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ANOTHER DAY,
ANOTHER
DIMENSION
to breathe and difficult to think as my mind slid into a far-away brain fog. The next thing I knew I was no longer focused on the road ahead, instead I was peering down at a woman navigating my car from a spot by the roof, behind her shoulder. I remember feeling concern as the car engine began to grind as the woman pressed hard on the pedal to counter the leaden air. After a minute or so the heavy atmosphere dissipated, the grinding faded, and I remained listlessly floating, watching the woman from above, navigate far more slowly than I would.
Seeing the 5:50 a.m. bus drive away pulled me out of my haze. I parked resignedly, and headed toward the shelter to wait for the 6:00 a.m., first on line. Other commuters began to arrive. As I turned to greet a familiar face or two, I was surprised to see that everyone was a stranger except for the young black woman in the old-fashioned nurse’s uniform, car coat, and clunky white, lace-up shoes who had appeared the day earlier. It wasn’t just her clothing that was off. I’d never seen a complexion like that before. Her skin wasn’t a pretty chocolate brown; it was jet black like coal and like yester-day, her eyes darted apprehensively, like this was the first time she had stood in a queue and didn’t know what to expect.
The route was normally manned by a crew of regular drivers, but a new face sat behind the wheel as I boarded -- a
late middle-aged man with a shock of thick, white hair. I recall thinking, "it's rare to see someone with white hair in the work force these days," as I plunked myself into the first seat on the right. The streetlamps lit up the pre-dawn blackness, illuminating houses, lawns and cars. The bus rolled away, and I bowed my head, fiddling with my phone as the usual landmarks popped into view. Then we slowed and two men hopped on at the stop beneath the high-tension wires.
In an instant, my head jolted up as my subconscious realized that the world had disappeared: houses, roofs, twinkling windows, doors, lawns, curbs, sidewalks, fire hydrants, cars, street signs, light poles, mailboxes, trees, bushes, VANISHED.
In its place lay a curtain of long orange-gray fibers, six feet or so from the walls of the bus, backlit every few feet from above. My eyes darted toward the driver’s snowy white head. He maneuvered impassively, unconcerned with the impenetrable, orange-gray blanket in front of him reflecting the bus’s bright headlights. “How can he see where he’s going?” I thought.
My eyes darted back to my side of the bus, and I gazed up at the backlight, fibrous swathing. I remember forcing my eyes shut, then open, shut, and open again. “Was I seeing what I was seeing? Is it just that the streetlights have gone out? If it’s a blackout, why don’t I see car headlights coming toward us?"
After what felt like a span of a minute and a half motoring forward in the fuzz
SNAP, the world flashed back in a flood of bright, Spring morning sunlight as the bus slowed at the last stop before the highway. "What happened to the nine stops in between?”
A deep voice called out from the driver’s seat in an East Asian accent, “Nohhh seeeets, staaaahhhnndeeeng rooooooom ohhhleee.”
“The bus is full? When did everyone get on, and why is the driver using an Indian accent?” My head ricocheted toward the driver, and my jaw dropped. The white-haired driver was gone. In his place sat a heavy-set Indian man with a mop of jet-black hair. I must have had a crazy expression on my face because the new driver swiveled round and stared back at me with an expression that said, “What’s your problem lady?”
I turned back to see if other passengers were in as much shock as I was. No, not a one; they were all calmly playing with their phones, reading, sleeping, and gazing into the sunlight at a time when we should have been swathed in dim dawn at best. I slumped into my seat.
I didn’t check the time as we pulled into New York City’s Port Authority station, but after my usual three long walks and two subway rides, I arrived at my desk at 8:00 a.m., as normal. The date on my calendar was the one that I set as I left for home the day before. My co-workers looked like my co-workers, and the things that were scheduled to happen that day began to happen. Life went on as it normally did.
This was not imagination, nor did I briefly fall asleep as some people have suggested. This was real, and this was strange.
© Medium Gail, MediumGail.com
ON SOME NIGHTS,
GETTYSBURG
RESTS IN PEACE
booked so Nancy headed for her studio on Fairfield Road to sleep on the sofa.
She turned in, set the alarm, and fell asleep. The next thing she knew she was being jolted awake by the sound of groaning and crying men, dozens and dozens of them, moaning and screaming right outside the wall where she lay. Nancy looked at the clock. The digits registered 3:00 a.m.
Every resident of Gettysburg knows that sooner or later it will be their turn to witness what remains of the bloody trauma buried deep within their soil, so there wasn't much for Nancy to do but hold fast until sunup. That's about the time that the screaming began to fade away.
It seems that the land on which Nancy's studio was built was the triage area for the Confederate field hospital during the Battle of Gettysburg. For three days in July 1863, hundreds of men lay wounded and suffering on that very ground before being piled onto wagons
and hauled down Fairfield Road, dead or alive.
One hot August evening Nancy and I walked the area from which the bloody screams had come. Except for the crunch of our shoes scuffling over the hard-packed summer dirt, everything was silent.
It seemed that for the time being, Gettysburg's living could rest in peace.
© Medium Gail, MediumGail.com
GOODBYE
NEIGHBORS
barn-like office building, built to replace a nineteenth-century house that, I remember, had a long porch running along the front.
One afternoon in the early 1960's, I gazed out the window of Mom's Rambler station wagon as she puffed on a Salem cigarette and leisurely maneuvered up the avenue. As we approached the red
light at Lane Avenue Mom deaccelerated to slo-mo, and I caught sight of two people standing on the porch, as solid as you and I.
The woman looked to be in her mid-forties, short and delicately boned. She was wearing a gray, turn-of-the-last century skirt that flared at the bottom, a wide belt, and a high-necked shirtwaist blouse, her brown hair pulled up and twisted into a knot. From her perch on the top step, her eyes focused on someone or something across Bloomfield Avenue. Behind her a young man poked his torso out of the front
door, bending sideways for a better view. He was about 19 or 20 years old, and wore a brown suit, a stiff-collared white shirt, and a brown bowler hat, his eyes wide with surprise. I could feel their nervousness and apprehension. As the light changed to green, Mom pulled away, and the old house and its Edwardian-era occupants got smaller and smaller in the distance until they disappeared from view.
A week later, Mom and I drove by the same spot. The house and its occupants were gone, demolished to make way for a new era.
© Medium Gail, MediumGail.com