Out of Time

Cairo

450 BCE

The sun beat down against the dusty streets of Cairo like searing fire that morning, heating the light stones to nearly burn underfoot and send all but the most ambitious street vendors to the cool shade of covered tents and bazaars. When Ra declared a day of heavenly light, all wise Egyptians knew to keep their eyes low and stay indoors.

But the boys who raced along those Cairo streets that morning knew nothing of the Sun God Ra or his unyielding power over his domain. Perhaps Helios had driven the grand chariot closer to the earth than usual, but there was no time to waste. Stop-overs in the strange lands beyond the seas came rarely if at all, and a day loose in port was hardly enough to explore an entire city. 

Winding through the nearly empty streets at pace, the boys tracked the unknowable spirit of adventure that all boys know, ducking under the covered shade and back out, past the strange tan-and-dark-skinned locals in their clothes, all silks and shawls, and covers, to where the gentlest moisture on the breeze beckoned, and the echo of drums.

They emerged onto the rooftops above the Nile, that great river said to stretch impossibly far into the lands beyond the ocean, further maybe than even the River Styx, where vibrant waving flags ringed in gold shimmered and flickered at the prow of proud longships.

Scant moments passed before the haunting echo of horns swelled up to herald the passage of some great king. Dotting the decks and the docks were a busy swarm of sailors and soldiers and attendants, each shining in gold and bold colors that accented their skin black like the ocean’s rage. 

Aboard the flagship sat a king, and his nobles, and those who must have been his children, staring back at the great city of Cairo as they aimed once again for those lands beyond the ocean. 

The music swelled with glory and sadness and yearning, like the stars shining above the earth that years for them, and for a moment Alecsandro stared out, meeting the dark brown eyes of another young boy, just about his age, standing at the king’s shoulder. 

But the song passed, and eventually the longships disappeared beyond the riverbend, and there was far too much of Cairo left to explore.

Cape Town

1550 CE

“Christ, you can’t get a drink anywhere in this country,” Alexander groaned, earning a smack on the back of the head from the cabinmaster, a devoutly religious man. Rather than another lecture on how he was too young to be drinking and too young to be a part of an expedition anyway, Alexander made his peace and veered off, wandering towards the coast. 

“You shouldn’t be out here,” an African voice spoke from the darkness, and Alexander jumped from where he sat staring at the ocean just past the lights of the town, stammering something about his right to be part of the expedition.

“No, there are lions and cape buffalo,” the voice said, and with a shining smile and glinting eyes that shone in the moonlight, the other boy stepped out into the moonlight. “I don’t want you to get eaten.”

“Really?” Alexander asked, suddenly far more afraid of the trees behind him. 

“No, I am just joking,” the other boy said, and yet rather than being upset, Alexander couldn’t help but laugh. Those eyes seemed friendly and welcoming. Somehow familiar.

“You are really an explorer?” the African asked, and with the brief preparation of a young man still getting used to telling stories, he began to share tales of his journey from the Netherlands, of the lands beyond Africa, and their quest to the West Indies, a land of wonder and mystery. 

And as he did, the African’s eyes lit up and he shared his own stories, of the animals beyond Alexander’s comprehension, of the wild and powerful beauty of his continent, of the grand traditions of his people, until the sun began to rise the next day. 

“Before I go,” Alexander yawned, dreading the work of the next day. “What is your name?”

“Lotanna,” the African said, and Alexander vowed to remember him. 

Off the Coast of Cote D’Ivoire

1700 CE

The moonlight shined in on the swaying interior of the ship already slick and stinking with vomit, and lit the face of the young king — beaten, bleeding, and stripped down naked, but still sitting proudly despite the echoing sobs that filled the air. A leader’s first role was to his people, and though the foreigners had betrayed him and chained those same people, it was his responsibility to give them strength.

The sound of quiet footsteps broke the silence, and Lotanna steeled himself. He would not bow. He would not show them the weakness they desired. No matter what. 

There was a jingling clink of metal, and the boat creaked, shining on the blond hair of that missionary, the one who had betrayed them. 

Lotanna growled. 

“The spirits of the fallen will haunt you and your children!”

The white man, Alex, raised his face streaming with tears. 

“Great king, I did not know,” Alex said. “They asked to trade with you. To learn the beauty of your cities. They lied to me.”

“Your words mean nothing to me! Nor to my people,” Lotanna growled.

Around them, the others began to stir. 

“No, you are right,” Alex said, hanging his head. “Words mean nothing. But actions do.”

With a second tinkling clink, the gears of the cells opened. 

“They are sleeping,” Alex said. “Almost all of them. Take this vessel, please, King Lotanna.”

Standing tall, Lotanna stared into the eyes of the missionary, searching for something. For a moment, he thought he might find it, until the whip crack of the white men’s metal deathsticks lit the air, and Alex fell forward, knocking open the cell doors as he collapsed to the ground lifeless.

“To me, my family!” Lotanna yelled, striding forward towards the shocked man fumbling for a second deathstick. “For freedom!”

Gettysburg

July 4, 1863

The songs that echoed across the hills, the lights of celebration that flickered against the c barely touched Lotanna’s face as he strode from tent to tent, demanding to see the wounded. The Fourth of July. The birthday of the nation that had enslaved his ancestors, and now seemed poised to tear itself to pieces. 

And yet, still Lotanna continued his own march through the sprawling camp of the Union soldiers, eyes suspiciously on his uniform. Escaped from slavery. Emancipated soon if the rumors were true. Sent to the mud and the muck to fight in bloody, brutal combat against the men who he knew had beaten and broken his people, but still cried out for their mothers and their brothers and their children as they died. 

And yet it seemed the longest, most exhausting wars were yet to come. The war to be simply looked at as another man. Another American.

All through that night Lotanna strode along the muddy hills, watching the lights in the distance where the confederate camp surely waited, surrendered or retreating, he wasn’t sure. He didn’t care. The confederates might have treated Alex, that effervescent soldier who never let you pay for a drink if he could help it. They might send him over in the morning, sick of those stories of his wife and children that always seemed like memories you’d been there to share, those smiling eyes like those of some long lost brother.

But Lotanna could not wait, called with his fellow black soldiers to another battle on another hill in the heart of the country that had enslaved his ancestors, and killed his friend.

Outside of Montgomery, Alabama

1962

With a weary sigh, Alex shut off the car and tried to roll the kinks out of his neck. With the kids off in college, the company thought he’d needed some travel, something to spice up his position as a senior partner, but all that meant was long hours on the road. The streetlights lit the old brick buildings in a warm yellow light, beckoning towards Proud Tim’s as Alex got out onto the quiet, misty street. It was late, but the warm glowing sign for Tim’s, just a little Open against the fogged glass, beckoned him in. 

“Sit anywhere you want,” the bartender called as Alex made his way to the bar, marveling at the relics of southern pride that dotted the walls, of races and dances and moments of celebration. There was no one else in the bar save one man, a well-dressed black man seemingly also off the road relegated to the “colored” seating. 

Never one to drink alone, Alex ordered his whiskey and made his way to the black man, stopped only by a cautionary word from the bartender. 

“I’m not looking for trouble,” Alex said. “Just lookin’ to share some company.”

Feeling the bartender’s uneasy eyes behind him, Alex strode to the black man. 

“Do you mind if I sit, sir?” he said. 

“Sir?” the black man said with a wink. “You can’t tell me that you think I’ve gotten old, do you Alex?”

“Oh, come on Lotanna,” Alex said. “You’ve got a whole lot more gray in that beard than the last time I saw you.”

They laughed like only old friends could, and then in a distinct moment each man stopped, staring at the other’s eyes. 

“Have we met before?” Lotanna asked. “Because I have the strangest feeling…”

“I… I think I have it too,” Alex answered. “Where are you from?”

“North Carolina.”

“New Jersey.”

A comfortable silence fell between the two of them. 

“Well that can’t be it,” Alex said. “We simply must find out how though.”

Behind them, the door swung open, bringing with it the rowdy voice of men unafraid of who their words affect, including the sole black man sitting in the back of the bar. At their drunken calls to arms, and the uneasy glances of the bartender, Lotanna gave Alex a knowing nod and picked up his hat. 

“Well I’m afraid, my friend, that we will have to wait a little bit longer,” he said, graciously slipping out the back of the bar. 

Milwaukee

March 2020

Alex had served on the force for more than 30 years, and he had seen his fair share of protests, but tonight, something was different. With their handcrafted signs held aloft by masked faces of every color, something felt different, like the start of some grand march forward.

No, not the start. Like the next step in the irrevocable march of time. 

Astride his horse, Alex paced the line of riot shields watching the screaming protesters, waving flags, demanding justice. Things had not been this bad, not in Milwaukee, not in his lifetime, a boiling, frothing outcry for change, and reform. 

Alex was old school. He had been raised in a time before the world was so conscious, so aware. But his time in the force was coming to an end, and the world would change, like it always had. Change… sometimes change was a good thing.

Out in the crowd, someone held aloft a massive speaker, pumping songs of defiance and unity into the air. They were new songs, well after Alex’s time, and yet as the song changed, Alex pulled back so hard his horse nearly threw him. 

There was a different song there, a song of hope, and weariness, filled with horns of joy and sadnesses paving a road nearly to its end.

Eyes on the crowd, scanning the masked faces, Alex felt utter recognition, a feeling of deja vu, of the past come to the present. But then the call went out to move forward, to scatter the protesters, and hanging back on his horse, Alex could only watch as that song was nearly drowned out by the crashing together of two waves. 

Nearly… but not quite.

Somewhere

Sometime

Alex moved slower than he once did. He was more careful than he had been, watched his diet far more. He’d stopped smoking, restricted his drinking, and happily retired after a long and successful career. 

He refused to give up the car. Even when the wife and the kids had told him that he was getting up there and it was just because they cared, he had dragged them to the DMV with him and made them read his perfect scores for themselves. 

Not out of time just yet. 

The wife had told him to call as soon as he reached the hotel, and so he had, dialing her on the hotel phone just to piss her off. She’d gotten him a smart phone a long time ago, told him he couldn’t be so old fashioned, so he made sure to use it as little as possible. 

It was only a short drive to see the grandkids down South from the hotel, and he wasn’t needed until lunch, so Alex made his way down to the pub just across the street. He’d stopped drinking as much. Didn’t mean a man couldn’t have fun. 

The pub was just how he liked it. Mostly wood, taps behind the bar, a menu scribbled in chalk, real chalk, with a grizzled old woman manning the bar, and someone playing a jazzy piano on the stage. There weren’t many people in, expected for a Tuesday, and so Alex sidled up to the bar, ordering a whiskey. 

Halfway into his glass he spilled it all over the bar, waving off the bartender and ordering another, spinning slowly in his chair. 

The pianist, an old black man with solid black lenses, had settled into the beginnings of a song, something kind of hopeful, and kind of sad, and yet kind of comforting like you had finally come home. The whiskey lay untouched as Alex watched, and when the song ended, the bar fell silent save for the hushed words of the scattered patrons. 

With deliberation due his questionable knees, Alex made his way up to the stage, where the pianist sat, hands still resting delicately on the keys.

“Where did you learn that song?” Alex asked. 

“Not sure,” the man answered. “Must have bubbled up from when I was a kid.”

“I just… I had the feeling,” Alex said, “that I’ve been searching for that song for a very, very long time.”

“Something a little bit hopeful,” the man said. “And a little bit sad.”

“But this one was like you’d finally come home,” Alex finished.

Alex sat down next to the man. 

“Would you play it one more time, Lotanna?” he said. 

Lotanna nodded. 

“I will Alex,” he said, with a smile that disagreed with the tears creeping out from under his black lenses.

Alex put his arm around his longtime friend, and with the gentle movement of Lotanna’s ebony fingers on the ivory keys, they finally sat back and enjoyed that song together. 

They had grown old. But they weren’t out of time just yet.