THE INVISIBLES

THE INVISIBLES

I ran from our house to my car, not even bothering to close the front door. My key found the ignition, my foot tromped on the accelerator and I squirted in reverse out of the drive. The patrol car swerved into sight in my rear view mirror as I hit the street. I didn’t look to see if anyone came running out of the house, neither my wife nor the naked man I had seen going into our bedroom. I shifted into drive and visualized my right foot squashing a rat. My car squealed down the street.
It was at the intersection of Locust and Honeywell that the red Suburu shot out from nowhere. Yanking furiously at the steering wheel, I careened off it’s front left fender. My car circumscribed a neat arc before slamming into the curb. Sparkles flared and collided behind my eyelids. When I opened them I saw the skinny kid from the Suburu bent down peering in at me.
"You okay, mister? Need me to call an ambulance?" He snapped open a black cell phone like a straight razor.
"No, I think-- I’m okay, just sh-shook up a bit." Then I started to laugh. "I didn’t see you. You weren’t there." My laughter increased and then accelerated just as this crazy day had. The kid’s eyes widened. "Don’t you get it! You were invisible. You came out of nowhere!"
Sure, in a red Suburu! Whatever. You were laying rubber. Your head must have been somewhere else!"
"That’s right, somewhere else." My laughter collapsed into itself like a deflated balloon.
"Yeah, well since you’re okay, I’m going to take off. Here’s my info if you need it. Sorry for the hassle."

1

He handed me a slip of paper with his insurance information on it and crossed back to his car. I just sat there behind the wheel and watched him drive off. Where had he gone, where really? Was he still here? How had everything become so undone. Did it really start this morning?
I leaned over my wife, Janice, her fingers doing a tarantella across the computer keyboard as I slipped my coat on.
"Working on your thesis?"
"Umm,hmm."
"I’m going to run out and pick up those screws I need at the hardware store, maybe grab a bite to eat."
"‘Kay."
"Need anything while I’m out?"
"Can’t think of anything,"she replied, her eyes transfixed by the glow of the monitor and the slurry of words sliding across the screen.
"Okay then, I’m off. Love you." I gave her a peck on her cool cheek.
"Loveyoutoo," she said without looking up.
I could feel resentful and slighted, I thought, as I started my car and pulled out of the driveway, but she had been working so hard on her Masters and it would give us a boost in income. Still, too often, she was perched in front of that computer. Too often we carried on conversations from adjacent rooms. I eased out into traffic and accelerated ,scooping up a random CD from the passenger side floor, sliding it into the dashboard player. I let the music wash my thoughts away.

2

I decided to stop at one of the interchangeable fast food joints for lunch. This one was ‘hopping’, the parking lot was almost full, except for a slot at the corner.

I started my turn when a dirty blue mini-van swooped into the space from the opposite direction almost clipping my front end in the process. I laid on my horn, but the woman who popped out didn’t even look my way, instead hurried into the restaurant. I made another circuit before I found a spot.
Inside, four semi-long lines scribbled away from the counter. When it was finally my turn, I was waited on by a terminally disinterested teenage girl. She had a small tattooed spider on her neck. Her chopped hair was maroon and black and there was a tiny silver ball balanced on her left nostril that I wanted to reach out and flick off. I gave her my order; "Quarter pounder, plain, nothing on it, just meat and bun, a medium diet, and a pack of cookies, for here."
Her finger pecked at the computer register like a persistent hen after an elusive insect. Behind her, colored monitors pulsed and a staccato of electronic chirps announced orders up. The brightly lit food displays looked like nothing ever seen inside this place. When she looked up her gaze was fixed just beyond my left shoulder. "Did you want the meal?"
"No, just the sandwich,"I replied.
"Did you want cheese with that?" Her speech was flatlining.
"No, plain, just meat and bun."
"What to drink?"
I felt a great weariness."A medium diet," I sighed. I could swear I saw the ornately intertwined legs of the black spider on her neck reposition themselves.

3

"Is that to go?"
"No for here." It was like she didn’t hear me at all or only half heard what I said, like I was some DJ on a radio station late at night that keeps fading in and out.
I paid and joined the small clique in fast food purgatory waiting for their orders by the counter.

Glancing across the busy restaurant at the television bracketed to the ceiling, I noticed a pair of talking heads on CNN superimposed over the sight of another roadside bombing in Iraq.
"58," someone called.
I looked at my slip and stepped forward. There was a large carton of fries on my tray and no cookies. "She forgot the cookies and I didn’t order these." I gestured to the fries.
An overweight girl with limp hair leaned over and examined the receipt on my tray. "You didn’t order the meal?" She looked vaguely at me and continued, " She didn’t charge you for any cookies, you still want them?"
" No, just forget it." I took my tray and walked over to a table.
I was about to sit down when a little latino boy sprang into the seat in front of me followed quickly by his visibly pregnant mother balancing a tray crowded with brightly colored boxes and drinks.
"Venga rapidamente," She called, to a little black-haired girl.
I moved on, finding a seat by a window. I sprung the lid on the box my burger came in and lifted the bun; ketchup, pickles and cheese. Resigned I stood and walked to the condiment counter, took a plastic fork sat back down and scraped the burger off. When I sipped my drink of course it wasn’t diet. This was happening to me a lot lately, being ignored or not listened to, not noticed, like I was invisible, you could see right through me, like glass, or smoke, not quite all here.

4

People would bump into me and say sorry I didn’t see you or I’d walk into a room where there was only one other person and they would react with a start, and inevitably say,"Oh, I didn’t hear you come in," even though I had announced my presence with a cough or by clearing my throat. Just odd, that’s all. I guess life is full of odd little moments. I wiped my mouth with the paper napkin and decided to use the restroom. On the way back to my table, I stopped to buy a USA TODAY at the counter.

5

How long all this took I don’t have a clue, but when I got to my table my tray was gone and an elderly couple were just sitting down.
"Excuse me, was there a tray of half eaten food at this table?"
They looked towards me blankly. A comma of mayonnaise dotted the old man’s chin.
"Oh, was that yours,"a tall skinny boy, his face blooming with acne, interjected. He was in the process of wiping tables.
"Yes."
"I thought someone walked out and left it, sorry man."He turned back to what he was doing.
I said nothing and started to walk away. I say started because I’m not quite sure what happened next. I’m sure I was walking toward the double glass doors and then, the world around me stuttered. What I saw became fragmented, something like computer pixels when they get a glitch. You know when you get a scratched DVD and you’re watching the movie and all of a sudden the images become all ‘blocky’. Something like that but I was in the midst of this. For a second my world was a vast mosaic of colliding hexagonal colors. I felt off kilter, woozy, the floor sliding under me, then... I was someplace else. Well, I was still in the restaurant and it looked the same, but it didn’t feel the same. The light had changed somehow. It didn’t seem as harsh. Then I saw them. They were sitting on a bench seat opposite from where I was standing.

5

"Over here, we’re here." They motioned me over. "You look like you need to sit down." The voice came from a ruddy-faced man with a beaming smile and a shock of pure white hair. He could have been in his 70's. He could’ve been much younger.
"Yeah, sit down honey, take a load off, you might be here a while."Sitting next to him was a middle-aged woman with exceedingly pale blue eyes set in a pleasing face. She had wavy shoulder length blonde hair and wore too much make-up. She was wearing a dark green retro-looking dress.
He shook my hand, then my legs gave out. I thumped down on the plastic bench beside him. "Easy does it sailor. Easy, Easy. You rolled the die. You still need to get your sea legs."
The blonde beside him began snapping her fingers in time to music only she could hear. "Got to roll me, call me the tumb-l-ing dice..."
"Excuse me?"
"Good a description as I can come up with," the red-faced man said. " Yes, yes, indeedy do! You rolled dem bones. You won. You popped up here. You shoot craps?"
"Long time ago , in college."
"Introductions, Frank!" The woman gave him a hard nudge with her elbow. "Play by the rules."
"Rules, rules, dear, dear, there are no rules, Tammy, just games of chance."
" I’m Tammy, and that’s Frank."The woman’s thumb flicked toward the man sitting next to her. "You won’t really need our last names."
Frank proffered his hand again. "And you, you’re..."

6

"Don, Don Campbell," I managed to get out.
" I suspect you have a lot of questions," Frank, continued, " and sadly I have very few answers, very few, yes indeed, only conjecture and hypotheses."
"What just happened to me?"
"A good place to start! What indeed! You have tumbled into a parallel universe, Mr. Campbell."
"Isn’t that Star Trek, stuff?"
" True enough. Too, true. It’s also the stuff of Quantum Physics. Ever hear of Superstring theory?
"Only in passing."
" Passing, good, I like that! Superstring theory in a nutshell, Mr. Campbell, lives in ten space time dimensions, one time dimension plus nine space dimensions, it explains--".
"Give me a light will you, Frank?" Tammy leaned over with a cigarette angling from her lips.
"Excuse me, this restaurant is smoke-free," I interjected. " The City Council passed an-,"
"This one isn’t," Tammy interrupted pointing to a sign on the door in big black letters. ‘SMOKE ‘EM IF YOU GOT ‘EM.’
"That can’t be right!"
"Don, Don, Don, there are a lot of things that can’t be right, but are right here," Frank replied.
"Are you telling me I’m someplace else than where I was, another world?"
"Oh, not another world, no, no, the same world, but a different space. Question, Don. Have you ever heard of Human Spontaneous Involuntary Invisibility?" He leaned in, his grey eyes intently scrutinizing me.

7

"Okay, I’ve had enough." I stood up, still a bit wobbly, and reached into my pocket for my cell phone. I flipped it open and pressed the numeral for my wife’s number. No service. Then the monitor that was turned to CNN caught my eye. It showed the twin towers in New York City still standing.. "Is that file footage?" I nodded in the direction of the screen, as I tried another number.
"No," Frank answered, "it’s a live feed. Sure, I’m sure."
I massaged my temple with the fingers of my left hand. "The date, what’s the date?"
Tammy answered, "Are you having a moment?" She blew a ring of smoke out, " You know the date, Don, same as when you rolled..."
"But the towers--"
"What about them," she replied.
"Terrorists flew jets into them. They collapsed. Thousands were killed."
"Not here, Don. No, no, never here, never that way," Frank answered.
I snapped my phone closed and sat back down.
"No one home," Frank asked. "No number?"
"Parallel universe," I repeated.
"I think he’s got it Frank." Tammy crossed her legs and smoothed her skirt, picked a speck of tobacco from her crimson lip.
Frank continued, "Same time, different space. Think of it, particles vibrating at a different rate occupying a similar but different space than the one you left. Hickory, dickory, dock, the mouse ran up the clock..."

8

"Excuse my french," I replied drily, "but I think you’re as coo-coo as Cocoa Puffs. How’d I get here, if I’m here, that is. There wasn’t a door or hole I crawled through."
"I know you’re disoriented , oh yes," Frank answered, "but we’re here to help. Like I said, ‘Human Spontaneous Involuntary Invisibility’. It happens all the time, all the time. You’re ignored or not heard, others seem to look through you or beyond you, it’s not because they aren’t paying attention to you, no, no, you’ve become temporarily invisible to them." He waved his hand in front of his eyes as if clearing away an invisible web. " If you are not one place you have to be some place else. It’s really simple. Reality is nothing more than our own individual perceptions of the world around us. We all live in our own different realities, our own separate worlds every minute of every day. If I don’t perceive you, even if you are standing right there in front of me, you don’t exist in that spacial plane and if you don’t exist there you must exist somewhere else. The clock struck one, the mouse ran down..."
I took a deep breath and exhaled. I felt overwhelmed.
"Think about it," he continued. " Reality is a die with multiple surfaces, and you only ever know one side. Hickory, Dickory, Dock!"
"So if I am here, I’m not where I came from? Won’t I be missed?"
Frank, laughed. "Oh, you’re still there, you’re in two, count ‘em, two places at once, opposite sides of the die. But you are only aware of the side you perceive at the moment."
"I still don’t--"
"Tell him about the vampire effect, Frank. He’ll love that," Tammy interrupted.
"The what?"

9

"Too much, too much, Tammy. I’m afraid our friend here is already overwhelmed."
"The cat’s already out of the bag, so to speak, Frank. What is it? Do I suck blood now?"
"Oh dear, no, no, nothing of the sort, nothing so outlandish. It’s the light you see. Or our atoms. I still don’t know which."
"Okay, once again, I’m lost."
"Have you noticed the light," Frank, continued.
"Yeah, it’s not as bright."
"Yes, good, that’s good. Have you seen your shadow?"
"My shadow?" I was going to make a crack about vampires not casting a shadow when I looked down and waved my arm across the table. No shadow. I looked around where the tables jutted out over the floor, where the chair legs touched the tile. No shadows cast. "So I don’t seem to cast a shadow, I’m a vampire? What is it, ambient light that causes this?"
"No, no, I don’t think so, don’t think so. Different wave-length perhaps, but I think our atoms are more spread out." He extended his knobby fingers. " Nothing is as dense here."
"Light passes through me?"
"Seems so doesn’t it?"
"How– so, who are, I don’t--, Why are you here telling me this?"
"We’re your ‘Welcome Wagon’, Don," Tammy smiled."
"Are you always here?"
"Oh, we’re where we are when we need to be there," said Frank.
"So, I’m stuck here, in this parallel, funhouse? How do I get back?"
"Funhouse, I like it, don’t you, Tammy? Funhouse, yes, yes, indeed."

10

"Back, that’s a laugh, huh, Frank?" Tammy pulled a lipstick from her purse and started redoing her lips. "We ain’t figured that one out yet. It’s not like clicking your heels together and saying, ‘There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.’ Some roll back sooner than others and– some don’t roll back at all."
"I’ve got to go home! My home!" I slapped the table top with the palm of my hand. " My home is here also, right? My wife, here, too?"
Frank scratched his snowy head. "In a manner of speaking, I suppose. Yes, you could say that."
" I do say that! I really don’t know who you are," I stood up again, " but I know I’ve got to get out of here. I need to see my wife, get this straightened out." I glanced up at the TV suspended from the ceiling. "Hey, is that Al Gore?" He was walking across a green lawn to a waiting helicopter.
"Indeed, Yes, that’s President Gore," Frank answered, blandly.
I turned to Frank."Florida work out okay for him then? I’m glad he won somewhere." As I said this, the twin glass doors of the restaurant slammed opened. Three black- uniformed policemen barged into the restaurant.
"N. I. P.," the lead officer, barked. Everyone get out their National I.. D. Cards. We’re doing a security scan."
I crouched down next to Frank. "What’s all this about," I whispered.
"N. I. P., National Identity Police. They’re looking for illegals. People in the United States illegally."
"What are they going to do with them?"

11

"Round them up and put them in deportation centers. Except I don’t think they’re being deported. They found that they always return. I don’t know what happens to them, no I don’t. It’s very hush, hush. Best not to ask questions. Just show him your National Identity card."
"I don’t have any Identity card."
"Oh, dear, not good for you my boy, not good at all."
The officers made their way through the restaurant, laser scanners in hand. As they passed from table to table they held various colored cards up to their scanners. Most of the patrons didn’t look up but continued eating, sliding the cards across to the men. The clatter and din of the restaurant had settled into an uneasy murmur as the uniformed patrol drew closer. The Latino woman who had beaten me to the table I was going to sit at broke from her seat like a deer flushed from a thicket by hunters. She grabbed her two children and bolted toward the opposite door.
"National Identity Police! Halt!" The woman didn’t stop. " taser them!" One of the officers screamed.
Twin silver bolts attached to thrumming wires shot from the tasers and slammed into the back of the pregnant woman and the little boy. They fell like trees. I was elbowed aside as the officers pounced upon the prostrate victims and yanked their hands behind their backs looping their wrists with plastic grip ties. The third officer pushed the squirming young girl against the counter and tied her small wrists tight.
"What the hell are you doing, she’s a kid!" The words were out of my mouth before I realized my predicament.
"Don’t interfere in government business," the officer shouted over his shoulder as he bound the little girl’s kicking feet like he would a calf at a rodeo. The mother and the boy were quickly dragged out of the restaurant and into a waiting white van in the parking lot. I stood speechless as the two officers returned.

12

"Check, that guy out," the policeman with the struggling girl across his shoulder, yelled as he passed them. "He’s a troublemaker."
I looked at Frank and Tammy. All I needed to do was read the fear radiating from their faces. I picked up the tray of food and ran toward the door. I flung the tray at the troopers, hoping it would be surprise enough to stymie the use of their tasers.
It worked. I slipped through the doors and was outside ducking between vehicles . I doubled back behind the restaurant dumpsters and slid under a car as one of the police ran by. I crawled on my belly from car to car as they searched for me until I found mine. I waited until they were on the other side before I opened the driver’s side door and slipped in. Hunched over, I plugged the key into the steering column and depressed the accelerator pedal with my hand. When it started up, I put it in reverse and popped up into the seat . Just as quickly I slammed it into drive and bumped over the curb into traffic amid a tangle of horn honking and screeching brakes. The white van didn’t follow me, but I knew a call would be made. I had to get to my house, my wife. I took the side streets, alleys when I could. I considered myself lucky when I pulled into the driveway of my home not pulling a police cruiser behind me. It looked the same as when I left this morning. How long ago? Two hours, three? Could I trust my watch, time? I got out of the car. I felt a wave of relief sweep over me as I walked to the front door. Everything would be all right. I would just walk in and tell her about the screwy couple I met at the burger joint. The cops were what? That woman was probably a shoplifter, a ring of shoplifters. I was confused. Maybe I had a mild stroke. Yes, that could be it. I’ll get myself checked out as soon as I can. I opened the door. I wouldn’t call out. I’d surprise her. I bet she hadn’t left that keyboard. I clicked the door to behind me.

13

I heard a male voice before I saw him. "I’ll be right back, Sugartits! Got to use the little boy’s room first."
A wave of confusion and nausea swelled inside of me. Was this really my house?
"Hurry, back, I’m not through with you yet, stud."
That voice couldn’t belong to my Janice. I stopped at the corner of the living room, shaking, breathless, my knuckle jammed between my teeth. I saw him. The man naked, rubbing his hairy chest, as he walked into our bedroom and shut the door. I heard her voice, but her words were unintelligible behind the door. I stood in the living room frozen, shaking. I didn’t know what to do. I crossed back to the front door and let myself out. Of course this wasn’t my house, my wife. Maybe everything Frank and Tammy told me was true.
Then as much as I had to get home, see my wife. I had to flee. I hurried to my car and shut the door. When I hit the street. The red and blue light bar of the patrol car flared into sight and I knew where I was, what had happened, what I had to do. I kept the accelerator pedal a breath above the floor board and flashed past the first stop sign praying that motorists on this plane obeyed the traffic signals. The squad car did a good job of hugging my bumper when I fish-tailed around the corner and took the intersection. When I hit the Suburu at the intersection, all I could envision was a sandwich, with me being the meat.
"You okay, mister?" It was the kid from the Suburu, peering in at me. " Need me to call an ambulance?" He snapped open his black cell phone like a straight razor.

14

"No, I think--" I checked the rear view mirror. Nothing. No police car. No pile-up with me being the sausage. " I’m okay, just sh-shook up a bit." Then I started to laugh. "I didn’t see you. You weren’t there." My laughter increased and then accelerated just as this crazy day had. The kid’s eyes widened. "Don’t you get it! You were invisible. You came out of nowhere!"
Sure, in a red Suburu! Whatever. You were laying rubber. Your head must have been somewhere else!"
"That’s right, somewhere else." My laughter collapsed into itself like a deflated balloon.
"Yeah, well since you’re okay, I’m going to take off. Here’s my info if you need it sorry for the hassle."
I held my hand up to shield my eyes from the sun’s glare as I watched him walk back to his car. I held out my hand and looked at my lap. I waggled my fingers and shadow fingers waggled across my thigh. I opened the car door and it’s shadow sliced across the asphalt. I was back.
"Woop, woop, woop." The cruiser’s siren died, the red and blue lights still rotating.
"Good day, sir. Can I see your license and registration?"
"I don’t have one, I– what did you want to see?"
"Your driver’s license and vehicle registration. You’ve been in an accident. You need me to call an ambulance?"
"No. It was just a fender-bender. Driver’s license, of course. I have it right here." I pulled it out of my wallet. "Registration." I clicked open the glove box and handed him my registration .He walked back to his car and then was back at my window.
"Everything checks out. You exchange insurance information with the other driver?"

15

"Yes."
"Well if you’re sure you’re okay you can go."
"Thank you, officer."
He walked back to his car. I tried to reassemble what had just happened in my fragmented head. I saw the tree shaded street I had just driven down behind me in the rear view mirror. I turned the car around.
Minutes later I once more pulled into my driveway. I walked up the flagstones to the front door. I put my hand on the door knob, then pulled it back and rang the door bell. I heard footsteps pad to the door.
"What are you doing," my wife said, as she opened the door. "It wasn’t locked. I’m trying to finish this paper." She swiped a stray lock of hair from her forehead. With that, she walked back into the interior of the house. I followed her in, grabbed her by her shoulder and spun her around.
I crushed my lips to hers as she struggled in surprise. "You don’t know." I held her face between my hands inches from my own. "You don’t know what I’ve been through."
"Can’t this wait."
"No, it can’t. Not this time."
She looked into my eyes then. "No, I see it can’t." Her lips met mine and we staggered in our embrace toward the bedroom.

THE END