Monday Flash Fics — Temporal
Today’s Monday Flash Fics photo struck me as a wee bit historical (the hairstyle, the glasses, a stack of DVDs and video games and books and the watch and a man reading a physical newspaper), so I decided I’d found my Joey Brown. If you want to see him as a younger man, meeting someone very strange, he first appeared in another flash fic piece, Argot Status Green.
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Temporal
Joe closed the newspaper with a sigh. Bad news, worse news, and…
Stop it. Stop thinking like that.
He checked his watch. The day was running away from him, but he’d earned the sloth. He was home late last night after the clinic. His volunteer hours had turned out to be more like a volunteer day.
And night.
Making positive into a positive.
He rubbed his eyes. Maybe another cup of coffee.
He leaned back on the stool, considering, and one of his sandals fell off his foot.
“If I believed in omens,” he said. “I’d be waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
Someone knocked on his door.
Joe frowned, then shook his head. If it had been someone from outside the building, they’d have called to be buzzed in, so it probably meant it was Delilah from across the way. At least he didn’t need to find clothes. Delilah was the butchiest dyke he’d ever met—and he’d met many—and wouldn’t so much as blink if he wandered around naked. He was wearing underwear and sandals. It would be fine.
Well, underwear and one sandal.
Another round of knocking drew him from his half-reverie.
“Sorry,” he said, and put down his paper. He crossed his kitchen to the door to the apartment and undid the locks.
When he threw open the door, he froze.
It was him.
“Joey Brown,” the man said.
Joe croaked something, swallowed, and tried again. “You.”
The smile was completely disarming.
“May I enter, Joey Brown?”
Joe took an involuntary step back. He sounded the same. He looked the same. Like, identical. Okay, maybe he had new clothes—he still had that hat, though—and he looked a whole lot less like…whatever he’d looked like, but… It was him. The beard. The eyes.
“Ahn,” Joe said.
Ahn smiled. “Hello.”
Joe closed the door. “I didn’t… I wasn’t sure…” He shook his head. What happened to complete sentences? He used to know how to do those. “You’re back.”
“Nine point six years,” Ahn said.
“Right,” Joe said. “You did say that.” It hit him he was standing in front of Ahn in his underwear and one sandal. “Uh. Let me put some clothes on.”
“Okay.” Ahn was looking around the room.
“Be right back,” Joe said. He went into the small bedroom and grabbed some sweatpants and a sweatshirt. He put the single sandal back on, too. He ran his hand through his hair a few times, eyeing his reflection.
Ahn looked exactly the same. Like, exactly. Who kept the same hairstyle for ten—sorry, nine point six—years?
When he came back out into the room, Ahn was standing by his computer, and he had his hand on top of the monitor.
“How did you get into the building?” Joe asked, then winced when Ahn looked at him with a mild widening of his eyes. “Sorry. I don’t mind. It’s just, there’s a buzzer…”
“Ah, I did that wrong.”
“You look exactly the same,” Joe blurted.
Ahn regarded him for a long moment. It looked like he was deciding something.
“Ahn?” Joe said.
“I am,” Ahn said.
“Pardon?”
“I am. Exactly the same.”
Joe frowned, and climbed back onto his stool. “You’ve lost me.”
“I did not. I sought you out. I need help.”
“You have a very strange way of speaking, you know that?”
“I do. I am learning, but I will improve.” Ahn let go of his computer. “You are well?”
“I am.” Joe frowned. “And you knew that already, didn’t you? How did you know that?”
Ahn eyed the books on his bookshelf. “Many of these are scienctific fiction, yes?”
Joe nodded. “Yes.”
“Temporal?”
“Temp…” It took him a second. “You mean time travel?”
“I mean time travel.” Ahn nodded. And he smiled again. “I am glad you are well.”
“Ahn, what exactly does that have to do with anything?”
“Joey Brown,” Ahn said. “I need your help. With something temporal.”
Joe’s other sandal slipped from his foot.
