Time After Time by Denise Little

Author:Denise Little [Little, Denise]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0756403103
Publisher: DAW Books
Published: 2005-10-31T21:00:00+00:00

May 5th, 2022

I woke filled with euphoria, able to feel the warm breeze against my left cheek again. The box lid lifted slowly, and two sets of hands reached in to help me sit up. It was easy to sit up, as if I had woken naturally from a long deep sleep. My breathing was clear and my chest no longer rattled. As I climbed out of the box and stumbled onto the floor, someone handed me a robe. I twisted it around myself, blinking in amazement at the white walls. They were beige yesterday. Dr. Nin sat in a comfortable navy blue chair with her legs crossed, wearing a light green suit. The color looked great on her, accenting her cheekbones. She smiled easily at me. “Welcome back.”

Two people I’d never seen, the ones that helped me out of the box, took seats. One was a young man, shy of thirty, and the other was an older blonde woman who had clearly once been beautiful. She gestured at an empty seat and I sat down, although I felt like I had the energy to walk around the block.

The new colors bothered me, they were bright and cheerful, but wrong. The paint was chipped by the doorjambs. “Thank you. What day is it?”

“May 5th. You slept normally through the night, and now it’s 8:00 am.” Dr. Nin handed me a cup of coffee. “Here, this should help you out. It’s from Zaire.”

Something was wrong with what she just said. I took a sip of the coffee, which tasted strong and smelled rich and earthy, and I realized what was wrong. “I thought Zaire changed its name?”

Dr. Nin drew her brows together and frowned lightly. “Not that I know of. Sometimes travelers are a little disoriented when they wake up.”

By coming back to the right time and the wrong place? I realized that I had changed the past, changed my past, too. That explained the clearer breathing, the extra energy I felt. I looked around for more signs of change, and they existed everywhere, subtle things. The young man wore glasses, which almost no one did anymore. The cut of his shirt was subtly off, almost feminine. Filmy blue curtains hung over the window.

A thousand questions ran through my head, but I was suddenly afraid to ask them. The other Dr. Nin was so sure that history doesn’t change, and I don’t want to alarm this version of her, not yet. I needed to know more about this world, to understand what I’d done. Pictures of Kent State with the Guard pointing rifles at me danced behind my eyes and I smiled, sure it would be okay.

I dressed in the clothes they handed me: blue jeans, which I never wore, and a soft light green sweater. They fit so perfectly they must have been mine. It felt odd to put on his clothes, and I wondered briefly if he was waking in the more sterile version of this room, but the thought was too much for me and I sat down again heavily, needing to focus on small things.

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