Safe in Time

Huge giant arm. Hair. Bulges. Fist coming down. She felt the vibrating air of its swiftness, smash into the side of her face, then move up for a repeat. But unexpectedly, the huge arm lifted up high, then stopped, its motion incomplete. She held her crouched position momentarily, waiting for the blow. Instead, the arm with a balled fist at its end stayed upright as she slipped across the floor to get away.

Worried because her back was exposed, she slowly turned then stood, forcing her body up through the thick, jell like gook that had suddenly filled the kitchen. Gripping the table edge with both fists so they wouldn't slip off in the slippery ooze, the table barely reaching her eight year old chest, she stood quivering, and looked across at the father who stood poised, ready to strike, but now halted in mid-swing.

He stood tall, filling the doorway, his white buttoned shirt pulled out of his pants in front, his curly head angled towards the spot where she had been only a moment before. A drop of drool hung suspended from the bottom lip of his open mouth.

She blinked at the thick goo that separated her from his blow. Clear as glass but thick as jelly, it filled the kitchen space with a sticky wetness. She waited in the moment of jelled space that hung silent in time. The idea that she should do something floated slowly around inside her brain, as if it too was filled with jelly. She blinked to clear her mind.

She wondered what had just happened, but deep down she had an idea. Hadn't her guardian angel told her she could do it?

“When he hits you, take your mind to another place,” her angel said from the wispy pink veil that covered her like a cloud.

“Is that what I just did,” she whispered into the thick room.

No answered and no pink cloud. The silence in the room was total. Even the clock above the stove hadn't ticked because, she guessed, the skinny red hand couldn't move in the thick jelly stuff. She gulped in a big lump of its thickness. It tasted just like real air, fresh and sweet.

“Guardian angel,” she called out, “Help. What should I do now?”

Only silence filled the jell filled room.

“Think,” she told her brain that didn’t seem to want to work right. What exactly did my angel say that day? I need to remember. Oh, yes, I know now. She’d said, “Amy dear, you are a Time Mentat, a TM. One day you will learn how to shift time and space.”

“What does it mean to shift time and space?” Amy had asked.

Smiling her angel answered, “It means you can move a falling rock so it won't fall on your head.”

Amy glanced again at the huge man who stood still and unmoving in the doorway. She looked at his fist hanging in the thick air. It looks like a rock, a rock that was going to fall on her head. So my guardian angel was right. I did a TM thing.

Amy slowly stepped back away from the table and leaned against the chair next to it. As she did so she noticed that the drip of drool on her father's lip dropped further down in the jelly. She stared at the fist still hung high above the place where she had lay before. Had the fist moved down? She wasn't sure.

She turned her head slightly to glance out the window and saw that it too seemed to be filled with jelly. A tiny brown sparrow from the bird feeder stood on the window ledge with its head cocked up, a black sun flower seed stuck in its open beak. She heard a sudden, loud gong from the clock. It sounded like when she used to put her head down beneath the suds in the tub. She heard no sound outside the open window.

“What did I do? What should I do now?” She whispered into the thick air. “I know, I’ll go outside and help the little bird.”

Relived by her sudden insight, she forced her way up through the jell, pulled herself over and up on the wooden slats of the chair beneath the window and was about to lift up when she paused in fright. She’d suddenly noticed that the drool from her father's lip had moved down past his chin. Panic gripped at her guts as she stared at the drop of suspended drool, once again solid, seemingly unmoving.

An idea was forming in her mind. Maybe the drool only moved when she moved. To test this theory, she lifted her right arm away from her side in a quick upward gesture that stirred up the jell. As she watched, the spittle dropped downward to shirt collar height. The fist dropped down an inch too. Amy shook in quiet fear. Try again, her frightened brain said, don't give up yet. This time, she moved her left arm away from her side oh so slowly so as not to disturb the jell stuff, as if it were the tail of a snail tunneling through thick ooze. Slowly, very slowly she continued to lift her arm while she watched the tiny drop of drool from her father’s lip. It worked, if she didn’t move the jell, nothing moved. She smiled at her own brilliance.

“Ok,” she said aloud into the room, and like an automated doll wound herself up into slow motion, and rose inch by inch towards the bird on the window sill. After each slow agonizing move, she checked the position of the drop of spittle falling from her father’s mouth to make sure it hadn't moved. It stayed suspended just at the level of his shirt collar. Encouraged, she continued her moving her head up towards the window.

When she finally reached window height and level with the bird, she let out a long breath of air in hurried relief. Her breath curled away through the clear jell like white smoke. Sort of pretty. Then, frightened, she glanced sideways with only her eyes to check that her breath hadn't disturbed the jell enough to cause the drool of spit to move. No, it was still at collar level.

Her head at the window level now, she dared bend forward and reach slowly into the strange, thick air outside to the little gray sparrow sitting on the window ledge. It's feathers and beak felt like steel. She pushed and tried to shove the seed away from its little beak. It wouldn't move. One, wet accusing, bird eye stared at her huge, pink finger. Beyond her finger, she could see the stillness of the trees on the quiet street. All of outside was incased in jell, too. The city's million honks, chatters, and screeches had fallen silent.

Frightened by the silence now, Amy pushed harder on the seed in the bird's beak. The bird’s eye began to close half-way. She was delighted that it lived and nodded her head as she laughed. Too quick, she suddenly realized and turned to check out her father's position. She saw that the drop of spit had now fallen to his top shirt button. The fist had moved further down. Reflex caused her to put her hand to her mouth to cut off a scream and the fist moved even more. Her father's glaring, red wine eyes, saturated with hate, rolled to the spot where she once lay cowed by his wrath.

Be still, hold absolutely still. Amy tried but felt her body quiver within her blanket of protective jell. A near frozen tear rolled down her cheek. Afraid to reach up to brush it away, she let it roll as she watched her father and the drop of spittle that still hung suspended, but for how long? Her father still stood frozen in place, but, young as she was, she was wise enough to know that something had to give. That she couldn’t stand on the chair forever. She would need to make a decision. She looked over at the tiny sparrow once more. It stood perched like a steel sculpture just inches from her cheek. Would the little bird starve with a nourishing seed between its beak? Would it shrivel up and die? A tear rolled down her other cheek as she made her decision.

Abruptly, Amy sat down hard on the kitchen chair which stirred up the jell goo in swirls of silver waves and bubbles. She put her head down on the table top above her folded arms and sobbed, crying a million tears as the jell melted around her.

The End