Chapter 19: The Space Between, Part 1

"There is a lot to talk about, Kenya. I might not know why or how, but there is a great deal that you have to know."

"Like what?" I whispered. I literally was terrified.

"We're not the only ones."

My mouth fell open. "We're not…the only…"

"There are at least two more--maybe three. It's hard to tell with Ethel. She might really be insane. Who can really tell?"

"Who is Ethel?" I asked anxiously.

"Let me start from the beginning."

"Well, why in the hell didn't you tell me this yesterday?" I exclaimed.

"Because there wasn't enough time. Remember, I wanted you to stay? You're the one who insisted that you had to get back home."

"Okay, okay. Tell me about these other people."

He ran his hands through his hair as he appeared to think about where to start. "I met James last year. I was at The Home Depot trying to find countertops that weren't freaking Formica or orange composite. At first I thought he worked there because he walked up to me and began talking. He was saying, 'a little boy wearing boots at Home Depot…'"

"I looked at the man and said, 'What?' He just stared at me. He was crazy looking. His eyes were wild. He was too thin and I couldn't really tell his age, but later I found out that he was twenty-three. His clothes were a mess, dirty and smelly, and anybody looking at him could easily see that he probably lived out on the streets.

"He just repeated the same thing as if it would make better sense. And then he asked if we could go somewhere and talk in private. I was like…hell no, and I think I called him a pedophile or something.

"Well he got really anxious and apologized and said that he was from the future and that he got a letter telling him to find a boy wearing boots at the Home Depot.

"It literally blew me away. We talked in that store for an hour before we ever stepped foot outside. I knew everything about him by then. His story was jacked up because it turned out that he actually was living on the streets. He had just run away from a mental institution."

I covered my mouth. "Oh no."

"Right. James had only been back to the past for a few weeks and he'd lost it, gotten arrested, and was sent to a mental institution. His parents really had no choice because if his actions, when I met him, were even slightly similar to what they were when he was arrested, then anyone would call him certifiable.

"So I took him back to my place and got him fed and cleaned up. He slept for like an entire day before we could really talk again. And that's when he told me about Sly and Ethel.

"Sly was in his fifties and was trying to tell people that he'd gotten an envelope that sent him back in time and that he was really from 2010. He was married to a woman that was really dead, and evidently the family decided that he was not just suffering from an onslaught of early dementia but had actually lost his mind. He had been in the psych ward for over a year.

"Ethel was different, though. She was sixty-two and maintained that she was not in the right time. But when it came to her, there was no letter. Also, her future was an alternate future. Her timeline didn't match. She came from the year 2042 I think, but she doesn't remember there being a president Bush, Obama or Trump. She—"

"Whoa whoa whoa!" I leaped to my feet. "Wh—? Did you just say President Trump? What the fuck?"

Bill nodded. "Ah, that's right. Your transport happened before the election. Yeah. Trump won."

"No," I said adamantly. "That's not possible. Hilliary was in the lead. She was winning the debates."

Bill inhaled deeply. "It was a close election, but in the end while Hilliary Clinton won the popular vote, Trump won the Electoral College votes."

"But that's not possible!" I was standing in front of Bill with my hands on my hips now, my eyes narrowed in anger. "How? But—Trump?" I sputtered.

Bill stood and placed a calming hand on my shoulder. "Kenya, I feel your pain, I truly do. But Donald Trump is the forty-fifth president of the United States--at least he was twelve days after the inauguration, which is when I left. There are all kinds of conspiracies about it including cyber-espionage by Russia which was discovered by US intelligence."

"Oh my God…" I said.

"Yeah…"

I shook my head. "Now I understand how my mom feels. You're telling me something that I just can't believe even though I know you come from the future, too. I feel like you come from an alternate reality where Donald Trump magically wins the election, but I come from the actual reality where there is no way in hell that he could win." I relaxed my posture. "Well, did anything else weird happen after I left and before you did? We didn't discover the existence of aliens or anything?"

Bill snorted in laughter. "It was only a few months…well, actually when did you leave?"

"October third," I replied.

His eyes moved upward and he rubbed his chin as if in deep thought. "It's been a while, but a lot of people died in 2016. Carrie Fisher died at the end of the year."

"Oh no!"

He nodded. "And then her mother Debbie Reynolds passed away a few days later."

I grimaced.

"Alan Thicke died."

"No!" I yelled. "Not Alan Thicke!"

"Yes," Bill confirmed. "And George Michael."

"Jesus!" I screamed.

Bill looked at me warily. "Florence Henderson died, too."

"No no no!" I cried. "No more! Just stop!" Tears were swimming in my eyes. "I don't want to know any more. I'll find out the proper way if, I mean, when I go back home."

Bill went to the bathroom and brought me a wad of toilet tissue to wipe my tears and blow my nose. I gave in to my tears for a bit longer, feeling the need to purge my system of every crappy thing that had happened to me since coming to 1982.