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Sharon is a runner. Everyone has a thing they do. That’s her thing. The minute she gets out of bed in the morning she goes for a run. But today Sharon’s body refuses to cooperate. She finishes the first mile, and it still seems as though she’ll never wake up. Past the Nelson’s house, past the corner grocery store, the playground, the elementary school, up Granby’s Hill, and around the parking lot at the recreation center. Every step feels like she’s slogging through thick mud. But at least nothing hurts this morning. No tight Achilles tendon to shake out. No shin splints or aching hamstring. At least there’s that. Still, she’s slogging, slogging, slogging. And then. It happens. With no warning. Zap! Every cell in her body snaps to attention, the grogginess vanishes, and she’s fully alert. Just like that. Just like last week in the company cafeteria. She was on her lunch break, scrolling through LinkedIn, when she saw an article about the wisdom of Marcus Aurelius, a philosopher she’d never read before. According to Aurelius, the obstacle we face is actually the way out of our current problem. The obstacle is the solution. The way out. And then. It happened. With no warning. Zap! Every cell in her body snapped to attention, and she knew Aurelius was right, that the latest disaster her alcoholic husband had created to traumatize her life was not the last disaster, but one of many to come, that his disasters would continue again and again and again, like they had for the last seven years, that nothing would change, even though he promised it would, again and again and again, but it never did and never would, that this disaster was not just another stressful situation to survive, but her way out of a dead-end marriage. The obstacle, this disaster, was the solution. And it was. And this time she knew it. The way out. Hers. And this time she took it. Just like that. Laura Stamps is the author of several novels, short story collections, and poetry books, including IT’S ALL ABOUT THE RIDE: CAT MANIA (Alien Buddha Press), THE YEAR OF THE CAT (Artemesia Publishing), and IN THE GARDEN (The Moon). Winner of the Muses Prize. Recipient of a Pulitzer Prize nomination and 7 Pushcart Prize nominations. Mom of 5 cats. Twitter: @LauraStamps16. Website: www.laurastampspoetry.blogspot.com

Paige out of Time A Case Study Kronosis Management Case Study Paige Jenkins — Traveler Active from the Year 2019 (in this timeline) Distributed by CHRONOS Dept. of Educational Affairs, New York, NY USA, 2105 Introduction This case study was first developed in the year 2100 for a local CHRONOS management course. Our purpose was to educate employees around the onboarding of travelers; and to outline our company mission in response to public concern regarding the safety of time travel, particularly time travel for a profit. We hope to outline here a case that depicts early problems in the time travel industry, and how we’ve come to fix them. New employees are encouraged to engage with this material in order to more fully understand how our company has developed, and why it matters that we protect our travelers and honor our clientele. This case has been organized using general time terms (the present, before, a while back, etc.) to clarify its arc through the timeline. The commercial environment described was very typical of what existed for travelers in the year 2019. The problems are not difficult to spot, but can you see why they happened? And what was done to fix them? The case study will be followed by a set of questions organized by education management. You may use the case study and questions as you wish, subject to copyright limitations. The Present Occasionally, Paige fell through time(1). She didn’t like to disclose her condition. It was a bit embarrassing that she couldn’t stick to one timeline without help, and took such effort to explain. So she’d never told Nick. They had only been friends for a year, and besides, they had better things to talk about, like the terms of their newly sexual relationship, and _________________________ 1 Timeslip is a common symptom of Kronosis, an umbrella term covering several types of chronic time conditions, including but not limited to: ability to time travel, ability to sense people through time, and (in one most notable case) the ability to see into other timelines entirely. It is uncertain whether there are more variations on the disease. the way that sex felt. “Nick, oh my God,” Paige gasped. She leaned back to dig her fingers into his thighs as he moved. “Yeah? That good?” Paige grinned up at the ceiling, then looked down at Nick. He was grinning back, red in the face with his hands on her hips. “Yeah,” she said. She arched forward, pressed her fingers against his jawline. “Yeah,” she whispered. Her breath was warm on his lips. And then she was gone. Not gone to passion, just gone. Out of thin air. Out of Nick’s lap. Fifty years back into 1969. It was a familiar night. When Paige slipped, this was almost always when she ended up(2). Her first designated time travel had been to the day of the moon landing. She could remember that trip with stark clarity. The way things looked, felt, smelled. No wonder she kept falling back to it. She was standing in someone’s backyard. A house loomed over the patchy lawn, with sliding doors that opened onto a living room full of people, all jostling and murmuring. Paige heard the staticky drone of an old TV. Well, a new TV for this time. Paige took in her surroundings. Beyond a picket fence, a drying line sagged with laundry. As Paige clambered to her feet and made her way across the wet grass, she heard a collective gasp, but she _________________________ 2 Many travelers say that when navigating the folds of timespace, the time is much more difficult to get a hold of than the space. We all know time is tricky. Every human is bound to complain about it at some point: it either moves too fast or too slow or doesn’t seem to move at all. That’s why we write these case studies, to better understand what we’re dealing with. didn’t look up. It wasn’t about her. Paige couldn't always control her trips but she did have a superb sense of time(3). She knew it was 3:56 AM on July 20th, 1969. She listened carefully as she stepped up to the fence. It was relatively low. She placed her hands between its spikes and began to hoist herself over. As she went, Paige murmured along with Neil Armstrong on the television: “One small step for man…” She missed the next line in a sudden tumble over the fence and found herself sprawled on the neighbor’s lawn. This one was pretty and green. Less brown patches. The house was dark, probably because the family had gone next door to watch the moon landing with their friends. Paige made her way over to the clothesline. She couldn’t hear the television from this distance. She took her time picking out a dress from an array of damp options and picked the one that felt the least starched. It hung too wide on her frame, but that would have to do. This wasn’t the first time Paige had fallen through time unprepared. Not even the first time she’d done it naked. But it still left her exhausted. Paige looked up at the moon and took a deep breath. She hadn’t looked up the first fifty or so times she slipped. It had seemed appropriate to stand at the back of a crowd and watch alongside everyone else as the moon’s surface played out in grainy black and white. Eventually, she realized that once she got back to the future, she could watch it remastered, and perhaps it was more interesting to stare at the actual moon while the men were still up there. At least it would give her something to do until she got her strength back. So she watched the sky, and listened to make sure no one _________________________ 3 Another side effect of any form of Kronosis is an incredibly keen sense of time. As you might imagine, this can be excruciating. To notice each moment as it passes, recognize every tick of the clock. would come outside and notice her, and wondered about Nick. He would probably be worried. (Image used with permission of CHRONOS c. 2019) A While Back Paige Jenkins sat in the lobby of her place of work(4), reading over the familiar poster on the wall. She read it once, and again, and again. Then she let her mind wander as her eyes _________________________ 4 Many companies have capitalized on the existence of Kronosis patients. In exchange for regular treatment and assistance in managing their conditions, travelers are asked to complete research for those wealthy enough to pay. drifted off to trace the familiar blue trim along the wall. She tugged on her necklace(5). The bench she sat on was usually reserved for customers waiting on appraisals, not employees. But she wasn’t going to be an employee for much longer. She was trying to get used to the idea. “Paige!” Lacey called. She had only recently taken up the receptionist position, and she was good at it. She kept things well organized and her smile was almost as disarming as her wide, observant eyes. “The boss will see you now.” Paige stood up and dusted off her pants. They were new. It felt strange to walk around CHRONOS in clothes she owned rather than something the agency had provided her with. As she made her way past the front desk she quirked her lips in an awkward smile at her friend. Lacey offered an encouraging look. Paige made her way over to the elevator bank and used her key card to get in the employee car. An hour later, Paige had retired from her work with CHRONOS. She lost her pay, her agency-assigned housing, and any assists for travel through time. This included clothes, language and history education, and access to spotters(6). She was sent back to the lobby in the guest elevator. She paused long enough to give Lacey a hug. Outside, her hand went to _________________________ 5 One perk of working for time travel agencies is called a “tether.” These are objects that anchor time travelers to their home era. Personal tethers were very expensive in the early days of our industry, and most travelers relied on company-provided supplies 6 Along with tethers, travelers work with agency-trained spotters. These are people with a minor case of Kronosis that does not allow them to move through time, but rather to sense other people as they do. With proper mindfulness training, spotters can reach out through time and draw travelers back to their home era as needed. her throat to feel for her necklace, but she’d handed that over too. She stuffed her fists into the pockets of her coat. 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I took the framed photograph out of the top drawer of my dresser and moved you, with silent ceremony, to the wall above the kitchen sink. In the picture, you are sixteen, your hair long and straight, your teeth still crooked, your face unlined, your brown eyes troubled. It is the only picture I have ever seen of you from that era before me, and it is easy to see my face in your half-smile. I like looking at it when I am cooking or washing dishes, and I like to imagine Corey communicating with you in some way while he cooks, as he often does, for our friends and us. Of course, he never met you, and the stories he has heard are not altogether heart-warming. He is witness to the inherent sadness that is a constant companion to me and lives with your ghost as I do, comforting and caring for me throughout myriad breakdowns brought on by memory, anniversary, sometimes a song, sometimes a television commercial. In the kitchen, though, there is always music playing, and I find myself laughing a little as I remember us composing family feasts while Diana Ross and The Supremes played from the speakers in your kitchen in Tennessee, creating a rhythm to our chopping and kneading, peals of laughter and wine glasses clinking in a toast to how far we had come and “wouldn’t Miss Ross be proud of this jambalaya?”. Who knows if Diana Ross even likes jambalaya, but that wasn’t the point, was it? The last time we saw each other was my 37th birthday. I had driven the twelve hours from south Florida to the home of your newest family in Clarksville, stopping only for gas, bathroom breaks, and caffeine. In your seventh and last marriage, you had found the security and family for which you had always longed. Now that you were safe and sound and happy, I was 800 miles away, always running to stand still. I had known, somehow, that it was important that I make this pilgrimage, that this would be the last time I would hear you say my name or taste your famous scrambled eggs. I always looked forward to sharing my birthday with you, it being your day more than mine, after all. It had become a tradition for us to share a bottle of champagne while you told the story of my birth, my favorite part always that you had chosen another name for me, but had been overridden by my father, who didn’t know how to spell Jaunce. You had fallen asleep after a long natural labor with a ten-and-a-half-pound baby and were therefore not able to protest. When you woke, I was a junior. During this last visit, I knew you couldn’t drink, so I left the Dom Perignon (your favorite, not mine) at home, knowing I would surely need it upon my return. As soon as I arrived, I noticed with horror how your health was so rapidly failing, how the chemotherapy had riddled your body with searing pain and somehow reduced your mind to an almost child-like state. You were demanding and abrasive, which wasn’t entirely new, but there was a desperation that both angered and frightened me because you were beyond reason. I ended up making the scrambled eggs because you were feeling poorly. They were just as good as yours, but you would never admit that. After breakfast, I went downstairs to nap on the couch before the long drive home and you slept in your chair, wearing that sweater, your mouth open and your breathing labored. You lamented when you woke that you didn’t want me to leave and I snapped at you, much to the chagrin of all in the room, that I had a life to live and bills to pay, that I hated that town and nothing would ever convince me to live there again, least of all you. I knew that I had hurt your feelings, but I was too angry to care, and I left in a hurry after kissing you on your cheek and thanking your family for their hospitality, telling your husband to “keep me posted". We spoke only once more, and you told me that your only hope was for me to find a man to “take care” of me, that all you wanted was for me to “settle down”. This, of course, infuriated me. I let you have it, telling you that the last thing I needed in the world was a man to complete me, that I wasn’t anything like you, that I was whole on my own and that I took great offense to the idea that I should follow in your footsteps in the search for the perfect man. Because, really, had it gotten you that far? You could have your seven husbands, your six failed marriages, your indiscreet affairs, your three types of cancer, each one more aggressive than the last. Not unlike the husbands, as it turned out. I would live life as a confirmed bachelor, happy with a life of intimate friendships and the occasional one or two-night stand. You laughed that off and commented on how I was born stubborn and that it wasn’t really any of my business what your hopes were for me, anyway. I was sitting outside beside a swimming pool, phone to my ear, smoking cigarettes and drinking white wine, and I knew without a doubt suddenly that this was it; the last time I would hear your voice. I told you I loved you despite all the damage and there was a brief silence. All that had never been said, all that needed to, lived between us in those few seconds. You said, “I love you too, Teddy”. We were silent for another few seconds and then said goodbye. The next time I saw you, of course, you weren’t really there. The funeral director was a friend of mine from high school, and he was as gracious and kind as anyone has ever been to me. He suggested I spend a few moments alone with you before everyone arrived to pay their respects and he closed the door silently as I stood, not exactly sad, but certainly lost, looking down at the body which had given me life, now lifeless. I didn’t say anything. You wouldn’t have heard me, anyway. The pastor you had never met referred to you as a virtuous woman and I cringed. After the service, your friends gathered around me, weeping and reaching out for comfort and I stood, stoic and suited, until the last guest left. At your house after the service, the family gathered in the kitchen with fried chicken and whiskey. I found myself in your “dressing room”, the guest room that had been converted to a closet filled with your clothes, a makeup table, your collection of first edition hardcover Danielle Steel novels, framed photographs, and the wigs you had worn when your hair fell out. I sat on the floor beside the chair where you always sit, where you had died, and smelled the sweater that rested on its arm. Your scent had changed during your illness, but there was something still there, however faint, that I knew instinctively as “mother”. The sweater hangs in our office now. Sometimes I wear it. I couldn’t bring myself to ask for the chair. On the morning I got married, I stepped out of the shower and, as I caught my eye in the mirror, I saw your face in my face. It was the first time since you had died three years earlier that I ever really felt your presence. I heard you telling me you were happy that I had found love, that of course I was complete before, but that wasn’t everything so much better now, and weren’t you right, after all? I laughed and played Diana Ross and The Supremes while I dressed and poured a glass of champagne, toasting the journey, the destination, all of it, and you. The ceremony itself was understated. My best friend drove from Columbus, Ohio to be our sole witness; Corey and I spoke traditional vows with little fanfare, and it was all over in less than thirty minutes and we were off to lunch. But we were married and while we had tried to play it down, there was no getting around the truth that everything had, in fact, changed. I did now belong to someone, and while I had never relied on certainty before, I knew I was finally, really safe. That safety is what let you back into my life, and when I came home, an altogether different and married man, the first thing I did was find that photograph. I had buried it in the same drawer where I kept all of your divorce and custody documents, the ones that stated in no uncertain terms that you were unfit to be my mother and that it wasn’t safe for me to be in your care. I pushed the papers aside and found the picture where I had left it, in a red frame with a torn-out calendar page from the day you died. There was no question when it came to where you would most want to be placed in my home, and I went to the kitchen. You are there now, just where I need you to be, framed and safe in a warm kitchen where music always plays and love is served, as it should be, at just the right temperature and right on time.

Thank you for shopping at Wingmans We appreciate your feedback! Date of Service: 9/20/21 Comments: It’s not every day that one life is changed in the express line at a grocery store. On Sunday, I staggered into the 7 items or less, filled with dread as I was over by two items (I don’t count individual rolls of toilet paper as separate items as they usually come in packs of 12 or more and that is considered one item. It feels a little nitpicky if you ask me) and I expected to be admonished by the cashier as it was a busy day for the store. Sundays are packed with those last minute shoppers of beer, soda, Tostitos and salsa; each shopper adorned in their ‘team’s’ jerseys. Bills, NY Giants, an occasional oddball Dolphins fan will make friendly banter about ass kicking and the like. I was feeling rather left out as I hate football and all it entails. I am a 51-year-old woman. I have three kids, mostly grown; at least physically. I have a marriage of 27 years, hence the toilet paper. He goes through a lot of toilet paper. I don’t find pleasure in the banal, group think of the stadium dwellers. No, I would rather read a book, listen to a podcast or take a walk. Another type of follower, but I digress. It was as I put my last item on the conveyor that I noticed the name tag. Conner I find the name rather, I don’t know; generic. But not the type of generic that will lead a nation, know what I mean? His blue eyes peered at me from underneath a copper fringe. They were nice eyes. He wore his mask over his nose, so I don’t think I could pick him out in a lineup. Covid times, Jesus Christ already! Anyway, he asked if I had found everything I needed okay. I was like “And THEN some!” my standard joke that shows my satisfaction at Wingman’s selection as well as an approachability that may be a little off-putting. So here is the thing; I CANNOT stand silence. Not even if it is a twenty-second monetary exchange for goods at a grocery store. I asked Conner “So, where do you go to school?” He told me and indicated he is a junior. Which naturally led me into the college search question; now that we assume that every Tom, Dick and Conner must be looking at spending their life paying off a useless degree. He kindly divulged that he is going to go into forensic sciences. My ears perked up. WE have something in common! I clung to this and ran with it, not dissimilar to the running back who snatches the ball out of midair, and runs to the goal, unhindered. “I wanted to be a forensic scientist or a detective when I was young. It was my dream. I did try the police department, but I couldn’t handle the stress. Why don’t they just let detectives go in as such? It is a completely different set of skills needed for detective work. It was very disheartening. I wound up just doing customer service and being a true crime junkie.” Conner looked up with those bright, hopeful blue eyes and said, “Well, it’s never too late.” I was gobsmacked. In all my life, I had never had something brought into focus so immediately. He was right. Conner was right. So this comment card is just to let you know that angels come in the most unexpected places. Thanks to your wonderful cashier, I have quit my job, left my husband, and enrolled in the forensic science program at a college in Albuquerque. Dorm living has been a hoot! Were my roommate and her family surprised when they met me! Anyway, thank you for hiring such a wise young man. Oh, and p.s. the reorganization of the store has been a real hassle. I don’t know where the heck to find the dish soap anymore! Why isn’t it in with the other cleaning products? Yours Truly, Barbara