Echoes of Time

Morning at last. The pinkish hue of dawn peeked through the slits in the closed blinds. He thought the night would never end. Each time he was woken from the dream, the room was dark and his clock pointed to a time many hours before daybreak. But he was free at last. He looked at the clock now in the pale light. It read 7:05.

Today would be different, he decided. He would leave the apartment. A new kind of determination swept through him as he readied himself for this day. Before leaving, he glanced at the digital clock in the kitchen. 7:50 shone in glowing green. He nodded to himself, satisfied, as he stepped out of the door and locked it behind him.

His footsteps echoed down the hall to the parking garage. The familiarity of that lonely feeling made him smile wanly. Yes, this was the way things should be. His car was isolated from the others and the irony of it almost made him laugh. He started up the car and the displays flashed to life. 7:52.

It was good to be out again, good to travel somewhere. He left without a specific destination in mind, but knew where he would end up, nevertheless. There was a bookstore with a coffee shop inside where Kyra worked. He assumed, and secretly hoped, that he would find her there now. She usually worked the morning shifts. He knew he would never have the nerve to ask her out, and silently cringed at the thought, but he just liked talking to her about books they’d read and hearing her voice.

He turned absentmindedly into the parking lot, which was nearly empty. Most people in this little town weren’t active until later in the morning on weekends. The bookstore opened at 8:00, and it was 8:06 now. He took a deep breath to calm the butterflies in his stomach and stepped out of the car. The morning air was surprisingly stifled without its usual crispness. He chewed his lips and brushed away a disconcerting feeling as he walked up to the doors. A bell chimed above him as he entered and an employee shelving books greeted him with a smile. He returned the smile as warmly as he could and headed directly to the coffee shop at the back of the store. To his surprise, the lights were off. Closed on weekends.

He stared blankly at the sign, shock and rage building beneath the surface. How could this coffee shop, which has always been open seven days a week, be closed on weekends now? Before the fury could take over, the rational part of his brain told him that it was probably due to staffing issues. Other local businesses were having to limit their hours due to the mass exodus that started last year. The already-small town had decreased in population by 30% within the past six months, with more people on their way out. He wondered why he wasn’t one of them.

With his earlier mood now dampened by this new development, he decided to browse the books instead. Perhaps he would find something new to read. He reached into his pocket to grab his phone to check the time but realized with disappointment he had left his phone at home. This day was getting worse and worse, and he found himself wishing he had never left his apartment in the first place. He looked out one of the windows and realized the sun was already high in the sky. As though taking notice of his surroundings for the first time, he realized there were people swarming the bookshelves around him. Trying not to panic, he approached the man closest to him.

“Excuse me, what time is it?”

The man acted as though he hadn’t heard him and continued to walk down the aisle of bookshelves. Frustrated and embarrassed, he walked back to the front of the store to go back to his car. When he heard the bell ring upon his exit, he realized with horror that the bookstore had been silent.

He rushed to his car, a feeling of dread settling in his heart. Though the sun was high in the sky, it produced no heat. When he turned on his car, the numbers on the display flashed 10:12. It was impossible. He knew he had not been in the store for over two hours. Before he pulled out of the parking lot, he looked back at the store windows, but their surfaces were too reflective for him to see inside. Surely, he had imagined the immense silence of the bookstore or had zoned out and those two hours he spent inside had been lost to his daydreaming. His grip on reality was slipping. Again. And that terrified him most of all.

He parked his car in the same spot in the parking garage, the spaces around him still empty. He hurriedly locked the car doors and ran up the steps to his apartment. He did not encounter anyone in the garage, in the stairwell, or in the hallway.

When he got to his apartment, he immediately noticed that the lighting had changed. The brightness of the sun was gone, and instead a rosy glow issued from his half-open blinds in the living room. Shaking, he walked to the kitchen and looked at the clock. The garish numbers on the oven clock read 7:50. Defeated, he stumbled to his couch and collapsed. Not. Again. A sudden exhaustion overcame him, and he felt his eyes drooping. Before he drifted into unconsciousness, he glanced at the door, which was locked, though he didn’t remember sliding the bolt when he came in.

===========================================================================

He awoke with a start in his bed. He could see that the sun had not quite risen, but the sky wore the color of that deep glowing blue just before dawn. Groggily, he reached for his phone which was charging on his bed stand. The time was 6:29. Saturday. His head was foggy. What a crazy dream. It felt so real. Often he had vivid dreams, but nothing quite like that, or at least nothing that he could remember so clearly.

He slowly made his way out of bed and got ready for the day. The urge to leave his apartment was still burning within him, and he decided to go to the bookstore. For real this time. When he was done getting ready, it was close to 7:45. He struggled to find his keys for a bit, and when he was about to leave, the clock read 7:50. A shiver prickled his skin and he sat on the couch, staring at the clock. He watched it change to 7:51… 7:52… 7:53… 7:54… He nodded to himself and left the apartment.

The drive to the bookstore was shorter than he remembered, and this time a slight breeze invigorated him as he stepped out of the car. Though the bookstore had just opened, there were already quite a few cars in the parking lot. The bell chimed as he walked in, but no one was there to greet him. The place was bustling with customers. He moved past them to the back where the coffee shop was. There was already a line, and a woman with short dark hair was at the register taking orders. But there was no sign of Kyra.

He felt his heart sink. When he got up to the counter, he asked, “Is Kyra working today?”

The woman looked slightly taken aback, not expecting the question.

“Who?”

He tried to maintain his composure. “She… usually works at the counter on Saturday mornings.”

“Oh. Must’ve been before I started working here,” she said curtly.

He nodded slowly and tried to press down that nagging feeling. “I see. Well, I’ll take an Americano in any case.”

He sat at one of the tables and set his Americano in front of him. Perhaps Kyra had quit in the time he had stopped coming. But he hadn’t been gone that long, had he? He reached into his pocket for his phone but found he had left it at home. Begrudgingly, he walked back up to the counter.

“Sorry to bother you again, but do you happen to have the time? I forgot my phone at home.”

The woman at the counter just stared at him stonily but didn’t respond. He averted his gaze and quickly stalked back to the table. He tried not to pay attention to the feeling of her stare as he sipped his Americano. Not being able to stand it any longer, he got up and started walking among the bookshelves. He wandered to the science fiction section and pulled out a copy of The Lathe of Heaven. It had been one of Kyra’s favorites. He found an armchair in a corner and began to flip through the pages.

His trance was broken by an employee who had approached him and was gently tapping him on the shoulder.

“Excuse me, sir. I’m sorry to disturb you, but we’ll be closing in ten minutes.”

“Wh-what?”

He rubbed his eyes and shook his head in confusion. “But… I just got here…”

The employee looked at him with pity. Had he dozed off? Surely not for several hours.

Without another word, he got up from the armchair and swiftly walked out of the store. Only when he got to his car did he realize that he had taken the book with him. Nobody came after him, so he placed the book in the passenger seat and left.

The sky was dark by the time he got back to his apartment. He glanced at the clock, which read 11:18, and went straight to his bed, where he collapsed in a heap.

===========================================================================

He awoke with the feeling of a weight pressing down on his chest. It was gentle, but not insubstantial. As his mind cleared from the previous night, he realized it was an arm draped across his chest. He did not turn to look at the person next to him. Instead, he carefully reached for his phone to check the time. 3:33.

“What time is it?” murmured a voice in his ear.

It was a strangely familiar feminine voice, but there was something off about it.

“Not time to wake up yet,” he whispered into the dark around him.

He could hear the rhythmic soft breathing beside him, and he slowly lifted himself from the bed. The arm slid off him limply but still he did not look at the motionless figure it belonged to. He nonchalantly went about getting ready in the dark, being as quiet as possible. When he went to grab his keys, he noticed the oven clock read 3:33. He heard a shifting of fabric and saw from the corner of his eye a figure sitting up in the bed. Quickly, he opened the door, shutting and locking it behind him. He fast-walked down the hallway but stopped abruptly when he thought he heard the click of a door at the end of the hallway. Back where his apartment was. He continued swiftly, and he could swear he heard the padding of feet echoing off the walls in time with his own footsteps. He flew down the stairs and fumbled for his key fob. The car lights flashed in the dark, and he dashed toward them. Getting into the car and starting it up took mere seconds. As he backed up the car to leave, he saw a figure at the bottom of the stairwell in his rearview mirror. Without a second glance, he pressed on the accelerator and took off down the road.

He watched the digital clock on his dash go up from 3:33 to 3:34 to 3:35 and onward. He sighed with relief, but a great melancholy washed over him. Something that had been a part of him for so long was finally breaking free, but it was painful to let go. He noticed that he had automatically taken the road that led to the bookstore. He turned off the road as soon as he was able. He knew that it would not be there. Just like she would not be there.

He kept driving on the road that took him out of town, and he passed the next town and the next, not even stopping when the sun was fully in the sky. He glanced at the clock every now and then to check that it was behaving as it should.

When he finally stopped for gas, he noticed a book in the passenger seat. It was The Lathe of Heaven, but the cover was worn and the pages well-read. A flood of memories rushed back to him, and what once was difficult to distinguish between dream and reality, was no longer. He picked it up gingerly and opened to the first page. Underneath the title, in slanted thin handwriting, he read:

The universe is a very great book, and we are very small readers. I love you through all of space and time.

It was his writing. And it had been his gift to her, years ago. He felt his eyes sting with tears. He closed the book and placed it back on the passenger seat. The emptiness he had felt for so long was slowly being filled with something he couldn’t quite define. It was finally time to leave old endings behind and go toward new beginnings.