Brylee's Bookclub

"Ten Minutes"

“Katherine, Marcus, Ian, Mary, line up and enter the machine. The faster you go, the faster I can go home.”“Oh come on, Professor, it’s like a second of your time,” Ian said.“There are people all around the world who would kill each other to get a chance to use this thing. You idiots get to use it for detention. Now, hurry up.”Mary climbed inside the strange device. It was rectangular and sharp, each corner threatening to dig into her. Lines of gray and blue devastated the pristine metal of the box. It was cold against her back.The rest of the delinquents gathered around in awe. The professor always liked the eagerness of the fresh students. They wanted to go to anywhere at anytime, so long as it wasn’t here. They knew the rules well enough to know that any place used before couldn’t be returned to again, but that never stopped them from begging him to bring them moments before or after the places he’s been: Versailles ending WWI, the collapse of the USA, the first walk on Saturn.He had to lie a few times to cover the times he took the machine to special moments, but that was another positive of new faces: eagerness to trust.“Alright, Mary, you know how this goes. This machine is set for the town of Sligo, Ireland 1402 AD. After I push this button, you have 10 minutes to survive the horrid place.”“All old world accounts I’ve heard of Ireland sound lovely.”“Listen here class, this is a prime example of how someone can get killed in just ten minutes.”“Just get it over with,” she said.The professor turned the dials on the machine to the appropriate settings. He selected a lucky student, always eager to get chosen, to press the large red button. Mary quickly folded into a bright light and disappeared from the container.“Alright class, why don’t you take your seats. I think Miss Allen brought some leftover cake from the debate meeting. We might as well get something out of our time here.”“Hey, professor, did you watch the game last night?”“Yes, I did, Mr. Colt, and I’m sorry for it. I would’ve liked to continue supporting the school I teach for.”“Professor! Have you ever traveled to Kansas?”“Why the hell would I?”“Isn’t it where that ancient movie was? The first colored one?”The professor hated film majors. Movies hadn’t been common for centuries. These children were going to single-handedly ruin all progress his generation made.“I couldn’t tell you, but I think I know where Ian will be getting sent for his detention,” said the professor.“I always thought it would be cool to see the first Mars colonies.”“Ew, why? Weren’t they filthy?”“Didn’t everyone of the first colonies die?”“Yeah, but that’s what would be cool!”“It would be nice to just not worry about anything and go back to when things were simpler. Back when food was grown in the ground and people could choose to go to school.”The professor was only half listening to what the class said. He would’ve pulled Mary back the second he sent her in if the damned debate club didn’t waste everyone’s time with their snacks.“Professor, when can we go?”“We’re the only people to talk to someone who went to Slico in 1402. We should be willing to wait all day.”“It’s Sligo, Colt. And not everyone has time to sit around waiting for some fool who got herself caught cheating on a test.”“All I’m saying is that maybe this is a moment that others in the future might one day look back and wish they could’ve been here for.”“I doubt that anyone would want to come back to a place with you.”“I’m just saying.”“Well, you’re saying wrong.”“Ok! Class, let’s gather back around and pull Mary out,” the professor said.The professor flipped the dial to its new spot to signal 10 minutes from its last trip. Just a little while longer, and he would be back home doing absolutely nothing and hearing absolutely no one.Just as Mary had folded into herself, she unfolded like shards of a mirror.Only the woman sitting in the box wasn’t Mary. This was a mature woman, chubbier yet leaner, paler yet covered in more sun spots. Her hair was braided differently. She wore new clothes.The woman screamed. She spoke in a strange tongue, tears streamed down her eyes.“Mary?”“Shit, shit, shit.”“Professor, what happened!”“Is that Mary?”“Did the machine do that?”“Please,” Mary cried in common tongue, “my husband, my children. Send me back, please. You can’t bring me back here. I can’t be back here.”“Professor, what’s going on?”“Mary, what happened? Are you okay?”“Send me back!"“You know I can’t send you back, Mary,” the professor said.“You left me for ten years!”“Years? Professor, what happened?”“Everyone shut up! The dial was set wrong.”“Please, I can’t leave my family behind. They need me. I need them. Please.”“Get out of the machine, Mary, now!” Yelled the professor.“No, I have to go back. I have to go back, please. They’re my children. I need them. Please, please. My baby needs me. He’s not even two.”“Get her out of of there.”“Ah! My arm!”“You idiot you hit the corner with her arm.”“It’s not my fault she’s thrashing.”The professor turned a few dials on the machine. He stepped inside the box.“Alright, someone press that red button. I may be able to set this right.”“I can see my children?”The professor said, “Yes, just wait a moment.”Someone pressed the button. The professor’s insides cramped and cried out as though his very atoms were being rearranged.He unfolded into his classroom, now empty and filled with dust stained sunlight.“Professor? Would you mind if I set these here? They were leftovers from the debate meeting.”“Please do.”“Where are you sending them today?”“Kansas.”

"Pray For Me"

They didn’t know how cold piss could become when you lay in a puddle of it for long enough. Most people didn't. Even the drunk and the lonely stand up to crash onto a sofa or unwashed mattress.I knew what it felt like to wake up confused, transformed. The world around having shifted to something dark, hidden. I knew the silence of the splashing of the puddle when my limp arms shoved me from it, and I knew the sound of a faucet distorted only by that poison which ran through my veins. I knew the stench of such a puddle. There wasn’t another in this world like it. It didn’t fade when I forced myself off the ground and clumsily slithered into the tub. It mixed with the water and the blood from gaping wounds I only foggily remembered receiving, giving.It smelled worse on the tiled floor than it did anywhere else. It was the stench of utter defeat, not by a hideous monster. It was the stench of desire. A desire to run and cry and scream. A desire to lose control, as if I’d never again transform back into this miserable creature.But I always did.I’d always meet her again. Too slow, too loud, too quiet, too something. She was too cruel and too kind. She won everything she didn’t want and lost every time she didn’t try. She never seemed to try.That bathroom regularly heard the pleas. Wet from the tub and blood and piss, newly transformed. I crawled on my knees and screamed for Them until streaks ran down my throat. They never answered. They were just like Him.I always seemed to get lost in this transformation, and these bottles, and these pills. Around and around and around we’d go. I’d sit in that same cheap chair, and they’d start screaming out their prayers. From miles and miles and miles away, the sirens would cry, as They stood there by my side. I would call for the sirens, or the chair, or Him, but it was only the devil on my shoulder who ever really walked me home.I’d crawl from the hole They dug me, bloody nails in the ground, as they watched me, and they’d thank heaven for the wings He gave me.When I'd make it to the mountain, with warmth in the hearth and scars deeply faded, they’d thank Him. They’d thank themselves for the times they got down on their knees and prayed for me.