All
at once, life sounded like carpentry; grinding wood letting out a high-pitched
whelp, then just as quickly, it all began mellowing into a low gargle, like a
garbage disposal choking down the remnants of a neatly prepared meal of sound,
sight, and time.
As
his very existence pinched around him, Mike tightened up. His nails dug into
palms, his lids squeezed over his eyes, and his teeth plunged into his tongue
sending a stream of red into the back of his throat. The taste of iron poured
into his mouth, stifled his panting breath, and slowly eased him into a
tailspin.
Mike
wondered if he was dying, or having some sort of anxiety attack. He could feel
a tingle of panic rushing toward his toes as he hastily gulped the oversized
sip mixing with his saliva.
The
metallic taste acted like a conductor as it barreled toward his gut, charging
the electrical connections that were buzzing back and forth from heart to head.
As the electrons reached his skull, he could feel them energize and burst like
memory firecrackers. Each one released a shower of little sparks, like
fireflies popping right behind his tightly closed eyelids, illuminating
seemingly insignificant moments and feelings from throughout the past day…
…How
cold his feet were when he woke in the morning…
…how uncomfortable he was when his
hair got staticky after the temperature dipped below 35 degrees…
…and how
resolute he was with getting it all cut before going to his hockey game.
He
remembered the anger he felt when the top heavy scissor-handed girl cut his
hair too short…
…And
then settled into the deep satisfaction he had when he bought the odd New York
Rangers hat from the vendor outside Madison square garden.
The
hat was rather indiscriminate: A muted green snap-back with a dark under-rim.
For only a moment he considered how difficult it would be to match this hat
with...really anything at all...but in the end decided it would be the perfect
punctuation when he wore black and an exclamation for everything else.
In
the end, it was a period. Not just for his clothing, but for the very space
around him. For Mike, time did not so much stop, as it bled to a halt. As if
somewhere in the distance, a hand descended and wrapped existence in the grip
of an over-stretched rubber band that was just out of sight.
***
Now,
in the course of human existence there have only been several people who have
experienced time travel. This list includes famed director David Lynch, the professor
and poet B.J. Ward, and now Michael Whittmore, a hockey fan from New Jersey. For
those of you who have never taken part in a temporal injunction, become
familiar with the Roy Orbison ballad, “Blue Bayou”. Put it on repeat until you
know not just the words, but the very breaths “Big O” takes before each chorus.
And when you hear it…and I mean really hear it…all the way in the back of your
throat, that moment where loneliness, happiness, everything and nothing collide
on that final "-u", you will have hint of what Mike was about to
experience.
With the beat of Blue Bayou rattling around in his head, Mike opened his eyes and started to take in his new world. Never has the world buzzed with so much life. Everything vibrated and hummed in place, almost wishing to explode into motion. Gliding his hand through the space directly in front of him he could feel as his fingers push through the surface tension of the air itself, like moving his hand through water.
Retracting
his hand and inspecting the nail indentations in his palm, Mike finally smiled
and considered, “I wonder what would happen if I put this hat on forward?”
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