Teleport Me

< A short story >

I can feel my palms getting sweaty.  Standing in the long line at the teleport station this Friday afternoon, my discomfort rises.

I hate teleporting.  Which, I know, sounds weird.  But it’s true.  It’s not the concept I find problematic.  Shooting from New York to L.A. or Paris or Zimbabwe or Tokyo in the few minutes it takes to deconstruct and reassemble every single atom in your body is great.  You can go anywhere in the world in 2-3 minutes.

I just get sick every time I do it.  So that puts a damper on my worldwide travel.

It’s called telo-sickness.  And I’m a part of the lucky 10% of the population that’s affected.  It starts with tingling across your entire body, then comes dizziness that dissolves into nausea that lasts for hours.  No amount of Dramamine helps.  I’ve tried.

But sometimes it’s worth it.  As long as it’s not too short of a trip.  I’ve been to Venice for Mardi Gras and four different cities for the past four New Years.

I had a week’s worth of vacation for those trips.  For this one I’ve only got the weekend.

The entire line moves up a step.  I move with them, rolling my bag behind me.  Closing my eyes I try some deep breathing.

But after 5 breaths, I can’t sense a slowing in my pulse, so I stop.

I know it’s not just the teleporting that has me worked up.  It’s why I’m traveling from home in Seattle back to where I grew up in Cedar Rapids.  To bury my father.

It was unexpected.  But then most heart attacks are.  I am surprised we don’t have a cure for this yet.  We can travel the globe in an instant, but stopping plaque buildup in coronary arteries is too much of a stretch for science.

While they’re at it, couldn’t scientists find a cure for telo-sickness too?

Movement disrupts my thoughts.  The portly man in front of me hands his ticket to the clerk.

“ID?” the clerk asks.

The man fumbles for his wallet.  I roll my eyes. Technology can get sophisticated as it wants, but it never fails that we get stuck in lines.  Like herded cattle.

“Joshua Browning.”  The clerk reads, comparing ticket and ID. 

Portly man nods.

The clerk stamps his ticket and waves him toward the cylindrical chamber embedded in the wall.  It’s identical to the others along the wall.

The frosted glass door slides open automatically.  The man just barely fits into the opening with his suitcase.  The door closes.  And he could be in Costa Rica right now.

A wave of emotion barrels into me.  I wish I was headed anywhere else in the world.

“Next,” says the clerk.

I reach into my jacket for ticket and ID.

“Marin Starling,” he says.  Checking that my ticket, ID and face match, he appears satisfied and stamps my ticket.

“Thanks,” I say.

My small suitcase trundles along behind me as I approach the opening in the wall.

Right after I enter, the frosted glass slides shut.  It’s a good thing I’m not claustrophobic.

A robotic female voice instructs me to “Insert ticket into the cyan slot.”  It takes me a couple times to insert, since my hands aren’t very steady.

The vaguely British voice says, “Thank you, you will be arriving in Cedar Rapids momentarily.”

Bluish numbers above the ticket slot illuminate the otherwise white walls.

         3

         2

         1

I sharply inhale the last breath of Seattle air and dissolve.

<     >

I exhale in an identical telo-tube in the Cedar Rapids station.  My head is swimming and I have to put my hand on the wall to steady myself.

The same female voice prompts me as the glass door slides open, “Please exit the telo-chamber and enjoy your stay.”

I close my eyes.  My hand is still on the wall when I start to feel it.  The tingles at the tip of each finger.

I whisper a curse.  The telo-sickness doesn’t usually start this soon.

The female voice prompts me to leave again.  It sounds exasperated, though I know it’s a computer generated recording.

Grabbing the handle of my bag, I stride out of the chamber and the telo-station.  But I don’t hail a hover-taxi.

I told my family that I’d be arriving this evening.

I walk to my favorite coffee shop a few blocks away.  The only sign is the block lettering on the door: House of Aromas.  My lip curls into an unbidden smile upon seeing it again.

If I didn’t dissolve into a sick mess every time I telo-ed, I would come to this shop more often.  Spend a lazy Saturday afternoon sipping chai tea and then pop over to Bologna for dinner.

After ordering a White Tie Mocha, one of the oversize poufy chairs calls to me.  I realize I’ve left the book I’m reading at home.  Great.

I fetch one of the magazines off the rack.  Flipping through the pages but not really reading, I try not to think of what keeps bubbling up in my mind.  The reason I’m here.

Guilt almost tugs at me.  I should have gone straight to Mom’s house.  But I’m sure my sisters and brother are already there.  Perhaps accompanied by the aunts and uncles who also had to telo in.

We’ll be spending most of the day tomorrow together at the wake.  I don’t know how I’m going to get through that much hugging and shaking hands and teary eyes and pretending to know distant relatives or friends of the family I’ve met once before when I was 10.  Especially without the jokes and inappropriate comments of my father.

The thought of how I’m going to get through the day after tomorrow bubbles up.  And the day after that.

I set the shaking coffee mug down.  My hands and feet are tingling now, but I doubt telo-sickness is only the reason I’m so jittery.

<     >

The hover taxi drops me off at the house I grew up in.  I shake my arms in a vain attempt to get rid of the tiny pinpricks that have traveled up my arms.

As I walk up the front steps, I can hear the din of voices already.  My ear may not be able to discern it.  But there’s a baritone missing.

My chest contracts and there’s a pressure constricting my breath.  A new symptom.

Walking in the door, I’m greeted by all the voices, with hugs and kisses.

I drag my bag to my old room.  It was converted to a study years ago, but there’s an air mattress in it now. 

I won’t be able to go to sleep for a while.  The tingles have traveled to my entire core and thighs.  So I pull some books off the shelves tha cover an entire wall of the room. 

I was so angry when he built these shelves.  It was jealousy.  I would have loved an entire wall of shelves in here when this was my room.  And Dad didn’t build them until I left.

Curling up on the mattress, I flip through the books until the words get blurry and the photos make my head spin.  Dizziness sets in as I will myself to sleep.  That never works though.  I swallow 2 pills and hope I sleep through the third symptom.

<     >

No such luck.  My first action of the day is hugging the toilet.

“Marin?  Are you okay?”

I answer my younger sister wordlessly.

“Do you need anything?”

Darcy doesn’t see my eye roll.  I mumble a no.

“I’ll se if Mom has some Sprite.  And crackers.”

Oh, good.  Something else for me to put in the toilet.

The final symptom pauses long enough for me to take a shower and put on my black pantsuit.

I’ll have to wear the black dress tomorrow.  My stomach flips uncomfortably.

I’ve always worn a lot of black.  It’s classic, it’s slimming, it looks good on everyone, and it matches everything.  But the color takes on new meaning today.

Sadness.  Mourning.  Emptiness.  It’s fitting that we shroud ourselves in a void.

“Are you ready?” Darcy interrupts my thoughts.

“Yeah, yeah.  One second.”  I reach into my bag for my necklace.  It’s a silver wing charm, with the feathers molded individually giving it dimensionality.  I’ve gotten lots of compliments on it.  ‘Bird wings are so in right now!’  But it’s not a bird wing.

I bought it for myself the day of my grandfather’s funeral.  I was by chance that I stumbled upon it online that day.  But when I saw it, I knew I needed it.  I knew I would need it today.

I fasten the small clasp around my neck.  A small smile plays across my lips as I feel the coolness of the metal against my chest.  I can get through this.

<     >

Folding myself into a pew at the funeral home, I try to be as inconspicuous as possible.  Sitting is a relief, but being in one place too long also makes me a target for well-meaning but chatty semi-relatives.  And because I’m constantly wondering if I need to make a dash for the toilet or chew on another Tums, I’m in no mood to deal with any of that.

Though I know I’d be just as cranky about the prospect of small talk, even if wasn’t suffering the final symptom of telosickness.

“Hey,” says Leah quietly.  My older sister slides in next to me.  She squeezes my hand and we share a look.

Darcy would ask me all sorts of questions, how I am, what I’m feeling, am I feeling better from this morning and on.  But Leah just knows.  She has an even quieter nature than I do, yet we are almost always on the same wavelength.

“Is Mitch here?” I ask about her husband.  “I don’t think I’ve seen him.”

“Not yet.  He had some event in Brazil this afternoon.”

“Annual picnic?”

“Some golf findraiser, I think.”

“Oh.”

“I can’t believe Robbie isn’t here yet.”

There could have been a telo-station in his bedroom that ported right to the funeral home parking lot, and our youngest sibling still would have been late.  I smiled.

“I mean of all the things to be late for…” Leah stops.  She can’t say the words.  And I realize I don’t want her to.  My big sister saying what had happened, admitting that we’d never see our father  again, that the man who taught us to ski and hovercraft and shoot would not be able to teach us anymore.

“Oh,” I say, keeping a tight leash on my wavering vocal chords, “you know Robbie.  He’d be late to a party at his own house.”

Leah smiles.  She squeezes my hand again, then rises to hug one of our aunts.  She married into our family on our Mom’s side and she’s one of the chattiest people I know.  Leah and she start talking, and I’m thankful I’m the second oldest because I make the selfish move to forgo chatting.  Pretending like someone from across the room has called me, I edge out the opposite side of the pew and keep going.

Walking out of the room to find the kitchen area, I nearly run into Mitch.

“Hey, I thought Leah said you were at some work thing in Brazil,” I say.

“I was,” he smiles.  “But I was able to get out of it before the drinking started.”

“Sounds like you missed the best part.  Leah’s over there.”

“Ah, Aunt Becky.  Maybe I’ll wait until she’s done.”

“You’re gonna be here for a week.”

Mitch laughs.  But then his smile fades. “How are you?”

The question of the day.  I almost answer ‘fine’ like I would any day. Or ‘it’s hard, but we’re pulling through’ like I’ve said to my relative here.  But I can’t make my mouth form the words.  My jaw flaps open while my brain spins for some kind of response.

Mitch stops me with his hand on my arm, “I’m sorry.”

One corner of my mouth turns up, grateful.

Leah appears at my side.  “You’re early,” she beams.  Mitch embraces her, “I’m later than I wanted to be.”

I leave them to coo to each other in private.

I resume my search for the snack area, but have to make a detour to the bathroom – a second wave of the telo-sickness nausea seems to have hit.

<     >

After the wake, my immediate family shuffles into our childhood home. 

“So, who’s hungry?” Mom asks.

“Come on, Mom.  You aren’t cooking,” says my brother, Robbie.

It has to be the only time he’s refused home-cooking.  Even during college, my younger brother would telo home when Mom was making one of his favorite meals.  Those recipes made an appearance weekly.

Mom blinks.  Unsure of what to do with herself now.  Leah takes her elbow and guides her to the kitchen table.

Darcy grabs some wine glasses from the cabinent.  I get a bottle from the pantry and insert it into the combo instant chiller-and-decorker we all went in to buy Mom for Christmas last year.

Robbie offers to go get pizza.  Dad had always refused getting a take-out telo port installed in place of the microwave.  He was old-fashioned that way.  Leah announces that she’ll go with Robbie.

Darcy pours for the three of us.  A semi-dry white instead of her usual choice of a lightly bubbled sweet wine.  I realize it’s probably the only thing Mom has on hand, but the selection matches our mood.

Darcy starts talking about the guy one of our cousins brought.  A judgmental spew about age and success, but I can’t disagree.  Mom nods along too.

My younger sister runs out of opinions on the matter and silence ensues.

“I’m – I miss him already,” Mom sighs quietly.  Like a whisper.  But not of a secret.  Just something you don’t want to say out loud.  Something you don’t want to be true.

My eyes are glassy with the welling tears.  I scoot my chair closer to her and take her hand that isn’t clutching the wine glass.

One tear has already escaped and moves down my mother’s cheek.

“Oh, do we have to start doing this now?” Darcy says before going into a full on blubber.

I clear my throat, “I’ll get tissues.”

<     >

The next morning I feel sick.  But this time I know it’s not the telo-sickness.  Robbie decided to bring home a bottle of Jack with the pizza the night before.  And like a true Starling get-together my siblings and I made it disappear.

A soft knock on the door.  I groan a response to the knocker.

“How are you doing this morning?” Leah asks.

I narrow my eyes and groan again.

She suppresses a laugh, but a smile still plays on her lips.  “I thought so.  You challenged Robbie last night.”

The fuzzy whiskey-soaked memories float to the surface.  Before I can groan for a third time, Leah hands me a Sprite and a sausage biscuit.  Instead, I make a noise of gratitude through my full mouth.

I hear a moan from beside me.  “Oh, is that breakfast?” comes Darcy’s voice.

“What are you doing in here?” I ask.

“You said I could sleep here.”

“Why?  You have a matrass set up in your old room too.”

“Since Mom turned it into her flower arranging studio, there’s bugs in there.”

Leah laughs.  And I glare at her.

But the smile slides from her face quickly.  “Hurry up and eat, then get ready.”

The mood in the room instantly becomes chilly.  Darcy says, “I need to take a shower.”

“Get in line,” says Leah.  “We’re going by age.  Mom’s in the shower now.”

“That’s not fair!  I’ll be almost last,” Darcy whines.  Then, realizing there’s a more pressing issue, “Where’s my breakfast sandwich?”

Leah smiles and tosses her the bag.

<     >

Aside from the small skirmish that ensued after Robbie skipped ahead of Darcy and me in the shower line, the morning went smoothly.

We take the hover-car to the funeral home.  Leah and Robbie give eulogies.  The oldest and youngest.  I think it’s fitting.  And I’m glad I don’t have to be up there in front of family and friends trying not to cry.

Because I tear up as both of them speak.  Darcy’s head is buried in my shoulder.  And Mom’s hand is clasped tightly to mine. 

Then the words are over.

Robbie takes his place at my father’s side for the final time, joined by some of my uncles and two college friends of my father’s.  They carry Dad out for his last hover-car ride.  The rest of my family follows.

We lay him to rest.

I lay flowers on top of the casket, before it’s lowered.  The pastor presses a few buttons on the side of it.  I wonder if he would have liked that.  Such a modern way to be buried.  But most of the casket is wood.  Which I think he would have liked.

And then it’s over. 

We shuffle back to the house.  Our mother’s house.  There are still a few things to be ironed out.  The will.  Which is sorted easily.  Then there are letters for each of us.  Which are harder.

Most are things he had already said to me.  How much love, how proud, how happy.

But one last piece of advice stays with me.

                           I know you are rarely afraid to go your own way. 

Just make sure you are going the way that’s best for you. 

Tried and true can get you where you need to go.

I smile, through my tears.  He’s right.

<     >

The hover-taxi takes me past the telo-station.  And stops in front of the old airfield.

The ticket back to Seattle is almost twice the telo fee.  But I know he would appreciate this homage to his passion for the ways of the past.

The plane takes off.  There’s a rush I feel in my gut.  I remember the first time I felt it.  Dad was sitting next to me as we left for a family vacation.  And smiling.