It's not something you talk about...

this, trying to put this into words. How do you explain this? How do you talk of this? These are things one does not talk about, like alien abduction, or intelligent design, and definitely time travel. People do not understand how all of this can come together. One minute standing beside the hospital bed watching my son’s head breach through the sanctuary of his womb my hands reaching out to catch him and then to be standing here…  holding these… these…avocados  to be lost in some future yet determined. To be in the middle of a conversation a conversation well versed, replayed, revisited but never quite the whole thing, never quite the complete picture. Looking out windows, pretending to be asleep, the eyes of the hunter, that look – that look you know so well, that look you dodge, that look that caught you in its sights over by the bakery products. That look that makes you question the sanity of everything. And the little girl, clothes tattered disarray crying, always crying, crying for her mother? Standing alone isolated within the frame of sanity, framed within the calculations of time inverse, squared…  To stand here at this moment which either has happened or will happen but regardless I have been there…

“Randy?”

And who knows what the truths are? Because at these moments the truth could be that some alien living off the coast of Mars seeded us here in what to them was a moment ago and to us… A singular moment of thought the beginning of time, when everything happens: the fluff of quanta, the god of existence, the birth of our universe any verse. That moment when we can actually travel through time racing against the eons and synapses. We move directionless from port to port running always running, but running from? Running to? Running where?

“Randy Hirsch?”

Anchors, somehow we need to find anchors, those moments that can ground the thoughts, that can reach and harness the pain through the cloudy or fogged memories as connections between dendrites reform those lost timing ignitions that we corroded over or deliberately damaged bridging themselves back, forward… for a moment the avocados made sense they were the only thing that could. They existed as a seed themselves inside the flesh of the fruit the meat of its existence protected by a skin, a shell tough and hewn …

“Randy? That is you isn’t it? My god how long has it been?”

And just like that the world stops moving time stands still comes into focus like a whirlwind slideshow spinning, gyrating, a gyroscope of infinite windows to look through spinning, slower and slower until stopping  and she fills your vision bright and red as an autumn sunset her blue eyes blinding in their unnaturalness. I answered with a shrug, not out of indifference or disrespect but I still had not made the journey back through time. I raced my memory for any sign, any semblance of recognition. ‘Redheads, redheads,’ I thought, ‘how many redheads could you have known? And she called you by your first name, that removes coworkers or students they all called you Mr. Hirsh. Redhead, blue eyes…’ I quickly diverted my eyes towards the avocados in my hand, in doing so I scanned her figure quickly but thoroughly: categorized her image against my database, my lexicon of women. Judging by the way she dressed, her figure, salon style hair, tan I guessed her age to be nearly half of mine but there was something in her familiarity, something too close, too knowing. These are the moments I feel the most stupid. This whole ritual of small talk and recognition, I stammered something about how I was doing and how good it was to see her again, her and the old woman she was with. Perhaps the old woman was the key, she eyed me also. Hungrily, with that look… too  familiar that look. Perhaps I knew the old woman.

“...it's been absolutely ages. You know I saw you over by the bakery. And I thought. My god that looks like Randy. I mean I haven’t thought of you in years!”

Her voice betrayed her, whether it was lying about thinking about me or she was stalling for time trying to place me also… but she had approached me, she had used my name, in the familiar. I again ran my gaze up and down her “My goodness and look at you! You seem to be doing very well.” But I used this as a ruse, trying to place her, she was thin, that upscale suburbanite thin, perhaps a soccer mom, no she had to be older – it was the older mothers who were obsessed with their weight and looks, her hair was short but obviously well taken care of in a style, not just a cut. She wore simple earrings, not the dangly kinds so often worn by younger women and loved by all men. Her body was firm, she worked out, her curves were slight, too slight. She had the look of leisure, too restless to be overworked. I tried to focus, I glanced at her hands because a woman’s hands will tell you a different story than what you can see in their face, their eyes, their bodies. But I turned my gaze over my left shoulder trying to anchor myself. To find a foothold in the time, the moments slipping under my feet, I tired to focus the avocados yielded slightly in my hand, ‘Not ripe enough, they need to yield more, these were picked too early, too hard to ever live long enough to…’

“…how long?”

I realized I had missed my cue, this was another part of that piece which made me stupid. I traveled. I was always running to and fro through time but I always forgot. Always forgetting that I moved, I changed but those around me were unaware of the change. They were stuck in their moment. Stuck without realization that one could shift through time, slip through it like moving through stage curtains, one veil leads to an opening, here…  lost in the aspect of trying to remember without being rude, she was looking for a reply from me and I stood dumbstruck. ‘C’mon! How many redheads could you know? Have known? Will know?’  I thought I had only known a few redheads… ‘and the eyes, why can’t I ever remember the eyes? The eyes, the windows into the soul. Their uniqueness lost, colors blending in the speed of loneliness…’ “I don’t know.” Was I answering Linda or me? At least I was being honest to whomever. I dropped the avocados in my cart and walked around the produce bin bringing myself to them. This red haired woman and the old woman. I caught her hand in my own, a polite shake but she held on almost gripping. Her hands betrayed her age, they were thicker than someone her age ought to be, the indentation around her wedding ring made it clear she was married and married long. Her ring was another clue, it wasn’t the solitary diamond or simple gold band. No this was a multi stone, large and impending. This was a second ring, the anniversary ring … I guessed her age to about mine.  Now I was committed and I was completely lost. “Well how have you been, it must be some… I don’t know, what year is this?” And I tried to joke, this usually worked as most people who knew me knew my lack of understanding where their moments in time came into play.

But I had called her ‘Linda’ thought of her as ‘Linda.’ She didn’t look like a Linda, at least not any Lindas that I knew… did I know any Lindas? I could feel that sway of time wash over me as if I had already outstayed my welcome… Like that time with Verna dancing at her sister’s wedding. I had forgotten my shoes as I had climbed into Vern’s van and did not realize this until we hit Portland, already running late for the rehearsal.