Trembling With Fear 9-17-23

Slippage, by Susan E. Rogers

Will dreaded waking in the middle of the night. He rolled over and glanced at the clock – 3:09. 

A weak line of pale light crept under the door and swept away two inches of shadow from the tile floor. Darkness devoured the rest of the tiny bedroom. Nina wouldn’t allow a nightlight because it kept her awake. He reached out to touch her but his hand hovered over her midriff then pulled back. She was a beast if her sleep was disturbed. She lay on her left side facing the wall and puffed out those little purring snores she insisted she never did. Her body heat felt too close in the narrow double bed. His lanky six-foot-five frame barely fit and his knees ached, bent in the same position for hours.

He needed sleep. In the two months since he moved in with Nina, he had lost the vitality that came with a nightly recharge. His energy level was low, and even on first waking he was still tired. He couldn’t concentrate at work and had no interest in anything—except Nina.

Will still didn’t know her story, where she came from or much of what she liked. They met at the Taco Bell over on North Armenia. He was wolfing down his second Burrito Supreme when he saw her at a table in the corner, tearing into a Steak Quesadilla, strips of meat dangling from her teeth and red sauce dripping down her chin. He was instantly spellbound and living with her two weeks later.

She was breathtaking, with an aura of golden hair hanging to her hips and radiant tawny eyes with jet black irises that sharply reflected back to the viewer. Their lovemaking was sublime. Her kisses sucked him inside out.  If he thought about it, she offered nothing else of relevance. He left the apartment each day before she got up and she came home when he was ready for bed. Their conversation was superficial and mundane. A month ago, he decided not to think about it.

I might as well go take a leak. He yawned and threw back the covers, pushed his feet into slippers and stepped into a void.

Next thing Will knew, he was lying on his stomach, half in and half out of bed, one arm hanging over the mattress edge, toes touching the floor, tangled in a web of sheets. Nina was on her back, her snores a little louder, approaching snarls. His gaze was captured by the sheen of her suntanned skin. He straightened the sheets without disturbing her and carefully climbed back in. 

He rolled to his other side, pushed his hair back from his forehead and looked up – 2:09. He rubbed his eyes and blinked – 2:09. 

Please, not again.

This was his third time experiencing this weird time thing.

Three weeks ago he woke to a glaring 3:09 that pricked his eyes. He snapped them closed and immediately felt himself floating through featureless space. When he next woke, the red digits announced 2:09. After another interlude of fitful sleep, 4:09, then back again to 3:09 after who knew how long. His brain screamed Awake! and refused to succumb. He stared at the ceiling, afraid to move, until the alarm went off at six.

Three days ago, deafening rumbles of thunder woke him, followed by raindrops thwacking against the window. The clock reported 3:09. After a few minutes, the thunder roared off to startle someone else and the rain trailed after it, letting him doze off. Roused again, he found himself distressingly back to 1:09. He forced himself to stay awake in the living room with old clips of The Three Stooges on some after-hours cable channel and watched the numbers tick off the TV’s clock minute by minute without any hiccups. Finally, he went back to bed and lay awake, suspended in a nondescript hole until he peeked with one eye – 5:09. Relieved, he finally managed to sleep. His next conscious thoughts, disoriented and surprised, were at 5:59, surprised that he beat the alarm. 

With that morning’s coffee, he clicked straight to Google and searched—time travel, backwards time, time warps—you name it, any pertinent key phrase his brain could conjure up. Scientifically, he might have experienced gravitational time dilation (observable only for objects of enormous mass) or cosmic strings (existent only in theory). Time loops seemed possible, but there was no déjà vu. He wanted to credit a recurring nightmare, except there were no images. He simply felt disembodied between awakenings. None of the explanations defined these time knots, as he began to think of them, like badly tied shoelaces slipping undone over and over.

Now, lying on his back, listening to Nina’s slumberous growls, he was afraid to sleep but just as frightened to be awake. His brain couldn’t decipher the real time—his real time—whatever time that might be. His eyes grew grainy and he rolled over on his side to face the clock – 4:09. He didn’t feel like he’d been awake for two hours. He knew he hadn’t dozed off parading these previous episodes past his memory. Worse, he realized, time had slipped while he was awake and he hadn’t even recognized it. He resisted. His body quaked as his frantic mind teetered on the brink of paranoia. The gritty heaviness won and he melted into oblivion.

* * *

The incessant squawk of the alarm plucked Nina from the midst of a pleasant dream. She rolled over, annoyed that Will ignored the racket. She reached past his motionless back to push the snooze button on the clock that read 6:09. A faint puff of his breath tickled her arm. Feeling especially refreshed, she poked him in the top of the head. Nothing. She grabbed his shoulder and tugged him over on his back. No response. Gently, with her index finger, she peeled up the lid of his right eye revealing only solid white sclera, the left eye the same. 

Smiling, she allowed herself a luxuriant stretch. Her hands reached toward the ceiling with fingers splayed, showing off her long, pointed nails. This one hadn’t demanded much investment at all, merely nine weeks of sharing a bed. He hadn’t asked so much as one question about where the time was going. She wasn’t sure he even noticed. No matter, it was done. She’d keep him for a few more days until he was depleted. He didn’t need time any more. Unlike her, who thrived on it. She purred as she leaned forward to kiss his open mouth.