Time Spent (18 page)

Simon reached out with an invisible hand,
squeezing its fingers between Heather's faux linoleum surface and
the true tile floor beneath. Gradually, he was able to pry her up,
scooping her with the hand and cradle her in his arms.

"Heather," he said, as gently as he could
through the grating of his non-human throat. "Come back to me.
Please."

At first, there was nothing, and then the
linoleum body began to shift, to slowly alter its shape. Finally,
Heather was herself again, lying in his arms.

"Hello," she said. "Hello, Simon."

He hugged her close. "I thought I'd lost you
for a minute."

"You did." She pushed his arms away and
stood on her own feet. "You left me on that rooftop, don't you
remember?"

______________________

Wind howled around the rooftop, forcing
Simon to cover his eyes with one leathery hand. Something was
happening. Sparks began to leap from one of them to the next.

"What's going on?" Heather shrieked from
beside him

Simon shook his head, and began to respond
that he didn't know, but a massive spark burst from his shoulder to
hers, knocking them apart.

Lines of energy arced between them now, and
then arced into the air above the rooftop. And where they came
together, the sky darkened. A shimmering hole began to form in the
air. A sound rose, like the sound of cracks opening in ice, only a
million times louder.

______________________

"Hey."

Simon looked up from the science book to see
two kids had approached him from the park across the street. He was
immediately envious of their clothes: they wore ball caps, shorts
and sleeveless Ts. Simon was never allowed to wear those
things.

"What?" He closed the book, grateful for the
interruption.

"You want to play with us?" The kid who
asked was holding a baseball in his hand, a leather glove tucked
under his arm. "We need one more."

Simon glanced across the street and saw
several other kids standing on the dirt diamond in the park. He had
never played the game, but he assumed they needed enough for each
team to cover the corners. 'Bases' they called them.

"Ummm..." he looked back toward the house.
His father would not let him even watch sports, let alone play one
of them. He had been apoplectic when Simon had come home from
school one day asking about Little League, something he had heard
about from other kids. "I don't know..."

"Come on..." the other kid chimed in. "It'll
be fun."

Fun,
thought Simon. That sounded
good. He looked back down at the book: "WONDERS OF SCIENCE" it said
in large, excited letters on the cover. There were planets with
rings, and rockets, and other things on the cover that made the
book seem a lot more fun than it turned out to be when you started
reading it. Simon was currently bogged down in a chapter about
electricity and magnetism, things he had little interest in and
couldn't figure out. He was, in fact, supposed to meet his new
tutor this afternoon, an older boy who was the son of his father's
friend.

"I...I guess I can't."

The kid with the baseball tossed it to him
unexpectedly. Simon let go of the book to catch it.

"See?" The kid pointed at him. "You can do
it."

Simon stood, rubbing his hands around the
ball. It felt good there, the way his fingers cupped around it,
gripping the ridges of its lacing. "WONDERS OF SCIENCE" lay
forgotten in the grass of its lawn, its pages splayed. Simon was
running off with the other kids to the park before he really knew
what was happening.

"Have you played before?" one kid asked.

Simon shook his head.

"Okay, why don't you take some practice
swings?"

The kid handed him a baseball bat. Simon's
eyes widened with delight; he had never held one before. His left
hand slipped around the handle, his right hand wrapping around it
just above.

"You hold it- yeah, like that. You got
it."

Simon hefted the bat in his hands, holding
it over his shoulder and swinging it forward. He had never felt
anything quite like it before. His muscles responded to it, reacted
to it, and anticipated its weight and the force of the swing. It
was so natural, so perfect.

"Okay," the kid said, "try some
pitches."

One kid had taken up a position where the
pitchers mound would be (it was only a dirt patch in the middle of
the field here). Simon stood next to home base and readied the
bat.

The pitcher threw it underhanded, soft and
easy. The ball almost floated from the "mound" to home. Simon's
body uncoiled like a snake. The bat made contact with the ball with
an amazing CRACK! sending the ball sailing into the other side of
the park.

The others gasped in amazement.

One kid was sent to fetch the ball, and soon
the pitcher was throwing another his way, this time overhand. Again
Simon connected, sending the ball flying. A series of pitches were
thrown, progressively faster and faster, and time after time Simon
felt his body wind up, uncurl and absorb the shock of the hit.

As the ball sailed beyond the diamond and
into the other side of the park after the last pitch, Simon felt
hands clapping him on the back. All the kids had rushed around him,
cheering him on.

In the midst of it all, Simon's face fell.
Harold Chu, his father, was approaching across the park, arms
chugging like pistons at his sides.

"Oh no." Simon's arms dropped,
half-heartedly hiding the bat behind his right leg.

"SIMON!" The boys parted in front of Mr. Chu
as he strode up to Simon and grabbed him around the back of the
neck. "What do you think you are doing?"

Simon looked down at his feet.
"Playing."

A chop of air escaped his father's throat.
"I can see that. What are you supposed to be doing?"

Another person had followed his father to
the baseball diamond: an older boy, thin, with glasses. Simon
suspected he was Aaron, the tutor for whom he had been waiting.

"Studying while I wait."

"That is correct. Why, then, are you instead
across the street playing?"

"He's really good," said one kid, trying to
defend Simon. "I never seen an Asian kid hit like that."

Mr. Chu rounded on the boy. "Young man, do
you know your geography?"

The kid's mouth opened and closed, but no
sound came out.

"Very well, I shall instruct you. Asia is a
continent."

The boy nodded.

"We do not live on that continent. My family
has lived here for quite a long time. I dare say longer than yours.
We are American, not Asian."

"Okay," the boy managed.

"Good." Simon's father turned back to him
and began dragging him along by the back of his shirt.

As they began to stride away, one of the
kids shouted after them, "Wait! Our bat!"

Mr. Chu stopped and let Simon go. "Return
the baseball bat, please, Simon."

Simon reluctantly walked back over to them,
head lowered, and held out the bat.

"Sorry," he said.

"Now," his father said once the bat had been
returned and Simon had come back to him, "you will retrieve your
book from where you so carelessly left it."

As Simon picked up "WONDERS OF SCIENCE" off
the grass, the older boy awkwardly put out a hand.

"Um, hi. I'm Aaron."

Simon shook his hand.

"Aaron will be helping you with your science
experiment," said his father.

Simon's shoulders fell. He had forgotten all
about the science experiment he was supposed to start today.

"Can't I work on that tomorrow?" he asked,
his head full of the crack of the bat.

His father emitted another short chop of
air. "I don't know what has gotten into you, Simon, I really
don't."

______________________

"Simon, can you hear me?"

Simon opened his eyes. He was lying on his
back, on a hard table. Straps pinned him down, and there were
bright lights overhead. At first, he thought he was in the lab,
where the men in white coats had operated on him, but then he saw
the cages. They lined the wall, and there were creatures within:
monkeys and chimps, mostly.

"You're okay, they brought you in here to
help you, I think."

Simon looked around, trying to find the
source of the voice. It was the same voice he had heard in the
Gorilla Enclosure, the one calling down to him from above. He had
heard this voice come from Azizi before passing out.

"I'm here," the voice said.

Simon looked at the cages, and finally he
found the source: one chimp, standing close to the door of its
cage, looking out at him.

He struggled to speak, but still
couldn't.

"It's the doctors," the chimp said. "They
hurt you, but I think I can help."

He felt a strange sensation in his head.
Heat swelled near the back of his head, not painful, but a
pleasant, warm sensation.

"Try now."

Simon opened his mouth. "Th-Thank you. Oh
god...I can talk...thank you."

"You're welcome." The chimp grinned
widely.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"It's me," the chimp said. "It's me, Simon.
Don't you recognize me?"

Simon shook his head.

"It's Aaron."

Simon's eyes searched the ceiling. "Aaron? I
don't understand. Aaron Yuen? My old tutor?"

"Yes. Don't you recognize me?"

Simon wasn't sure what to say to this. "No.
You look different."

"Maybe it's because of what the doctors did
to you." The chimp cocked its head to the side.

"I...I don't think so."

"I saw them operate on you, in the lab. I
was lying next to you, on another table. I wanted to help, but I
couldn't. When they brought you here, I followed you."

"You were there? On the base?"

"Yes. I think they took me there after the
bus crash."

Simon blinked. "The school bus? But you
weren't on the bus when it crashed."

"Of course I was. I was volunteering as a
bus driver. The school district needed drivers badly, so I
volunteered."

Simon shook his head. "I don't understand.
The driver on my bus was someone else." Simon pictured the man's
face: Carl Macklin, the man who had ordered the doctors to operate
on him. Simon very badly wanted to meet him again. Very badly.

"I was driving the bus," Aaron said.
"Something happened to it, to all of us."

"And you got turned into an ape like
me?"

Again, the chimp cocked its head to the
side. "Ape? What do you mean?"

A monkey two cages away chimed in, "What are
you talking about, Simon?"

A woman walked in, wearing a lab coat. Her
name badge labeled her a veterinary assistant. She leaned over
Simon and spoke. "Why did you say 'ape'? What do you mean,
Simon?"

______________________

Simon gaped at the portal in the sky,
through which poured swirling lights to surround the rooftop. His
mouth dropped.

Flashes then, cascading through his mind:
The city of wooden towers. Prisoners in a dark dungeon. A steamy
jungle. Rage. Freedom.

A shock passed through his body, and his
hands jerked open and closed involuntarily. Simon fell to his
knees.

The towers. The dungeon walls.

Climbing the towers and howling into the
sky, asserting his dominance, celebrating his freedom.

Chains hanging from the dark stone walls in
the dungeon, where there was no escape.

Questing through the endless jungle, in
search of the object at its center.

Parting the leaves of the trees, he saw it.
HE SAW IT.

Simon's eyes fluttered upward. His jaw
clenched. On the rooftop, the swirling lights surrounded him.

______________________

Simon opened the front door to find Aaron
standing on the porch.

"Hey," Aaron said. "How's it going?"

Simon shrugged.

Aaron came in. "Okay, well let's see what
you've gotten done."

Simon closed the door behind him and led him
to his father's study, where they had set out the materials for his
science fair experiment on a table.

"Um, okay." Aaron cast a puzzled look at
him. "It doesn't look like you've gotten much done."

"I put together the model train." Simon
pointed at it.

Aaron nodded. "Yeah, but you didn't set out
the track or mount it, and the wires haven't been set."

"I couldn't figure that part out."

"We went over all that," Aaron said.

"I know," Simon slumped. He knew that when
the switch was flipped, the train was supposed to levitate and run
around the track. He knew it had something to do with electricity
and magnets, or electromagnets, or something. But he was fuzzy on
the details of how it was all supposed to go together.

Aaron took off his glasses and wiped them on
the bottom of his shirt, replacing them. "Okay, well we'll just go
over it again."

Aaron began to explain again how the wires
were laid out, how the train track should be mounted, how the whole
thing was supposed to work, but Simon's eyes kept straying to the
window. It was a nice day outside, and he knew kids would be out at
the park, playing baseball.

While Aaron spoke, he imagined the feel of
the bat, his muscles singing as he swung it, the thrill of the
crack as the ball went flying.

"Simon," his father's voice called from the
door. "Are you paying attention?"

"Yes, sir," he lied.

______________________

"You...you're inside them? Inside all of
them?" Simon looked around at the woman, the chimp, the monkeys.
All were looking back at him with curious eyes.

"Inside all of who?" the woman asked.

"I don't know what you mean," the chimp
said.