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.

<     >

Caution: Geese Nesting

I drive up to the roof of the parking structure.  It's a Monday and finally a nice day in March.  We've had a horrible winter and I want to enjoy as much of the outdoors as I can.  Even if it's only as I walk into the office building in the morning and out in the evening. 

But I am greeted by beady eyes.  Black.  Soulless.  The small head pivots as I drive by the median in the middle of the parking lot: it’s new perch.  It’s watching me.

I watch back as I gather my bags from the safety of my car.  Keeping it’s gaze, I slide out of my vehicle.  The connection is broken as I walk around my car.  It’s not that far to the glass door of the stairwell. 

I walk out into the open of the rooftop parking.  Making a break for the stairs.  But I don’t run.  What if it gets spooked?  What if it flies at me, beating those gray wings the pointed black beak aiming for my face? 

Don’t geese attack people?  The thought pounds in my head.

But we just stare.  I reach the door and safety.  The stairwell is enclosed by glass paneling.  I won’t see open air until I’m down a level on the ground ready to cross the street to my office building.  And the goose won’t see me.  As long as he doesn’t move.  And he doesn’t.

Monday Evening

It has been another day at work, and I forgot about the staring contest from the morning until I step outside again. 

Surely he’s not still there.  Surely. 

I am sure when I am inside the glass of the stairwell on the roof.  No goose.

Driving to the gym, which is in another office building in the corporate park where I work, I forget again. 

I decide to go for a jog outside today.  It’s still beautiful outside and after how cold it’s been, I’m longing to be outside. 

I’ve never run the trails that connect the handful of offices.  Or half-run / half-walk as I actually do.  It’s intervals.  And I get tired.

I’m walking around the lake easing into a jog as I approach a downward slope.  Okay, maybe I do most of my running downhill.  And I see the sign.  Caution Geese Nesting. With a silhouette of a goose.  In case I had never seen one.

Wouldn’t that have been nice to know eight hours ago.

Two black gloves.

Two black gloves.  They are calm and sure.  And deadly.  Or they were.  Two minutes ago.  In the lower level.  Where screams of agony would go unheard and cries for mercy unnoticed.

There is a spot of blood on the left wrist.  It will dry and become a part of the black leather.

In the elevator now.  The right pointer directs it up to the surface.  Now they fold and rest.  And wait for the elevator to glide up a few floors.  Plain beige walls slip by in the windowed box.  Then the atrium appears.  Pink granite floors graced with leafy plants.

The gloves unfold as the elevator dings open.  They swing towards the closest revolving door.

Not a soul left in the building.

Gloves grasp the chilled bar of the door and push.  Turn, turn, turn.  The chillier air greets and the gloves are enveloped into the black of the night.