Bobby Chen was lost in time.

That’s what he liked to tell himself on some days, looking out through his New York penthouse apartment window at the spiderweb of activity below. Aircars and maglevs left and right, disorganized bustle in all three dimensions, tons of brushed chrome and green energy vehicles speeding this way and that.

Staring at this chaotic milieu, Bobby imagined plumes of coal smoke, rickshaws and sweat, horses and market babble in a throng of humanity. Instead of white marble and steel, he pictured brick and mortar, bales of hay and dust. He liked to think he could hear shouts in Mandarin of tradesmen hawking their wares, instead of cultured American English autovoxes advertising the newest corporate solutions.

Bobby Chen was lost in time – he thought himself belonging to a world centuries older, not in this energy-efficient, techno-progressive New York City that was the jewel of the New United Federation. A few years ago he’d applied for a name change – digging through his ancestral records, he found interesting names like Lu, Zhou, and Qin. Alas, in the hyper-controlled New United Federation, bureaucrats did not look favorably upon a frivolous change from Bobby to Lufei, so his request was denied.

All that was about to change, Bobby thought to himself. From his viewpoint on the deck, he could see the Manhattan skyscape amidst the morning fog. Aircars zipped through the sky, weaving between the skyscraper needles that thrust infinitely high into the air. Maglev cruisers zoomed on the waves around him, skimming lightly across the pristine, reclaimed waters around Manhattan.

The Empress stuck out like a sore thumb in comparison. Thrown together from odd pieces of rare wood, it had taken Bobby years to find enough antiques to construct the authentic Chinese junk. Lumber was near impossible to come by in this age, much to Bobby’s dismay. Oh, synth-trees were all the rage, but real, organic wood was worth its weight in platinum. The Empress had cost a fortune to make – but it was worth it.

A slow wave rocked the planking beneath Bobby’s feet. Right now, the Empress was floating in the water, oblivious to the high-tech activity surrounding it. Bobby could make out curious faces on other ships staring at his anachronistic barge, puzzled at the historic artifact floating before their eyes. He smiled – they didn’t understand, could only watch the V-reels and scratch the surface of it, never dig deep inside and feel the past.

He adjusted the sails, marveling at the roughness of the coarse rope in his hands. A few minor changes, and now the ship pointed outwards, away from land. The fog obscured his vision, but his mind filled in the blanks left by reality. Bobby saw the vast ocean before him, imagining treacherous storms, intrepid explorers, and mythical sea-beasts. As the wind picked up, the Empress sailed further and further away from Manhattan, from civilization and dryness. A seagull – one of the few remaining, after the climate change – cawed and flapped its wings above Bobby’s head. A salt breeze flowed in, tickling his nose and soothing his warm skin.

This was the life, he thought. This was what he had been missing his whole life, swallowed up by the constant pandemonium of society. As the ship picked up speed, he fancied himself a weary traveler, ready to return after an impossibly long foray into the future. The misty fog lay before him, but he would enter it and embrace the familiar unknown, for as long as he pleased.

Content with that thought, Lufei Chen sailed home.

“Who are you?”

“The same as you.”

“You mean you’re me?”

“In a sense, yes. I am a different version of you.”

“Parallel universe. It exists!”

“Great. I was worried who the other me would be like, and how would I find him. Wasn’t counting on the fact that you would be the one I initiated first contact with. You seem bright enough to have caught up with the events too.”

“What do you mean about you initiating contact? I am the one who broke through the system and created this bridge.”

“You’re mistaken. I was the one who broke through. I’ve spent 11 years of my life for this day.”

“Ha! I made it only in 10. Guess, I am the smarter one.”

“Can you cross the barrier though? Or just communicate from the other side of the bridge.”

“I don’t know. You’re the first thing I saw after breaking through. I haven’t tried. Let’s see. There shouldn’t be any harm in trying as I designed the bridge. That too, if I may add, one whole year faster than you did. Worst that can happen is it rejects any transference and blocks me.”

“Well go ahead and try.”

“I can’t. It thrusts my hand away with some kind of a repulsive force.”

“Let me try.”

“Wait how can your hand pass throu…”, SLAP ,“what was that for?!”

“That was what I was doing in the 11th year. Jerk.”

He was standing in the sky lobby on the 102nd floor looking out over the city. He was naked. Not a stitch of clothing. He felt very uncomfortable-especially when his friends and colleagues at the brokerage house walked by and spoke to him, always maintaining eye contact, never looking downward. Awakening, he remembered every detail of the dream that plagued him, night after night.

He had mentioned the recurring dream to his wife who thought maybe it was because he was up so much during the night with the baby. Sarah was just two weeks old and seemed to never want to sleep at night. His constantly interrupted slumber probably was why the dream kept happening,  reasoned his wife.

Standing there at the window today, during lunch break, he studied his clothed reflection and wondered why his naked dream reflection was sexless. It was as if his crotch had been airbrushed out of existance.  His shrink said it was because of a deeply rooted feeling of helplessness. An inability to control events  happening or about to happen .

He began obsessing over the “what ifs” of  life.  What if Sarah got sick in the middle of the night?  What if  his wife was attracted to another man? What if he didn’t get that pay raise and they couldn’t get a bigger apartment?  What if his subway train got stuck underground and he missed  a meeting?

He began to sleep less, tossing and turning  much of the night. Still, when he did get a bit of sleep, the dream returned. Sleep deprived, he felt that the quality of his work with the firm was slipping. What if he didn’t get that promotion? Thoughts roiled around inside his head as he stood in the sky lobby looking out over the city. He noticed the planes in the distance, coming into, or taking off from, the airport west of the city. He imagined a plane somehow releasing him from all the worry, the “what ifs, the life pressures, the disturbing naked dream.

That night, after dinner, he held his wife very close to him, breathing in the fragrance of her hair, her skin. He told her how much she and the baby meant to him and that if his job review went well tomorrow, how they would be able to get a bigger place. One where Sarah could have her own room.

The next morning found him on the way to work  early. He had to be at the office before 8:00 a.m. This was the one day he didn’t want to be late. No lame excuses about things like subway delays.

Hijacked Flight 11 hit the building at 8:45 a.m. that morning, just below the sky lobby where he took his morning breaks. The plane, with a full load of jet fuel, exploded and incinerated  everybody and everything. No one on the floors above survived.

Television was showing the second building collapsing when the phone rang.  Removing a protesting  baby Sarah from her breast, her trembling hand held the phone to her ear.

“They’re gone. Everything gone…My friends… The office… The twin towers … All gone. There’s just a blizzard of dust flying everywhere. We had to climb through heaps of debris to get out  of the subway station. If our train hadn’t been delayed…”  She could barely hear his choking, sobbing words against the background of sirens.”I should have been with them. It was out of my control.”

They slowly walked, along with  many other families of the victims, away from the site.The memorial service had ended. Ten years after the attack, new buildings were rising on the footprints of the destroyed ones.  Sarah turned and said ,”C’mon Mom, let’s go home. We’ll sit in my room and have tea. You can tell me again about the dream you had that night after Dad died. You know, the one where he called you from the subway station.”

Halloween was over a week ago, so Dr. Areli Black was startled when she saw the hand sticking out of a tiny window in the brick wall of the building where she worked.  Startled, but not surprised.

“Darn kids,” she muttered, stalking up to the hand.  Every time someone quit or was fired, which happened often in her line of work, whatever rookies were then hired always managed to get together and pull some sort of prank.

Black prodded the fingers in preparation for yanking the arm out of the window – when she presented her boss with evidence of the joke, surely justice would be done.  But when she grasped the hand and felt it to be not rubber but very much alive, it grasped her back.  Now she could not let go.
“You kids have no idea what you’re getting into!” she managed to spout off, that is, before the brick wall popped inward and another rose out of a slot in the ground to replace it.

As Black fell against the bricks, before the new wall replaced the spot of the old she was able to catch a glimpse of the room she was now in, its walls bright white in the morning sun. Then everything was black as tar, and she felt the hand let go and pull away.  Puffing, Black ran her hands along the wall, which she now deemed to be plastic, and eventually found the edges of it.  There was no sound, apart from her.  She was alone with the fake.

Dr. Black straightened her dress, felt her heels to make sure they weren’t broken, and stood up, determined to find a way out of the room.  Then the lights came on – white and blinding.  She sat on the plastic wall, and while her eyes blinked rapidly to adjust she saw a door open and a bunch of small shapes pour through.  Her eyes cleared.

“Cats?” Black snorted, standing up again, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”  But it was true.  The room was now filled with black cats, all in various typical cat postures – such as washing their fur, stretching, or sitting primly with their tails curled across their paws.  All except one, that is.  This cat, which Black deemed to be some sort of leader or spokesperson – well, spokescat, she supposed – hopped onto a chair the felines had somehow brought with them into the room, and cleared its throat.

“Dr. Black,” the cat began, “I’m sorry for the inconvenience this may cause you, but the next phase of our project requires a human body.  I’m sure you understand – you’ll be paid handsomely for your trouble.  That is, when we have used you to take control of the government.  Now, if you please, step with us into the lab so we can begin.”  The cat watched Black for a moment, then began to wash its paws.

Black pushed a few bobby pins that had fallen out back into her thin blonde hair, “Well, I, um…”  She trailed off sheepishly and stared at the wall containing the door the cats had come through, “Sorry – it looked so real I almost forgot!”

The wall began to rise, not unlike a garage door, revealing the director and sound crew.

“Cut, cut!”  The director was waving his arms, his frizzy hair flying around with reckless abandon, “Come on Liz,” he shouted at her, “you’ve seen these cats a million times already – and we’ve cut this scene a million times already.  I don’t know how much longer we’ll be able to work with the cats today, so please, try to get it right next time!”

Everyday he came to the same spot to stand and stare into the mirror. His reflection showed him an unshaven face, haggard eyes and drooping shoulders. Like life had beaten the shit out of him and he was still taking more hits than he could possibly handle. His wife had left him six months ago taking their daughter along. Her parents had never liked him. Always the sniping remark subtly concealed with concern and worry. The thin line had been treaded very carefully, just the right hint of disdain, never too much. It didn’t matter, he felt like a jackass anyway, unworthy of them and their daughter.

Now she was gone and with her his Candice, blonde and blue -eyed. The eyes he had given her. The hair was a throwback from her genes. All the Amsworth family had black eyes, never blue so his Candice stood out like a flame amongst all the black haired cousins. She was his beacon and she had been snuffed out from his life.

A decision, a choice, made unwisely and you are made to suffer endlessly for it. His choice had been to start the meth lab. Make the money whilst you can. Hiding it had been easy. Keeping it afloat harder. And it was so easy to sell too. His reflection had begun to look better. He was the picture of health, eyes bright and shoulders holding strong too. The profits had come in quick. He had finally bought her that necklace she had been yearning for. Candice had worn the best clothes.

Then the questions had started. He hadn’t given the right answers. His mistake. One minute is all it takes really, for a life to get turned upside down.

Stumpy was born without a right hand, wrist and part of his forearm. Wasn’t his fault. His mom took thalidomide ’cause the docs said it was alright to do that. Thus, Stephen S. Stephenson [his name, really] has only the inked impression of his left hand and both feet on his birth certificate. It’s also why a fellow with such an elegant name answers to “Stumpy”.

Some folks in a situation like this would choose to be really pissed off and sullen ’cause they couldn’t  get the full effect of patty cake as a kid or  hammer out Heart and Soul on the piano or slip their right hand around a girl  for a little feel.

But not Stumpy. No, he decided to go with the “what the hell, let’s make the best of it scenario”, and have fun while he was at it.

It all started one year just after he was fitted with a prosthesis. He’d decided to get a fake hand and arm,as he called it, to fill out his sports jacket sleeve so the right one didn’t flap in the breeze. It didn’t work or do anything, just gave the illusion that he was intact.

Around this time, his parents had been nagging him to clean the ashes out of the fireplace, and after he was finished, the thought struck him that his fake hand and arm would look funny as hell sticking out of the ash chute. He tried it and it did. Took a picture of it and passed it around  to his kegger friends. They all loved it and naturally urged him to do more, which he did.

After college, the travel bug bit him and he started doing some serious backpacking. With his laid back manner and the ability to put people at ease by whipping off his arm when they least expected it, he made friends everywhere.  When he was in Hawaii with some buddies, one of them started talking  how he’d read about some dudes who stole their neighbor’s garden gnome and then took pictures of it in the different places they traveled to. They would then send the pics back to their neighbor with some dumb “Wish you were here.” kind of message on the back of the photo.

That’s when Stumpy  started the”Surfer Series” featuring his arm and hand hanging five with Diamond Head in the background.

Over the years he would send these weird pictures to his chums.  I still have  one  from  Munich taken during Octoberfest where he shot his hand and arm sticking out from under a table holding a huge stein while the St. Pauli Girl  leaned way over to get a better look. That shot can still be found today on the back walls of better foreign car repair shops everywhere.

A trip to India resulted in a picture of the goddess Kali gaining an extra hand.  Irreverent, I guess,  but not meant to be insulting. In Switzerland, Stumpy was able to substitute his hand for a keg on the neck of a St. Bernard, startling many mystified  tourists at the Pass.

As the years passed,  Stumpy did more outrageous things  by paying people to assist him with his photos. One pic that illustrates this is of a fleshy nude woman posing with  his artificial limb in a way that gives graphic clarity to the phrase, “I could use a helping hand!” [I wanted to illustrate my story with that one but the Thakkar Decency League wouldn't permit it.]

I lost contact with Stumpy when I moved and lived abroad for some years.  When finally returning to the States, I tried to reconnect with him, but to no avail. Rumor had it that he had disappeared while visiting some primitive jungle regions. Not knowing what had happened to old Stumpy really irked me, but then one day we reconnected…sort of.  Browsing through some old National Geographics at a weekend flea market I was fascinated by an article on some “lost” tribe that  had supposedly never been in contact with the civilized world until very recently.

There on page 364 was a picture of the elders of the tribe worshipping an object mounted on an altar used for sacrifice. The object was a prosthetic arm and hand that retained only the middle finger, sticking straight into the air. Stumpy would have loved it.

Queen regnant of England and Ireland, bloody Mary, Queen consort of Spain, ugly wife, Five year reign, Catholic terror. Very beautiful in her youth, appalling in her death, the death of a fanatic infertile mother, who had 280 religious dissenters burned at the stake. She was a precocious child and a complete goofy afterwards: clap!

Martin Cid