The World in a Pocket

The sun was unbearable on the back of his neck and Quinn wished that he hadn’t let his friend convince him to wear his hair up that day. “Man-buns are in style again. You have to wear one,” she’d told him as she gave him the style of her choice, and he only allowed her to do so because he hated the look she wore whenever he told her no. 

Sighing, he quickly walked into the small thrift store, the little bell ringing above his head and surprising him. His friend, Ainna, followed behind him while mumbling under her breath about how he didn’t hold the door open for her. She stopped though when her nose bumped into his back, and she looked up at him in confusion, not sure why he wasn’t walking. 

Quinn turned to face Ainna with a mischievous grin on his face as he grabbed her by the arm and tugged her along with him to the men’s section of the store. “What are you doing?” she asked as she reluctantly followed him, a smile of her own carved into her lips. “We’re her to pick out outfits remember. We’re gonna start with me since you’ll take forever.” he spoke with a playful hint of sarcasm, chuckling quietly under his breath as Ainna shoved him forward with a look of annoyance on her face. “Keep the attitude up and I swear I’ll leave you here by yourself. It’s not my fault your parents don’t want to lend you their car.” She rolled her eyes as she skimmed through a rack of nicely aged jeans. 

Quinn huffed at Ainna’s remark and started to search through a rack full of vintage jackets and overcoats. He’d found a few he liked after five minutes of searching and was about to head over to where Ainna was when he noticed a coat on the ground. At first, he was going to walk over it because he didn’t really care for damaged items, but he felt like it was drawing him near it until he eventually had it in his arms. Shrugging, Quinn went towards the dressing rooms where Ainna had a few pairs of jeans waiting for him to try them on. “Hey, look what I found. It’s a weird coat but for some reason I think I want it.” he explained, showing the coat to Ainna. There was nothing special about it, and as he said it was weird. It was black and reached down to the calves, the design somewhere between a mix of Gothic and Victorian. Ainna looked at the coat skeptically. It wasn’t something Quinn would usually wear, and she wasn’t sure he’d have anything to wear it with. 

“If you like it you should buy it. Although it’s a weird contrast to everything else you’ve picked.” Ainna was right though, and Quinn knew it as well. He had a variety of colors in his arms and the black coat looked out of place there. “I’ll just try it on first, to see if I want to buy it.” he told her as he shuffled past her to go to the fitting room. He stepped in and placed all the other items on the small bench inside of the too small room, feeling as if he himself could barely fit in there. Making quick work of pulling off his hoodie, Quinn grabbed the coat and slipped it on easily. Facing the mirror, he checked himself out for a bit. Making silly faces that he thought made him look cool, he tucked his hands away inside of the coats front pockets. Wiggling his eyebrows as he continued to model for himself, he paused when he felt what he thought was a whole inside of the left pocket. Frowning, he removed his hand to find that there was  no visible hole. Confused, he stuck his hand back inside and found a loose string. Giving it a reflexive tug, it felt like he had pulled something inside of him instead. 

His body started to shake and Quinn looked around him thinking it we’re an earthquake. But he noticed that he was the only thing shaking, and he closed his eyes,starting to panic. He pulled his hands out of the coat pockets and then everything stopped, his eyes opening as he surveyed his surroundings. Letting out a surprised yelp, he realized that he was no longer inside of the fitting room; or the thrift store for that matter. Looking around him, Quinn noticed that it was no longer late in the afternoon, but it was now he guessed close to midnight. There were few people around him but they walked past him as if he weren’t there. 

His palms began to sweat and his hands to shake as he tried to figure out where he was. It didn’t seem like he was still in Los Angeles, or the U.S. for that matter. ‘Am I even in the same time period?’ he thought to himself as he noticed that people were wearing trench coats just like the one from the thrift store. ‘The trench coat!’ Quinn quickly looked down and saw that he was still wearing the coat, but his entire outfit under had changed. He now had on black trousers instead of his ripped, paint stained jeans. Instead of his bleached band t-shirt he’d stolen from Ainna, he wore a Victorian style button up that he felt made him look like a while rooster. He didn’t know what the heck was happening but there was one thing that he knew; he needed to get back home. 

Walking forwards, Quinn started to follow the crowd that seemed to all beheading to the same place. Some people were talking to one another and he tried his best to pick up on some of the conversations. A man was talking very vigorously with another and Quinn decided to move closer to them stealthily. “I do not understand why we must dress to butter up bacon for some dizzy age. That fly rink gal-sneaker always takes the jammiest bits of jam for himself, never leaves any for us common folk.” He complained, and Quinn felt even more confused because he couldn’t understand what was being said. The man was speaking in English, yet nothing made sense to him. 

Continuing to follow the crowd, Quinn arrived to a nicely styled castle; the architect Victorian as well so he had to guess that he was somewhere in the United Kingdom during Queen Victoria’s reign. He chuckled to himself as he mentally thanked his world history teacher for being so prominent with making him learn about the U.K. royalty. He was so lost in his thoughts that he’d ended up bumping into someone, causing them both to fall down onto the Brazilian cherry wood floor. A small cry fell from the lips of the victim to his short mindedness, and he immediately caught himself before he fell on top of them.

He looked at the person shocked to see it was a girl, but that wasn’t all; it was a girl that looked exactly like Ainna. The lookalike had a small pout on her lips as she looked up at Quinn, the look on her face told him that she was anything but happy to see him. “Aren’t you poked up or are you a gal-sneaker?” She asked him, her accent similar to everyone else’s but his. He quickly scurried off of her when she spoke, not quite understanding her but recognizing the phrase ‘gal-sneaker’ from when he eavesdropped on the two men. He reached to help her up but she smacked his hand away with her black folding fan. “N-no.” he stuttered, guessing that was an appropriate answer to her question. She held her hand up to him with an expectant look, and confused, Quinn took that as his queue to help her up. She dusted herself off and he watched, still bewildered at how she looked identical to Ainna. “Don’t sell me a dog!” she exclaimed, pointing a finger at him as she was now standing up, facing him with a very frightening look on her face; a look that he knew too well. “Unless you were doing the bear and shot into the barrel you must be a gal-sneaker.” she accused emotionally and he had to guess that a gal-sneaker was a bad thing to be. “I was...em...doing the bear!” he stated, hoping that it would get her to calm down a bit. It didn’t. Her eyebrows furrowed more as a blush dusted her cheeks. “Fool!” she said and walked away briskly, causing Quinn to follow without knowing where she was going. “Wait.” he called out to her, but she didn’t stop, she only accelerated her walking speed. Finally catching up to her, Quinn help her wrist tenderly so that she would not be able to escape, but she did not seem to like that at all. “What is your house, sir.” she finally asked after glaring at him for a moment. Quinn scratched his head and decided to just say his last name. “McKenzie. Quinn McKenzie.” He said and gave her a small smile. She scoffed and tried to pull her hand away. “Father hates for me to be around such giggle mugs, nonetheless to be courted by one.” 

It was now Quinn’s turn to blush. Did he accidentally announce that he would court her? He guessed that his expression gave him away because the lookalike was no longer frowning in his direction. She sighed and looked at him with a reluctant smile. “Bowditch. Ainna Bowditch.” She mimicked his introduction with a small giggle spilling from her lips before she could contain it. Quinn smiled again too, it was Ainna...his Ainna. He started to laugh happily too and suddenly engulfed Ainna in a hug. 

Ainna blushed, her face pressed into his chest as she said something about doing the bear that only came out partially do to the muffling of his clothes pressed against her mouth. Quinn couldn’t help but to be happy though, because even though he was strangely taken back in time, at least his best friend was there with him. He loosened his arms around her waist and looked down at Ainna, smiling warmly as he analyzed every detail of her face. Ainna looked up at him, their eyes meeting as she was taken away by the daring blue of his. She leaned closer, grabbing his face in her small hands, bringing him closer to her. She placed a small kiss to his lips as she closed his eyes. Quinn did the same but his body them started to shake again. This time he didn’t panic, instead he tried to enjoy the memory of Ainna’s lips against his own as they disappeared. 

With a defeated sigh, Quinn opened his eyes to reveal that he was once again in the fitting room of the thrift store. On the outside, he could hear Ainna calling his name with an exaggerated tone. “Quinn, how long does it take to try on a coat. It’s already been five minutes.” she said as she looked at the line of five people that had formed behind her. An older woman gave her a scowl and Ainna returned the gesture before knocking on the door once again. “Quinn!” She said a bit louder, causing him to quickly collect the clothes and open the door, smiling once he saw Ainna making mocking faces towards the old lady. “Come on sassy pants, leave her be.” He spoke, causing Ainna to look in his direction and walk towards him with the jeans she had chosen for him. 

“So, are you getting the coat or not?” she asked curiously, seeing that he did look good with a man bun and a black trench coat. “Yeah. I really like this one.” He replied, smirking in her direction. “Gosh finally, and you say I take forever.” She groaned as they walked towards the women’s section of the store.