Stuck In Sedona

It had happened... Again.

Another transference in time, but this time the type of transference that left your throat dry and your hair frizzy.

I looked around trying to figure out where this stupid machine had zapped Zena and I this time. It just so happened that this zap was to a podunk town. It had to be at least 90 degrees here. I could feel beads of sweat forming on my forehead and upper lip. 

My current outfit was of no help and I needed to do something about it. I picked up a dusted broken beer bottle from the side of the road shredding my velvet dress near my torso leaving my maroon designer dress as a cropped top and long skirt. Still feeling stifled by the dry air and beaming sun I shimmied the bottom of my skirt up to my thighs and tied a knot at the side fashioning a sensibly shorter skirt.

Red-rock buttes, steep canyon walls, and pine forests gazed at me, covering acres of the land. About 400 feet to my left I barely made out a sign that wrote "Sedona Population of 1200".

Where is the population? I thought to myself. 

Had there been a zombie apocalypse that just never made it to history books?

Arizona, is the foulest state known to man. At least for me, I was never a big fan of dust bugs in your mouth and scorpions in your pants. 

I was growing frantic considering I could hear nothing other than the wind blowing through my hair. A dropped pin could honestly echo through the emptied town’s streets. If I died right now no one would know, just me, the dust bugs, and the scorpions. I began to ponder upon the fact that I had no idea where Zena was, nor did I have any idea where to start looking. This entire process was becoming strenuous and unbearable. All I knew is, I had to start looking fast. I remembered that the longer we were disconnected the more likely it was that we could end up stuck here. 

Every time we traveled through time was different, it got easier and we remember more as we get more experienced bouncing through time. Nevertheless, I sincerely and utterly regretted tampering with the family heirlooms around six months ago. When Zena and I finally became legal and read what Mom wrote in her will, we didn’t imagine ending up in situations like this. When reading that we were “gifted” and that Zena and I were to go on many “adventures together” later on in our lives, I assumed she meant the basics. Something along the lines of an all-inclusive at Disney World or Cancun after spending two and half years saving up from our corporate jobs. I would have never imagined that our lives would become this twisted or complicated. Or for a lack of better words, straight up stressful. 

This entire thing really was an accident. I remember looking through the heirlooms that were addressed to Zena and I. We first opened the note that read “ To My Beautiful and Brave Daughters”. She went on about how no matter what life had to throw at us, we would be okay as long as we stuck together. She quite literally meant what she wrote, as for every time we traveled to a new place or a new time Zena and I had exactly 24 hours to find each other and get back home. 

We came to realize that each place we traveled to was not a random one, it would be a place that mom had lived in before or had passed through. One that she had visited in one of her many past lives. 

Our mom is what you would on paper identify as an “ immortal” sort of speak. For every lifetime she's lived in, she dies, and comes back to life ten years later. It just so happened that this time around, in our lifetime specifically, she decided to have kids. Whether or not Zena and I are immortal is to be determined but whatever the case is, mom gave us the gift of living a very full life through time traveling. 

The lack of people in this ghost town urged me to pay attention to finer details in my surroundings so that I could figure out what period we traveled to. The scenery itself closely resembled something straight out of a Western movie. I discreetly awaited a cowboy to come busting out of the saloon doors longing for a shoot-out. Or even better a bar brawl right in front of me, but instead the most exciting thing going on around me was the blowing tumbleweeds rustling on the ground. 

 Judging by the low dark brown vintage car that was parked a few miles from where I stood, I would presume that we traveled to sometime within the 1900s. I ran towards the car smashing the glass that was already cracked in the right window. Reaching my hand through the inside of the car I was able to open the door. Hoping and praying that there was gas in the tin can I started the car. To my disbelief the engine revved and I was so relieved. 

I had picked up a few tricks as time went on. For every time I needed to look for Zena, I would close my eyes and tune out everything that was going on around me. All I had to do was focus on the deafening silence and picture Zena in my head. Through this I would get vague images of where she was and what she was doing. I would drive on nothing but pure intuition and instinct, and it was never wrong. Listening to my heart led me to my sister every time, and I was banking on it being right this time too because I had already wasted enough time here. 

The sun was beginning to set, so I checked my mirrors, and took off on the straight road ahead of me in search of my sister.