The OutsideTheLines.MainPage.Net
Feature of the Month
for Febuary, 2000
DISCLAIMER: The TCP concept is borrowed from Kielle (and whoever is the father - I'm sorry, but I've now completely lost any clue as to who that is) with much affection and gratitude. The underlying Universe is Marvel's.
May 13, 2000.
The most important day in my life.
The one day of my life.
Today I met her.
Emily.
The woman I love.
It seems strange to think that, stranger still to write it. I didn't believe in love - not any more. Divorced parents and a past history of miserably failed relationships will do that to you. My expectations had fallen to the point where all I was looking for was mutual affection and a reasonably adequate sexual partnership.
Until this morning, when she walked into my life.
It was every horrible Hollywood movie cliché in one. The bell rang on the door and I looked up and my heart stood still and my mouth went dry and my knees went weak and if I'd listened just a little harder I'd probably have heard music swelling in the distance. And the only thought that went through my head was Don't say a word, because if you open your mouth you're going to screw this up.
So I stood there like a gape-mouthed fool and watched in wonder as it dawned in her eyes, too. As joy and hope and passion bloomed in her gaze as she looked at me and I realised that she felt it, too.
Love. Perfect, sudden, hectic, passionate love. I didn't even know her name and I loved her utterly.
I learned her name. She told me, I told her. I locked up the shop and we went to a café and spent the morning talking about things nonsensical and things profound. From favourite colours, to the intrinisic physics of basketball, to the nature of God, to what we were going to name our children. Words spilled from us, wrapped around us, drew us closer together, allowed us to learn. And all the time I watched the way the sunlight glowed in her hair and the sparkle of her eyes and the delicious curve of her mouth and felt myself falling, deeper and deeper.
Thunderbolts and lightning. Don't let them tell you it only happens in the movies. It happened to me and it happened today.
The afternoon - the afternoon was delight. We walked through the park back to my apartment and drank coffee and kissed until I went dizzy with desire and then she gave me permission and we made love, purest, passionate love on my bed and it was like nothing I'd ever known before. There aren't words for it and I wouldn't write them down anyway.
In the aftermath we talked again. Quiet talk, lover's talk, and finally I plucked up the courage to tell her my secret.
'I'm a mutant,' I said and even I could hear the tightness in my voice. The reaction to that particular piece of information is normally not good.
But Emily - Emily is unique and perfect and marvellous. 'How wonderful,' she said, and her hand was soft on my cheek. She grinned suddenly. 'Well, I know it's not physical,' she said. 'So what's your power?'
I was so grateful, so startled by her acceptance that it took a moment to get the words out. 'I can turn time back,' I replied.
Awe drifted through her eyes. 'Can you take me?' she asked. 'When have you travelled back to?'
'No,' I whispered, kissed the palm of her hand. 'I can't go back in time. I turn time back. Like an instant replay. Nothing changes, no-one notices, only I remember. I take the world back in time.'
'The whole world?' she said. The concept seemed to shake her.
I nodded, held her tightly. 'Did you realise that you lived from three to five pm on the afternoon of 6 December, 1982, forty-seven times?'
She shook her head, looked at me in puzzlement until I couldn't help but smile and kiss her. 'I scored the winning touchdown for my high school football team,' I grinned. 'And then I got to do it another forty-six times, until I finally got bored.'
'Have you been back since?' she asked and a smile touched her mouth. 'Reliving your high school glory days?'
I shook my head. 'I can't go forward,' I said. 'If I went back fifteen years I'd have to live them all again, all the same. Can you imagine how boring that would be?'
'Oh yes,' she whispered. 'But are you going to go back and make love to me for the first time again?'
'Why would I?' I asked. 'When I can make love to you a second time?' I did. It was even more glorious.
I hadn't been very eloquent about my power. How could I be, when I was watching the ghost of a dimple appear and disappear on her cheek? It's amazing how distracting that dimple was.
Night came, at last, and despite my reluctance I agreed to walk Emily home. She only lived five blocks from me. Can you believe that? Five blocks from the love of my life, the heart of my heart and it still took me thirty-four years to find her.
The 7-11 looked fine. Open and clean and well-lit and all we needed to do was grab some milk and cereal for Emily. We walked in and the man at the counter turned and took his gun-sights from the terrified clerk and aimed it and pulled the trigger and took away my reason for living. I don't know why he didn't shoot me. All I knew was that my jacket was splattered with Emily's blood and she was falling and I couldn't catch her and then I was beside her on the floor and I watched as the blood slipped out of her and the life died away in her eyes. I heard someone keening and I never even realised it was me.
The day has ended.
May 13, 2000.
The most important day in my life.
The only day of my life.
The police let me go home eventually and I decided to write down what happened so I would know when it ended, when the day ceased, when the last word was written and I laid my pen down and I could finally go back.
Emily waits for me this morning, waits in the cold and the dark to come back and walk into my store this morning, so I can lift my head and see her, always fresh, always young, always smiling in joy and wonder and passion.
I will have today.
Always.
Always.
Why should I go on, let the world go forward, when there is no Emily there? I sit here, in my bloodstained clothes, writing about her dying and I know there is no reason to go on. But she waits for me, in the past, where there is no blood and there is no pain and that is where I shall go.
I shall set down my pen and slip out of my chair and I shall take a step back into the past.
Into the one day, the only day, that will ever be again.
May 13, 2000.
The most important day in my life.
The one day of my life.
Today I met her.
Emily.
The woman I love . . .
"The One Day Of My Life"
© Amanda Sichter, 2000
wolf@ozdocs.net.au
OutsideTheLines.MainPage.Net
©David D. Amaya
DavidAmaya@Hotmail.com
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