Dating : Water

The busy streets of another town. Her boots were caked in mud. She stopped in front of a boutique storefront to wipe them on the welcome mat. The store clerk stared at her and she stared blankly back before walking away.

Every fucking town was different but the same. She didn’t know how long it had been since she had been home. Wait. That’s not true. His face. His face was the last time she had been home. What did he do? She was getting angry and confused again.

She sat down on the sidewalk. The cars whizzed by but she didn’t care if they hit her. It might actually send her back to the real world if they did or maybe it would just end this insanity. She was hungry.

There were udon bowls at the shop she was sitting outside of. She went and ordered one. How long had it been since she’d had a meal? She felt the stirrings of another portal by the time her food arrived. They came on when she remembered why she was here.

She sat down and put a straw in her drink. If she could have some clarity on how long this would go on for she would have a better idea of whether it was worth it to start smoking again. She missed smoking at times like this. Then she brought the walls down and allowed herself to remember:

It was cold. That’s the first thing she remembered. The next thing she noticed was that she couldn’t breathe. By the time she opened her eyes she had used up all of the breath she had left and she was taking in water. It was dark in the water. She could see the surface, probably twenty feet above her. She believed if she just stretched a bit more and swam upwards she would break through above. The light was hitting her face and it was the only part of her that was warm.

There was something holding her, it was around her ankle. She was tied to something and it was holding her in place. Before she had time to process an escape she looked up into the light and that’s when she saw him. He saw her. Relief and surprise washed through her and she began to concentrate on the harness around her foot.

She pulled on the chain but it didn’t move. It was heavy. She couldn’t see anything in the darkness of the water but she heard clanking from far below. He would reach her soon and then they could figure out how she’d gotten down here.

She swam as far up as she could and that’s where she stopped. He was looking at her, but he wasn’t moving. There was no rush. There was no movement. He was going to watch her drown. He knew she was going to die and he did nothing. The shock didn’t last long because she had to survive. She swam down, as far as she could to see what was holding her. She swam as far down as she could looking for what the chain was attached to and finally the darkness engulfed her. That’s the last thing she remembered about the moment she drowned.

Drowned. She hesitated to think of the word “die” because here she was sitting in a non-descript noodle shop in another nameless town. That’s where the dark waters took her. She disappeared from that water and ended up in nameless towns filled with people that she didn’t talk to and after a while, she would be sucked into another portal to who knows where. These cities were like waiting rooms in a lobby that lead to somewhere she hadn’t been told. It went on and on with no end in sight and the only constant was that she remembered him.

She leaned over the side of her table and vomited a stomach full of saltwater. That was another complication of this endless loop. Every time she crash-landed in a new town she would throw up saltwater as if the drowning happened just moments ago. She was used to it now. They were just part of waking up. Like indigestion that never goes away and eventually becomes part of your routine.

After the last wretch came out of her she had a moment of total clarity. She doesn’t remember what she did to end up here, but she does know that he was always there. Wherever she went on the other side, it involved him. She doesn’t remember talking to him or engaging with him directly, but she had a feeling that he was always on the other side of that portal.

Like a bee learns to pollinate she realized her purpose. This endless cycle would end with the next portal shift because she knew what she had to do now.

‘I’m going to kill him,” she said. With that final thought, she dug into her noodles.