and then she looked back at John. “Men don’t cook in my family, but since you are insistent, go ahead. If it’s terrible, I will go and get us some pizza.”

“Sounds like a challenge.” John accepted it readily. He should have opened the refrigerator before he volunteered. It was just before payday, so it was nearly empty. Undeterred, he got out what was left of the ground beef, and fried it up.

 Put some mushroom soup in it with a little lemon juice, pepper and salt and then put it over some noodles. When he called Susan over she looked at the food dubiously, but when she tasted it she smiled. “Wow, I underestimated you. This is good! What do you call it?”

John just shrugged, “I don’t remember.”

“It tastes a lot like stroganoff to me,” she said trying to help.

“Okay.” He shrugged again. It was frustrating that he could not remember even simple things.