Later That Same Day At Jim's Place

 

📺💚🐟

        The first thing Jim did after Masie Gunderson left his apartment, was to go into his bedroom, strip off his dirty clothes, ball them up and toss them in the basket, and head for the shower. Deep thinking often happens under hot running water and he was hoping that just that normal activity would reset his memory.
        Standing there, eyes closed, wet and warm, Jim had a sense that a great deal had happened to him recently, but he couldn’t get quite through some kind of block. The state he was in when found was evidence enough of that. But the shower was very pleasant and he relaxed for the first time since he had been picked up in the cemetery among the gravestones and flowers, and all the stuff tribal sons and daughters decorate grave sites with. It had been an odd scene to his eyes.
        He toweled off, and found clean jeans and a t shirt in his closet. Then he explored his own kitchen, as if he had never seen it before. The milk had gone sour. There wasn’t much in the fridge. He found some packets in the freezer compartment. His homecoming meal turned out to be a Marie Callender spaghetti.

        He made coffee too. He found a sugar bowl on the counter and put a spoonful of sugar in his mug, wondering if he always took his coffee with sugar.
        Jim wondered if looking in a mirror at his own face would remind him of anything. He went back into the bathroom and stared at his image in the glass. Nothing special. About half an inch of beard. He decided it looked okay. But it didn’t help either.
        He wandered into the living room and switched on the TV. As he was leaning back in his chair asking himself if he was always much of a TV viewer, he fell asleep.
        When he woke an hour later, after a moment the room seemed like a place he had seen before. The TV was still on. A Blue Planet program was running. It was a program including underwater scenes. His eyes stayed locked on the screen. There was something about it that drew him. Then he got it. He remembered water, but not clear tropical water. He remembered hazy dim water from somewhere else like in a dream.
        He sat forward, elbows on knees and concentrated. He remembered the bottom of a body of water littered with detritus, boat hulls, long stretches of sand, dimly revealed creatures, large and small. How did he get there he wondered. What was he doing underwater….?
        The vessel doing the photography in the video had bright spotlights on board. He remembered a bright light shining underwater, through that dim hazy water. Then he remembered being in a vessel underwater.
        Memories of his recent past crowded into his mind in a rush. The whole thing. Legion Park at night. The strange light in the bay. The ring of light coming toward him. And he remembered an incredible person called Art, and a very broad joke based on Art Bell’s voice. Jim laughed out loud, alone in his room, still monitoring the Blue Planet program.
        “Gotcha, Little Art&Annie! Gotcha! I remember!” he snorted.
        Someone was banging on his door, so he got up and opened it. His daughter, looking hastily put together, was standing there. Twenty eight years of dark curls, blue eyes, and a temper. She burst into tears and came in, slamming the door shut behind herself.
        “Where were you? I nearly hired a detective! I nearly died of fear!” yelled Sylvia.
        “Hi kiddo,” said Jim rather weakly.
        “Oh! So, you know who I am?” said Sylvia, moderating her tone.
        “I wouldn’t have known an hour ago,” said her father. “I wasn’t supposed to remember. They zapped me.”
        “You’re not making sense, daddy. Who zapped you?”
        “Sit down, Sylvia, and I’ll tell you a story and you probably would rather that I had a psychic break and was just certifiable,” said Jim.
        They sat. Sylvia looked at him, waiting. Jim could hear his wall clock ticking the seconds.
        “I was aboard an interstellar space craft piloted by a golden furred ET for ten days,” said Jim.
        “You were not!” She was yelling again.
        “Sorry, kiddo, I really was. Before flying away to the stars they asked me what I wanted to see on Earth. I had a list. First I wanted to see the bottom of Puget Sound. Very interesting. The water is quite cloudy but full of living things. All shapes.
        "I wanted to zoom Area 51. We did that. Funny stuff. We had to evade some air traffic up there! We did some more of that too, you know, secret bases and stuff. The ETs know where all the secret bases are. Remember that old video about All Your Base? Nah. You’re too young.”
        “You’re my father. You don’t generally lie to me,” said Sylvia. She threw a sofa pillow across the room.
        “I’m not lying now! Relax. It was fun as heck. I wanted to fly down the Grand Canyon, we did it and the Black Canyon too. Then the list grew and grew. We visited every site on Earth that I could think of. Then you know what? I decided that I wanted to live on Earth! Earth has some pretty interesting stuff going on, plus it needs help. Can’t always run away. Or fly. Pretty crazy huh? Who decides that?
        “I bailed on the trip to the stars. I changed my mind. So, when they dropped me off, they scrubbed my memory. Self protection I guess. Little Art said he was sorry and he hoped we could take that trip to the stars some day.  I don’t know why or how I ended up in the Suwal Tribe’s cemetery, but Art, the pilot, is a big joker,” said Jim. “I’m not really sure where they dropped me off. Maybe I hitchhiked out there?

        "But the block didn't keep! I remembered everything!
        “Oh dad. Even if I could believe you, what are you going to do now? Your boss called me and said if you didn’t appear days ago they were firing you!”
        He started laughing. “I didn’t want to drive taxis anyhow!”
        “Maybe you are certifiable, daddy. Really, what are you going to do?”
        “Maybe I’ll get a job in the Arboretum greenhouse at Legion Park, scene of the crime,” giggled Jim.
        “Maybe I’ll get a job pulling shots at some espresso stand! Barristo Jim!”
        “I guess if everything goes to hell, you can live in my basement. Bill likes you,” said his daughter.
        “I could write science fiction and sell millions of books,” said Jim, deadpan. He wondered what Little Art would think of that, speaking of possible accidental exposure!
        “Fiction sounds like a good start, daddy,” said Sylvia. “Nobody expects it to be true.”