A Thorough Man

A short vignette about a man who is stuck repeating his life over and over again.



A Thorough Man
“It's nice to see you again.”
A man with an umbrella sat under a palm tree. He looked at Sarah and smiled. She was confused by the invitation, but returned the gesture. He stood and held his hand out to her. She shifted the wait of her bags and took his hand.
“Sarah,” she said.
“Daniel.”
“Lovely to meet you, Daniel.”
“Good to see you again, Sarah.”
She laughed and looked around. His eyes stared on her. They were unflinching but familiar. Maybe. Maybe not.
“I'm very sorry, you must have me confused with someone else.”
“No, I don't think so. Please sit, I'll explain.”
He moved to his right around the table and she sat in his abandoned chair. She set her shopping bags against the leg of her chair and set her purse by her ankle. He watched her do this; her habits.
He smiled at her and ran his fingers through his dark hair. It was thick and stood up in different places. A light brush of hair was on his cheeks and chin, but apart from that, he seemed well kept to Sarah. All of his clothes, in fact, seemed quite new.
He saw her appraising eye.
“Do you like this outfit? I got it today. Something different.”
She nodded. She did like it very much, actually. The green shirt and jeans. The leather boots. His adams apple rose and fell over the collar of his shirt.
She was exactly how he remembered her. She wore a light violet blouse with a white undershirt. It looked quite soft. A breeze touched the hem of her skirt, ruffling the yellow cotton and brushing the tops of her legs. His hand opened and closed.
“How are you today?” He asked her.
“Good, I suppose.”
“You suppose?”
“Can't really go wrong with shopping.”
“And your parents?”
“Still divorced.”
He seemed surprised.
“Really? I would never have thought.”
“It's been five years?”
“Oh yes, yes. Now that you mention it, it does rather make sense.”
“Makes sense?”
She looked at him. He face full of open suspicion and distrust.
“Was it the miscarriage?”
Sarah felt violated. She looked at Daniel, unbelieving. He seemed concerned, but his knowledge of this sensitive subject was intolerable.
She made to stand up.
Daniel put out his hand.
“Please, I'm sorry, let me explain.”
She stood and looked at him solemnly.
“I'm a time traveler.”
She turned.
“Please, I know about your parents, your family, please.”
She shook her head and started to walk.
“Please, I can tell you anything, just ask me!”
“What's in my bag, then?” She asked him, her voice flat and distant.
“A pair of earrings, a bag of skittles, a bottle of advil and a pregnancy test.”
Her head felt very heavy for a moment, her eyes unfocused. All at once, her head was very light. Everything blurred and swirled. She heard herself breathing.
Daniel set her into the chair and put her bags by the leg of the chair and her purse by her ankles. He stretched, pushing against the new, starched clothing. He rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, ignoring the feeling of deja vu which had become his life.
Her lips moved. She pressed them together and her eye lashes shook. She breathed very deeply through her nose and pushed herself more upright in the chair.
Daniel reached into a bag by his side and pulled out a bottle of water and two aspirin. He pushed them over to her across the table.
“Sarah.” He whispered.
She mumbled and looked over at him. Her face knit and she looked down at the water and drugs. He nodded to them in a friendly way. Her hand came up and inspected the safety seals on the pills. Presumably satisfied, she opened them and the water and took a bit of both. She cleared her throat.
“Well...”
“I can explain, for the most part, I just need to see your shopping bag.”
She held it out to him and he set it on the table. She lay back and let her head clear for a moment. She didn't deal with the science fiction of her present conversation. Suspension of disbelief.
The bag rustled as he took out each item and set them on the plastic table. The palm fronds waved back and forth above them, harmonizing the with the sounds of the bag.
He sat back and rubbed his hands on his jeans. He held his hand out and pointed to each item in turn.
“The skittles are for your niece, Jean, she loves to play the skittles game with you. She wins regularly. The earrings are for tonight, you have a date with John. You pretend not to know where he's taking you, but you found directions to a posh Italian place in downtown.”
He paused and waited for her to confirm. She nodded. Her eyes were alert now. Her suspicions were all still there, she simply was trying to form them into a picture. She was trying to place this 'Daniel' in an occupation in her mind.
“These last two, are more complicated. One determines the other. You think you might be pregnant, hence the test. But you also haven't, technically, started yet. You could just be late, hence the Advil.”
She nodded. He was right.
“So you've been following me?”
“That isn't everything.”
“Oh?”
“You think the baby may not be John's.”
Her throat caught and she looked around. She wanted to scoop everything into the bag and run, but she couldn't. She was transfixed.
He pushed the items into the bag and handed it to her.
“Now, to get to the point, I am not some robot or something. No sort of future play or time space continuum type deals or anything. I'm just a normal guy.”
“So what do you want?”
“Well, my circumstances are rather strange. I met you once before, here at this same table. It was more spontaneous than today, just one of those things that happen.”
He pointed at her bag.
“It was you who told me about your bag and your troubles. You were confiding in a stranger.”
She looked him over. She nodded to his clothes.
“Was this all for me then?”
“Well, last time, we picked this out. I wore it again to try an experiment; to see if some part of you that exists outside of normal space and time would recognize it.”
She examined her nails. One of her cuticles was torn. She began to nibble at it nervously.
He felt a pull from behind his sternum. His knees shook.
“Well, I didn't recognize you. So I guess it didn't work.”
He sighed.
“No, it really didn't. So I need a favor.”
She moved her foot in front of her purse.
“What could you need from me?”
“It's really something very simple. You see, given my problem, it isn't very often than anything occurs spontaneously. When you came up and talked to me that day, I was more surprised than I had been in a long time. Now we've met again, this time on my part. This is a change. Things are changing.”
He leaned in towards her, drawing her eyes to his. He set the umbrella on the table and pushed it to her.
“My condition, my existence, is in repeat. I get up to a certain moment in my life and everything resets. My memories and mind are intact, but I reach a certain day everything returns to the beginning. I'm a child again, an adolescent, all of it repeating over and over and over. Without end.”
His face was dark. Clouds seemed to have grown overhead. The palm tree was swaying. She felt an electric fear. Something was wrong. “What are you talking about? What do you want from me!?”
“It's very simple. First, I need you to keep your eyes on mine, don't take them away! Don't blink!”
He was very fierce now. Everyone else was running inside. The sky shook and thunder made the glass windows wobble; distorting the reflections into fun house creatures and shapes. Her small hairs stood up.
“Second, I need you to answer a question for me.”
“What is it?” She cried.
“What was the name of your elementary school?”
“Dashwood Elementary?”
He nodded and disappeared.
Epilogue
Daniel woke early, rolling out from under the comforter, careful not to wake Sarah. He heard the small whispers of their children. He looked out the window at the clear blue skies. He checked the calendar and looked at the clock. Not long now, he thought.
She rolled over and looked up at him groggily.
“Coffee?” She grumbled.
He smiled. His heart broke to look at her. Sarah. Sarah had changed everything.
He padded down the steps to the kitchen and put the coffee on. He looked out over the avocado trees and the steps down to the yard. He saw the ocean, far off in the distance. He felt uneasy and nervous.
He had been so happy, this had been the best life he had enjoyed in a long time.
But today was the day, he would find out if it would all be repeated again. The children bumped around upstairs. He smiled. He could do this again. He could fall in love and be happy a hundred times and never tire of it.
Since Sarah had changed everything, he felt free.
Thunder rumbled from somewhere overhead. He felt the electricity, felt the pull. He was almost laughing. He was so excited. He wanted to do it all. Do anything.
His hair stood on end and the house darkened almost completely. He closed his eyes, embracing the journey.
Then it was bright again. He felt like crying, but something was wrong. He smelled coffee. His eyes flew open and he looked around his kitchen. He was confused. He should be gone from here. He should be coming out of his mother and into the rubber hands of the doctors.
He heard a thud from upstairs and his heart skipped.
He tore up the stairs, the windows and doors flying past. His hand found the door to his children's room. He tried to breath. Slowly, he turned the handle. The empty room opened to him and his vision began to fill with tears.
Then, from behind he heard a small voice say:
“Mommy?”