Strange Times
This time she knew what she was getting into when she set the can on the table and it vanished from sight. Usually, as one might expect, cans disappearing from where you put them might have quite startling effects on a person, or really any item at all just up and disappearing and deciding against all laws of physics it didn’t want to be held or seen by someone, or well anything, disengaging from all worldly activities and disappearing as if it had never been there to begin with. But, for her, it had been happening more frequently and what left her lips was nothing more than an exasperated sigh. Looking around the room she didn’t know where she was, again. She had been in a bar and now she was in, what was it? Some kind of cafe.
“Hey, are you okay? You’re spacing out on me Caulfield.”
“Um, what?” That was a first. No one had ever spoken to her before, let alone been there
“I said, are you good?”
“Yeah.. Yeah, just fine.” She was a pro at the strange, she could get through this. Just gotta assess the situation, act as normal as possible, figure out what this was and go from there. “Just got a bit of a headache, y’know?”
“I feel that. You want the usual?”
“Sure. You know me.” She did not, in fact, know him. He was the barista though, that much she could gather. Glancing to her side she saw one other person in the place, scrawny with dark hair. It seemed quiet and she was thankful for that as she only had the friendly barista to work around. While the windows were behind her, the establishment was full with a bright warmth that told her it was a sunny day and the ac unit whirred softly in the background: Something she knew she wasn’t going back to. It wasn’t likely this was anywhere near where she actually was, if she was “actually” anywhere else at all - what she had assumed up until this point but didn’t have the capacity to figure out yet.
“Here you go, on the house”
He placed a black coffee on the table beside her. “Thanks…” She didn’t know whether she had the right tone or not, it came out more of a surprise and she didn’t want to give away that she wasn’t meant to be here. Her ethic now was just to play these out as intended and learn as much as she could from them as naturally as possible. She didn’t want to upset the flow of anything, that was the last thing she ever wanted to do given the fact she couldn’t even tell if this was real or not.
“So.. about the website photos?” He asked and she took a second’s pause to think over a response that wouldn’t say “hey I have no memory of you or where the hell I am at all!” by sipping on her coffee, a saviour. “Ow- shit!” It was hot, of course. Well, at the very least this all felt real. But, she supposed they always did. “Yeah- uh.” And she would’ve continued to make a fool of herself, fumbling over her words, if the barista before her hadn’t made such a startled reaction as if she said something utterly insane or vulgar and she was more than sure she hadn’t done anything of the sort nor made any super incriminating reveal to her alienness in this situation.
“Max! Your nose!” She knew by now what to expect when she rubbed her thumb under it to find that crimson sign that infrequently cursed her and yet, still, she too was startled. It had never happened like this before and was usually indicative of strain or some kind of overuse - of which she was sure this wasn’t nor was she causing within it as it had never cropped up in a flicker like this before. The barista was handing her a paper towel and maybe saying something to her but she couldn’t really focus on that right now as she was looking wildly around for a hint or sign of what to do. All she saw was the concerned face of the scrawny man and a beachfront through the windows.
Great, she was somewhere warm and sunny and by the sea, but she was still bleeding and she was still in this mess. “I think I need to go. Uh Bathroo-” She was in the middle of saying, stumbling onto her feet, when all of a sudden she felt a jolt like her entire vision flashed and a migraine greater than any migraine anyone had ever experienced crashed the back of her mind like the waves on that beach. It lasted only momentarily until, as if in an instant, the whiteness was replaced by softer glowing lights and she was back in her familiar bar, falling into something, or somebody with a soft thud.
“Maximus! Had one too many?” It was the familiar, smooth tone of a voice that pulled her into the known, the comfortable present. And, on it there carried the lightness of a laugh that couldn’t help but make her smile. It was her, her Chloe embracing her. “I-” She started.