Hold On Tight

That's how we stay together. When we go to sleep, we hold on tight. So if one of us slips away, the other slips with us.

We figured that out the first night, when I held Bally's hand as she went to sleep and then I felt myself become unstuck. It was only the second time that had happened when I was awake -- and the previous time it was due to the Rawboned Man. This time, it was because I was holding onto Bally and she was becoming unstuck.

I closed my eyes, held her hand, and when I opened it, we were in a wide open grassland. It was still dark and it looked like there weren't any buildings around. It must have been summer, since it was warm, but we still shivered out in the open.

We held each other's hands and went back to sleep. When we woke, we were back in our time or close to it.

So that's how we stay together now. We hold on tight.

The Fire

Bally started to talk. She kept fidgeting, moving the hood over her face so it would cover her burns. "I, um, I was in New York, I think. It was only for a few hours and then I went back to sleep and I woke up back in my time. I called Roland and Mona and they came out to get me. They said you had disappeared a few days ago, but they were sure you would turn up, just like me."

We were sitting on a bench in a park. Mona had been staying at nearby low-rent housing, but she said the room was as small as a coffin, so she didn't want to stay there. She wanted to tell the story in the open air.

"So I was at the house and a few days later, I woke up to a noise. I went downstairs and you were there. I mean, it wasn't you you, but a future you. You looked older and your face had...scars." She couldn't look at me when she was talking, like she was ashamed at herself, even for something I had done. "You were pouring gasoline all over the house. I didn't know what to do. I tried to wake up Roland and Mona, but their beds were empty. They must have become unstuck in the night."

She leaned forward. "Finally, you, the future you, lit a match and...well, set the house on fire. You didn't say anything. You just looked at me with this...grin on your face. And then..." She stopped.

"What?" I said. "What happened? Why didn't you just run, get out of there?"

"Because you were burning," she whispered. "You had set yourself on fire, too, and I wanted to put it out. I tried to put it out, but I couldn't. It hurt so much and then...then I remembered being dragged out of there by a firefighter. I remember the pain of the cold air on my skin and I tried to find you again, but you weren't there."

She stopped talking then. "I'm sorry," I said. "I don't...I don't know why I would do that. What would make me."

"I've been thinking about it," she said. "It was probably one of the Unchanging. The Rover or the Rawboned Man. Or maybe, I mean, I've heard of something recently that can look exactly like other people. Maybe it was that."

"Maybe," I said.

"And now you're back," Bally said. "The present you, not the future you. Now we can look for Roland and Mona, right? Now we can find another place to live and everything will be fine, right?"

"Right," I said. "Right."

The House

I went to the house today. I wanted to see if anyone was there.

It was a burned, blackened husk. The fire didn't even look recent. It must have happened weeks, maybe even days after I became unstuck. They can't be dead though. They can't. I've never seen their future selves, but they just can't be dead.

I met Bally. I was looking at the house, at the shell of the only permanent home I had known for a long time, when I heard her. "I knew you would come back," she said and I turned.

The left side of her face was burned. She awkwardly tried to pull a hood over her face and looked down nervously. "I knew you'd come back here," she said again. "I've been waiting. Ever since I got out of the hospital."

"What happened, Bally?" I asked.

"It's a long story," she said.

And then she told it to me. She told me about the fire and, more importantly, who was responsible: I was.

Shelter

I found a homeless shelter where I got some decent clothes and -- thank God -- shoes. Do you know how hard it is to walk barefoot? I kept on trying to avoid broken glass and dog shit.

I went to sleep last night and wondered if I would wake up back in March, but no luck. I've never become unstuck in the future before -- am I stuck here now? Is this now my present?

Still no word from Roland, Mona, or Bally. I'm even more worried, if that's possible.

January

I went to sleep in March and woke up in January. I went to sleep in early spring and woke up in the bleak midwinter. Sometimes I fucking hate being a Pilgrim.

Nobody's picked me up yet. I'm wearing some clothing I found in a dumpster and typing into a library computer while trying to avoid the librarian's steely gaze. Sometimes it takes Roland and the others several hours, but nobody's shown up yet and that's making me slightly worried. I know a me from around this time visited them, so I'm still alive, but I keep being worried that something bad may have happened to Roland and Mona and...well, mostly I'm worried about Bally.

I keep seeing the future version of her, the one with the burned face. Should I try to find the house now? Could I? Or would that fuck with causality or something?

And those posts, from the days before I woke up. Who wrote them? Did the future version of me write them? Why?

This feels different than the other times. I don't know why, it just feels different.

see what's become of me

time

time

time