Crossing In A Heartbeat

Kara stared at her computer screen. She focused hard because she kept drifting off into her daydream of romping in bed with her nonexistent boyfriend. If she let herself do that, then she would never get this document edited.

However, she found it too boring.

She jerked upright at the sound of heavy footsteps running up to her cubicle. Her head suddenly felt heavy. The room spun. She felt sickeningly dizzy.

“What is wrong with you?” a stern voice said, stinging her ears.

“What?” She turned, feeling surprised to find no one there.

Her dizziness abruptly vanished. She stood and looked up and down the aisleway.

There wasn’t a person in sight.

The dizziness swept over her again, and she found herself in a room that reminded her of a medieval castle. Oil lamps lit the room. She could smell burning wood. A slight turn of her head revealed a hot fire in a huge stone fireplace.

She became aware of two other people and shifted to get a better look at them. They wore odd-looking costumes.

Then she took a big, gasping breath.

Kara found herself back in her office. Someone coughed.

The only smell even close to a fire was burned popcorn someone had overcooked in the microwave. She stood there for a long time, staring at the wall across from her.

The document was too poorly written. The guy had put no effort into it, which relieved some of the pressure on her. However, the next paragraph caught her eye. It wasn’t even in English.

She copied and pasted it into a language translator. There were sexual references.

After staring at it with shock, she realized he probably meant for this to go to his girlfriend. “Idiot.”

She gave up and reached for her coffee mug, but it was empty. She knew she had no chance of getting any more. The office girls were pretty quick at washing and putting away the pots at the end of the day.

Kara almost closed the document but stopped when she heard footsteps she recognized. She pretended to concentrate on editing the document.

“Kara, are you done with Rod’s documentation?”

“No.” She didn’t even give her boss, Jim, the courtesy of looking at him.

“Kara, we need that done,” he said.

It was a quarter to five on a Friday afternoon. She doubted anyone was going to look at it until Monday.

“If he knew how to write better, maybe I’d have it done.”

“That’s your job,” he said.

“But when he starts writing in a different language, that gets harder.”

“A different language?”

She pointed at the paragraph.

“Well, use a translator,” he said.

“When I have to use the translator, it takes up more time.”

“Well, just do that and check the typos. Call it a day,” he said.

“It must be technical,” he said.

“I’m an engineer. I’m technical. That is gibberish.”

“Oh.”

“And do you really want to see what this translates into?”

“No. Just do what you can.” He left as if he had an emergency.

Kara no longer made any pretense of working. No one else was going to come up and talk to her, unless it was to ask if she was going out to the bars.

Her response for the last couple of weeks had been no, and she had the feeling they would eventually stop asking her. She hoped they would. She was tired of the Friday night drinking routine.

When she did go, she would meet up with her girlfriends; they would drink, get drunk, flirt, then sleep the rest of the weekend away with a headache. None of the flirting had resulted in any dates. Kara felt tired of it all. She would rather go home and not have a headache.

Kara shut down her computer, hearing whispers around her. Traffic outside her cubicle picked up for a moment, then faded. Today, no one was going to ask if she was heading out to the bar. No one was even going to wish her a good weekend.

By the time she grabbed her coat and umbrella to head out, no one was around. The few people she would have said good night to were already gone.

When she got outside and headed toward the train, the September air was cool but damp—not refreshing. The streets were pretty empty.

For a moment, she slowed to check out the windows of a small toy store. They always changed up the display every Friday. Today, they had outdone themselves by building an extravagant castle with interlocking blocks. Toy dragons perched on top of the roof.

Seeing them, she felt herself overwhelmed by dizziness again. She leaned against the building to keep from keeling over. The faint smell of peppermint wafted by her nose, but she knew it couldn’t be from the candy store two blocks away.

Soft feathers touched her fingers. Cold air slapped her face. The air she breathed in was brisk and clean. Its coldness burned her lungs. She felt like she was flying.

“Mommy. Mommy. Can I have that?”

Kara was still standing in front of the toy store. A woman with two children opened the door. A bell chimed.

She spied a tall man wearing an odd coat slowly walking by. Kara couldn’t tell if he was looking at the display or at her. However, she almost thought the smell of peppermint came from him.

Then he seemed to disappear like her hallucination. Kara stared back at the display.

“Dragons. Why do dragons smell like peppermint?”

She missed her train and had to wait for the next one. Commuters crowded the station. Most everyone else was staring at a phone. Not for the first time, she felt invisible.

Her stop was almost at the end of the line. There weren’t many people who got off with her.

In the city, it was hard to tell whether it was evening or night, since at night it was so lit up. Walking home through her suburb, however, it was clear it was night.

She trusted that her neighborhood was pretty safe, but she still carried an umbrella as a weapon. So far, she had experienced no problems, but she didn’t take chances. She’d taken karate and self-defense lessons, which she practiced as a form of exercise but had yet to use in real life. Kara hoped she never had to.

Her house looked dark and lonely. The dusk-to-dawn light over her front door should have been on. She wondered if the bulb had burned out.

Once the door was unlocked, she headed for the kitchen and flipped the light on. She hung up the umbrella and her coat.

There was leftover potato soup in the fridge. While her bowl of soup warmed in the microwave, she texted her best friend that she was staying in for the night. She was a little surprised she hadn’t received a text already. Her friend usually sent one at least to say hi.

The catalog from the local community college that listed life enrichment courses lay on the table in front of her.

She flipped through the catalog.

She laughed.

She settled on her couch with her laptop to check out job listings.

Kara woke with a deep breath. She felt sexually sated—hot and sweaty.

She shifted her eyes and felt startled to find a man sitting up in bed with her. Long, thick brown hair, ending in a braid, hung down his back.

She could see his muscles. He had broad shoulders. She could tell he was a big man.

“I can’t stay all night,” he said, staring toward the fire.

She reached out to touch him. His voice was the one she had heard at her cubicle.

The stone fireplace in view was also familiar, except the fire was now just embers. She found his skin warm.

“Did I satisfy you?” He shifted slightly, but she couldn’t see his face.

She felt herself speak, but it wasn’t her voice. “Oh yeah. You always do.” The voice sounded breathy and deep.

“I can feel when I do,” he said.

Kara flared her nostrils at his scent, smelling musk and leather. Her chest felt some pressure, like someone was standing on her.

She coughed.

Kara sat up. She was on her couch.

However, she swore she could still smell the musk of the man.

“That’s just potato soup,” she muttered to herself, glancing around the room.

She noted with some sadness that her best friend hadn’t responded to her text, and she knew it wasn’t because she hadn’t seen it.

She felt dizzy. Her eyes saw the man dressing. She could clearly see his body, since the fire burned so brightly. Someone had thrown in more wood. Everything about him was like a hunky model.

“I’m hallucinating. No one can be that gorgeous,” she said aloud.

“What did you say?”