by
Erin Maloney
Part
1: Sam Reminisces
Well, here I go again, I have somehow found my way to this
never-never land between the past and the present...or maybe neither...or
both.... Anyway, I have no idea where I am, or how exactly I got there, but I
know this for sure... I am NOT home. Home... that word means so much to me. How
long have I been leaping about into other people's lives, other homes, to fix
some mistake in the past but never being allowed to live my own life with my own
family?
God or Fate or Time or Whatever has one heck of a sense of
humor, I must say. Sure, I'm helping out my fellow man using the talents that
God gave me... however, sometimes it would be nice to be able to remember what
all my talents were, no... are, ...no... whatever. Why is it only in this small
space of time that I can remember everything about my life in the future...erm...past...erm...present?
Well, sometime other than this time.
Well, anyway, I love being able to put right what went wrong,
but it would be so nice to come home... home, it seems so close, yet so far
away... like I could just reach out and touch it... but that it would only be a
hologram... just an illusion, a mirage in the desert. But oh, how I long for
that mirage to come closer... Where is home? I used to think that home was with
my mom and dad in Indiana, but I know that things have changed since then... no,
home is in New Mexico, now, with the project staff, Verbena Beeks, Gushie, Ziggy,
Tina and...and... and home is where Al, my best friend and only link to my own
time is.
Every day, I thank God that He brought Al Calavicci into my
life. I don't think that I would have had the strength or the courage to keep
leaping if I didn't have a good friend like Al watchin' my back. Al has saved my
life more times than I care to remember, and if I tried, that information would
have been swiss cheesed out, anyway. Wow, it has been so long since I was
actually there to shake his hand... The last time I saw Al in my own time, he
was leaving the compound on some R&R, he and Tina were on each other's good
sides and I told them to go ahead.
Then, something happened... What was it? Damn that swiss
cheesed brain of mine...it seems even in this never-never land, my brain has
more holes than Bonnie and Clyde's last getaway car...wait! I remember!
We had planned to test the Accelerator Chamber the next
afternoon when both Al and I could have been there and totally refreshed, but I
got an urgent call from the "nozzles," as my good friend would say.
They called to tell me that, because things were starting to get hairy and were
taking so long without any results they were coming tomorrow morning to pull the
plug on MY no OUR project!
I just couldn't let that happen so I sweet-talked Gushie, the
head programmer, into running a few "diagnostic tests" on the
Accelerator Chamber. Then I dressed in the white Fermi suit specially made for
this project and headed down to the Control Room where I knew Gushie would be
waiting for me. To throw any suspicion off what I was really planning to do, I
told Gushie that this was a dress rehearsal, complete with the costumes so that,
when the time came, I would know exactly what to do and how to do it and how it
was going to be run.
I still to this day have no idea how Gushie could have
accepted this explanation, I guess it was because he figured I was a genius and
this was one of my eccentric quirks. Then, before he could figure out what I was
planning on doing and stop me, I activated the Accelerator Chamber and pulled
Ziggy (Al's pet name for the "hunk of junk metal" hybrid parallel
computer I created) online and prepared to leap.
As I stood there in the atomically charged fog that began
rising up around me, feeling the electricity course through my limbs, all I
could think about was that now the project was safe. They wouldn't leave anyone
stranded in time... would they?
But, then the realization that I never got to say goodbye to
my best friend hit me. Oh God, how I wish that I had waited another 20 minutles
and called Al home... However, I knew that he wouldn't have let me leap anymore
than I would have let him if our roles were reversed. I have regretted that
(when I remember what I did) ever since. I have always regretted never giving Al
a proper goodbye.
Dear God, or Fate or Time or Whoever you that keeps leaping
me through time, the next leap I make, please let me remember this wish to say
goodbye and let me be able to say it. I am so weary and I want to go home so
badly, please give me this chance to put this one mistake right.
Well, I guess it is almost time... I can feel the electric
tingle beginning... Please God, please have heard my prayer...
Part
2: Sam's Leap
Ok... the tingling has subsided and I can see... I need to
get oriented... ummmm... Who am I? I am Sam Beckett, Quantum Physicist, and Time
Traveler... Geez, I sound like a Television show Character! Ok... now that I
remember who I really am... where am I... Hmmmmm... to the left of me, I see a
door with a large window covered with heavy, light blocking drapes on a travois
rod and a combination radiator/air conditioner underneath the window. A table
with a lamp and chair sit directly in front of it. The carpet is a well worn,
but clean, tan color. Hmmmmm, this feels familiar, but I don't know why.
Lemme just take a better look around here... ok, there is a
single bed with a cheap, but nice-looking, mauve-flowered bedspread. Above the
bed is a tacky and rather boring still life of a vase of mauve and rose colored
flowers in a gilded gold frame. A small nightstand with a single drawer and
shelf next to the bed holds another, smaller lamp, an alarm clock, a remote
control attached to the table surface, and a beige rotary phone with a red,
blinking dome next to the receiver. Oh, duh! I'm in a motel room somewhere! Geez,
for a genius, I can be pretty dense, sometimes. Ok, now to find out some more
about this place... guess it's time to go through the drawers, starting with the
nightstand...
The nightstand's drawer holds a Gideon's Bible and a TV guide
with a picture of a guy that amazingly looks a lot like me on the cover. Hmmmmm...
the date is October 1990... that is almost 5 years before my first leap! Whoa!
Wait a minute... where did THAT come from!? I haven't been able to remember the
project or my first leap since I started this experiment gone `caca' as Al would
say. My PRAYER!!!! I remember! Before I leaped in here, I prayed that God would
give me a way to say goodbye to Al properly. I have to find a mirror! The one
over the desk will do just fine, I think.
OH MY GOD! Is that ME? I leaped into myself? I wish I knew
exactly where I was... wait... there's a desk against the dresser right in front
of the bed... I wonder what the motel stationary looks like and if it has the
address... ah hah! Here it is... I'm at a Day's Inn in Hope, Arkansas? Hope,
Arkansas... Why is that place familiar? Hmmmmm, I will have to ask Al, later...
Now, I have to figure out just how to tell my family and
friends goodbye... I can't call them because there is no project, yet. If this
is October 1990, Al and I are still trying to get the funding for this
operation... Wait! I got it! I will write a letter to Al, send it to him at our
old address and tell him NOT to open it until I leap in 1995... Better yet, I'll
just have the post office hold it until 1995... Now, time to get to work!
Well, it is about an hour or two later... maybe more. I have
finally finished the letter. This had to have been one of the most difficult
things I have ever done in my entire life. I am just grateful that the Big Guy
Upstairs let me remember everything I needed to so that I could say all that I
needed to say. Whoa, it is 2am and I have to be up early to get this over to the
post office... wherever that may be.
Thank you, again, god for giving me the chance to do this. I
will never forget it...
**********************
It is 10am and I have just finished mailing my letter to Al.
The familiar tingling is starting in my limbs and I know I don't have much time.
Thank you, again, God...
Now, I am back in the never-never land, waiting for my next assignment.
....To be continued...
The
past few leaps have been so hard. Especially
the last one where Sam leaped into a little girl the same age as Sammy Joe the
last time he saw her. He was too
late to save her from the emotional and sexual abuse that the little girl had
suffered at the hands of her older cousin only to find out that it was the
cousin he was here to save and NOT the little girl.
Neither he, nor I came away from that one unscathed, and that’s WITH my
POW experience, too!
It is times like these that leave me longing for Sam to be home, but I know that
isn’t possible. Even though I see
him every leap through the Imaging Chamber, it isn’t the same.
A hologram, a mirage just can’t replace real flesh and blood, no matter
how “real” it looks. So, here I
sit in his old office, amidst the equations, scientific journals, award and
other papers that littered his desk when he was here and that letter that he
wrote somehow always finds its way out of the shoebox I keep it in…
That
damn stubborn Beckett! God, how I
remember the day he leaped! We had
been working so hard on the project for the last month and a half and neither of
us had taken any time off. Finally,
all we had left to do was the final test of the Acceleration Chamber and we
would have been ready to go… or at least KNOW that the retrieval program
wasn’t going to work and given us time to fix it.
So my best friend sends Tina and I away to have some “quality time”
alone and away from silicon chips and quantum physics… we were going to be
back by sun-up, I swear (that is, provided we were in a condition to see sun-up,
if ya know what I mean) Then those nozzles from D.C called and RATHER than just
call me up and let me know about the situation and see just what I could do…
no the damn stubborn mule decides to take it upon himself to LEAP using UNTESTED
equipment… for a genius, he can be pretty dense, sometimes!
So how do I find out about this? I
get a call from Gushie as Sam is in the Acceleration Chamber and leaping…
He had tricked Gushie into running the program!
Of all the hair-brained, nonsense things for the guy to do…
Ohhh, well, that’s Sam for ya. I
couldn’t believe that he wouldn’t at least let me be there to say goodbye,
even if I wouldn’t have let he get anywhere near that Acceleration Chamber if
I HAD been there to say goodbye… just as he would have done for me.
So,
Now I sit here, missing my best friend and finding solace in a little piece of
paper… Sam’s last words to me.
This letter has meant everything to me over the years, especially when
Sam has forgotten everything, including me.
I am almost certain he doesn’t remember writing this to me, but I am so
grateful he did. Sam is the only family I have!
My mother ran away with an encyclopedia salesman when I was younger, then
I was in that god-awful orphanage, I lost my Father, then my sister Trudy.
Hell, I even lost the love of my life, Beth, to Vietnam.
Not to mention the 5 failed marriages after that…
Then there was the alcohol. Somehow,
I have yet to figure it out, Sam broke through all of that and became my best
friend and partner in crime.
Now,
I am opening the letter once again to read the lines of lasting friendship and
sentiment...
Part
4: The Letter
Al,
you are my very best friend and I want to apologize for not waiting until you
got back from your R&R with Tina before I left. I knew that there was no way I could have leaped with you
here… you wouldn’t have let me, just as I wouldn’t have let you, either.
Things re gonna be rough, I know, but I have so much faith in you, Al…
my life is truly in your hands. I
will never forget all those long nights chewing on cold, rubbery pizza, the
soundtrack to Man of La Mancha playing softly in the background as we etched out
the blueprints for Ziggy. And who
can forget the hoops we had to jump through to even get funding for this?
My goodness! If I see
another bag of airplane peanuts again in my life, it will be too soon!
But through it all, we stuck together.
I
still remember some of the conversations we had late into the night… talking
about literature, physics, time travel, family, Vietnam, music, (gotta love
Buddy Holly and “The King”) and the meaning of friendship.
I know we don’t always see eye to eye, but no one does.
You asked me one time why I chose to be your friend during the Star
Bright project… I told you
because I wanted to and that it looked like you needed a friend, but there was
so much more than that. I needed
you to help me as much as you needed me to help you.
Yeah, I have brains and a good personality, but none of that matters.
I was as alone as you were, Al, and you were able to look past the I.Q
and see me, Sam Beckett, as something other than a human anomaly.
You were the first person outside of my family who took me for who I was,
not what I could do. Then the thing
with Donna and her leaving me at the altar and everything, I would have died…
just shriveled up if it hadn’t been for you forcing me out of my self-pity.
We
are a team, stronger and smarter together than we could ever be alone… this
kind of friendship only happens once in a lifetime and I thank god every day
that my best friend is you, Al. You
know, you have always been kind of like a father figure to me, the way you look
out for everything and me. I
appreciate that so much, even when I forget how much I appreciate it and let it
annoy me. Geez, listen to me going
on and on and on like some kind of sappy, blithering idiot! Oh, well… I
guess there is a time and a place for everything and this is the time and place
to gush…sorry.
There
are no words in any language to express how much I appreciate you and how
grateful I am to have you as a friend. I
trust you implicitly, as I know that you trust me, as well.
And I know how hard it was for me to gain that trust.
I just wanted to let you know that, though leaping may magnaflux my
memory past the point of recognition, in the back of my mind, I will never
forget you. I may not remember
right away, but I will always know, deep in my heart.
Al,
now that this experiment has started, things are going to be tough.
I know that the retrieval program does not work the way it is supposed
to, though I do not think it is because of a design flaw.
There is a higher power at work here, driving me to put right what once
went wrong. There is nothing you or I can do to prevent this and the only
way I will come home is when my mission is over.
Please don’t give up on me, though.
Because if you give up, then there will be no more mission and I don’t
know what will happen.
I
guess that is all I have to say, I am slowly running out of time. …
Ha… a time traveler running out of time?
I think I have heard that joke before in some story I recently read…
hmmmm… Never forget, Al, you are
my best friend, I love you, and I will never forget you or give up.
Until
we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of his hand.
Your friend,
Sam
Part
5: Epilogue
I take one last look at those familiar words again, wipe the tear that
had the audacity to form at the corner of my eye and refold the letter.
There will be other leaps and other stories, but for now, I will myself
just this once fall into sweet nostalgia and longing for my good friend to come
home.
