(This is a DRAFT of a chapter of a sci-fi book with a working title of 2061)

Hiding From the Undescribed Future

I rush into the public bathroom which seems to only have on person in it. Looks like there is one woman at the mirror and another in a stall. One comes in behind me with disshevled hair and an over-sized purse. I’m heading into a stall and fumbling for a new tampon from the bottom of my purse. Is there one there? I ask myself. Is there? Is there? My fingers fondle the unknown contents. A lipstick. A kleenex. Loose change. Ah! I feel a small soft item wrapped in plastic the size of my finger and I know I’ve found it.

When I pull it out I see its older than I expected. Perhaps its been there for months. There’s a small tear in the plastic and a portion of the bleached white feminine hygene product has a black stain. I try to remember how long ago I put in my last one and how urgent it needs to be changed. Is it worth the risk to use this old one? I decide no. But as I’m standing there thinking about it I hear the melodious song of a child’s Jack-in-the-Box toy. I peek around the corner to see the woman with disheveled hair standing at the sink counter seemingly occupied with water but also looking distracted.

I fall back quickly into the stall and throw the wrapper and tampon into the bin. “She’s got a bomb,” I can’t help thinking. It’s a bomb. Damn.

I text my colleague there’s a woman with what appears to be a bomb in the women’s washroom. He texts back that there’s been an explosion nearby also in the tower beside me. I ask if I should dismantle hers or get out. He replies

“GET OUT!”

With that I run out of the washroom, hastily pushing aside two women, one with a toddler at her side and I race down the stairs, through the lobby and out the glass doors. Once on the sidewalk I’m surprised at what I see. Dozens of civilians are standing by, looking up and when I look up and to my right I am just in time to see the top quarter of the building, which is engulfed inflames, topple over.

My cell phone shows my order is to run to the right through the crowd to get to the other side of the tower and wait for instructions. I start running through and get to a clearing where I think I can run down a sidewalk path to get to the other side of the tower but as I run I see two people to my left start to cower and cover their heads. That’s not good, I think.

I look up and see the tower is now falling in what appears to be right over head. Time freezes.

While my body stays there on the street looking up at a freeze-frame image of the top of a tower falling over, my vision backs up about 200 feet to survey the scene. It’s like I am [sci-fi details here]….

From that vantage point I can see that if I run straight and to the right I can get to the other side of the building and survive. I’ll have to run through falling debrie and flames but there is a greater chance of my surviving if I run than if I stay and seek shelter.

So I re-enter my body, time starts up again and I race to safety making it there without issue. I find shelter behind a pillar and catch my breath.

**

In the next scene I am sitting at a table at a restaurant with a previous employer. He is wearing a bright orange shirt and he is upset and confused, stunned. He’s behaving in what he feels is a friendly way but his voice continues to shake, waiver and he stutters now and again.

Inside I feel like laughing and it’s all I can do to not laugh.

He has received a letter from me and is asking questions about the wording and my intentions and he is scrambling to ensure he doesn’t look bad. At every point I offer re-assurance and console him.

I tell him what it was like to lose the opportunity to work with him and he sees things he didn’t see before. I tell him things which I realize hurt him when he sees how mistakes he made hurt me. But I tell him anyways so that he understands.

**

Then time fast-forwards and I am walking in a place like Vancouver which is beautiful and warm but not quiet Hawaii. I am walking up steps in a garden which has a monument at the top and I am telling someone about what I did to de-activate the Jack-in-the-Box bomb and also prevent any further explosions in the tower and adjoining buildings. As I told her the story I sort of saw images in my mind of how I had looped around the mall-type building back into the washroom and how I got the bomb to stop. [tech details]

There are two possibilities of how I did it. One was to go back directly to the woman, talk friendly to her and then take the purse and dismantle the bomb. Or secondly, take the purse and throw it a far distance and then get everyone out.

So I’m walking up these steps, all is well and I look around at the water, the hillside, the garden and I say to my companion, something like “See how beautiful this is? All this was barred from me as if I was on house arrest. And even to this day, even if I try to go somewhere like Hawaii, still I end up settling for something that is just half-way close to what I want. I love it here, don’t get me wrong, but in getting here I lost so much and it just shouldn’t always be that way.”

Lastly….

At one point when I went back inside the mall to disengage the bomb I passed by a room with large windows and inside were two “evil” men who were doing experiments. They were putting electric probes into the muscles of a baby which had been skinned and they were watching how the movement made the body look alive again.

Then they also did these shock experiments where there were two indescribable objects and the experimenter would ask the person to chose one or the other. Each round would get harder and harder as the ethics of the situation would change. The person’s experience of it was as though they were being tortured but the experimenters just thought of it like a game.

I got into that locked room by walking through a wall undetected and then stood like I was invisible behind the person being questioned. I could see the answers for what was coming up and telepathically gave him the right answers so he was free from pain. But when I saw them do that to the baby’s body it was more than I could take too and I left.

I went from there to the washroom bomb situation.

In the book this last episode will emerge as a flashback and it will be because there is something unsolved here and something for me to report to my senior. But first I get to enjoy a vacation and I really do enjoy them!

***

[If you wonder why this book is shared in my dreaming blog is it because I am following in the footsteps of author Mary Shelly who published a book inspired by her biggest nightmare and by doing so actually created an entire new genre of horror. My intention is not necessarily to create a new genre of horror but just to use the inspiration of my dreams as a plot line for a fictional novel.)