Juncture 4.1

The smell of rain was the first thing I noticed; that soft, mossy scent. It was shortly followed by the consistent sound of a downpour; less of a pitter-patter and more a constant, oppressive flush of white noise.

I opened my eyes. I was greeted to the sight of wet darkness. My house was in front of me, blurred through the buckets of rain. It looked even more derelict than when I had left it earlier that morning. Or, from my perspective, several months ago.

I took in a deep breath and walked out of the office. Major General Siegfried had told me to wait in the rain, get well and truly soaked so I looked like I walked home. It was a good idea.

The rain was debilitatingly cold. After several seconds I couldn’t stop my teeth from chattering.

After a minute I couldn’t stay out there any longer. I ran to the door of my house, swearing under my breath.

I tried the doorknob. It wasn’t locked, so I walked in. I closed the door behind me, and the white noise of the rain was replaced with a steady drip-drip-drip of the leaky roof. I couldn’t tell if anyone was home. I took of my soaked jacket and put it in the front closet.

I went to the kitchen. It was also empty. There was usually at least someone here at this time of day, but it was oddly empty. I went over to the refrigerator to see if there was anything to eat. There wasn’t much in the big box. A couple different bottles and cans of beer were strewn across the bottom shelf of the fridge.

Aha. A small carton of eggs was precariously balanced on the top shelf of the fridge door, right next to the mustard. I grabbed it. Two eggs were cracked and oozing onto the Styrofoam container, but there were two other ones that were mostly whole. I grabbed them and tossed the container into the overflowing trash bin next to the door.

Next, I checked under the sink for a frying pan. There was one there, but it looked like it needed a good scrubbing before I cooked on it. I lifted it up to put into the sink, saw what was already there, and chose otherwise. I grabbed a sponge and headed to the bathroom.

I turned the tap and waited for the water to run clear – there had been a rust problem in the pipes since before I had even moved in. I quickly learned to wait a few seconds before using it. I began scrubbing the pan.

I finished and went back into the kitchen. I lit the stove; it made a sharp hiss. I put some spray oil on the pan and cooked the eggs.

I slid the cooked eggs onto a plate and went in search of silverware while they cooled down. I found a small box of plastic cutlery, took a fork and knife, and sat down to eat.

While I mindlessly shoveled the slightly singed eggs into my mouth I thought about the reasons why I had come back. They seemed a lot less relevant now that I was actually at home, sitting in my kitchen.

I could have dealt with the loneliness. I had friends at OST headquarters. Or rather, I had good acquaintances there. But I didn’t have many more friends here. I sure as shit didn’t have any at home. No. As I thought about it, the reason I actually wanted to come back became clear. I wanted closure on this part of my life.

After everything I had been through, there was no way I could come back to this. I had gone time travelling. I had stopped (and also to a smaller extent participated in) a bank robbery. I had trained with who I assumed was quite possibly the most dangerous person in history, Avice.

Hell, I had died. Repeatedly. To the point where it was getting boring. I don’t think that there had ever been anyone else who could claim that they’d done that.

No, I couldn’t go back to the day-to-day drudgery of high school, shitty house, rinse, and repeat. I had gone to a completely different level of everyday life. I was doing things. Things that mattered on a scale I wouldn’t have even been able to fathom beforehand.

I finished eating, tossed my plate into the sink and my fork and knife into the trash. I went up the stairs to my bedroom. The towel I had left crumpled over my chair was still there. I grabbed it and went to the restroom. I turned on the shower and let it run as I got out of my soggy clothes. When the water was clear I got under it.

It was freezing for several seconds, but it warmed up to bearable temperatures after two minutes. I scrubbed my entire body, more for show than necessity – I had just woken up an hour and a half ago from my perspective, and I had showered before I went to bed.

I got out and went back to my bedroom. As I walked through the hall, I heard the front door open over the steady dripping sound. I slipped into a pair of pajamas that were a bit too small, and waited, sitting on my bed.

Sure enough, after several seconds of waiting, my door slammed open. My foster father, Kenneth, was standing in the doorway, his wife Sandra behind him. He was stick-thin and completely bald, even down to the eyebrows. She was hard to quantify. Depending on the day she could look twenty or fifty. Right now she just looked angry.

In fact, both of them looked angry. Sandra was holding one of my foster siblings, Ron, asleep with his head on her shoulder. Kenneth was holding his cell phone open, the screen illuminating the floor.

Even though it had been several months, I still felt a scarlet wave of guilt hit me.



“Detention, Marc? Really?”