Science fictioin

Out of Time (5.4)

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[The continuation of the Survivor Short Story “project” in the War On Boris the Bytrode series. This time, back in time, 1967, following the adventures of middle-aged mum, Letitia…

In this episode (5.4) Celebration as Letitia fixes the computer… But is it all just a bit too easy?]

A Computer Called Clarke

Part 4

In the spacious cabin, spacious for a yacht that is, which Wilhelm had dubbed the “Phone box” as it appeared larger on the inside than it seemed on the outside, the computer blinked, goading Letitia. The inane IGSF symbol menaced the screen a touch longer than it ought to. Letitia shuddered. She had never contended with a computer of this particular vintage.

When she first arrived in the Mirror Universe of 1986, she had toyed with a Commodore computer, a deceptively simple machine Frieda had given her to play games of story puzzles and space invaders; a sort of easing into the digital world. The computers on the Mother Ship had admittedly been constructed centuries ago and modified by a computer engineer named Clarke and his protégé, John, Frieda’s son. But on Mirror, by 2015, the prevailing Mirror Computer monopoly had been dismantled and thrown to the four or more existing richest multinationals to encourage competition. It had long been established that Mirrorsoft Works (as it was known on Mirror World) was a conundrum, an irony, as in most cases the system did not work. The same problems seemed to be manifesting with the IGSF programming in 1967. Had Boris hacked into the system and sabotaged it?

She fiddled around the edges of the system wishing that she could get her mind grafted into it and pretend that she had her head around the problem at hand. Meanwhile Wilhelm disappeared to the deck for the purpose of tightening ropes and fixing sails ready to sail. His parting words to her before rising to the deck were, ‘We acquired this computer six months ago, it was state of the art, it had all the bells and whistles, how could it? I can’t understand how it could break down like this.’

‘Boris, I reckon,’ she mumbled to the obnoxious piece of useless circuitry and the screen that stared back at her, blank and prehistoric. There it was, that stupid blue screen and mindless blathering of words and formulas scrawled across the window.

‘Fatal error!’ she exclaimed. ‘I haven’t seen anything so ridiculous in all my years of programming and managing Mirror’s networks. Oh, what’s this sinister box announcing that I have made a “fatal error” and that the computer must shut down immediately and all my information lost? If the threat wasn’t so ridiculous, it would be pathetic. Wilhelm, my friend, you have been ripped off. You have a lemon!’

Once more, she glared at the blue screen of death. ‘Probably is sabotage by Boris.’ She hurled her hands in the air. ‘Wipe it out and start again. That’s all I can do,’ she hissed at the screen spraying droplets over the LCD screen.

‘How are you going there?’ Wilhelm poked his head down the ladder from above.

‘Do you mind if I wipe everything out and start again?’ Letitia scoffed as she dabbed the screen with a tissue.

‘Yeah, that’s alright,’ Wilhelm replied. ‘Go ahead, if that solves the problem.’

A pale blue Cradle Mountain and cartoon caricatures of icons winked at her, daring her to programme them out of existence. She began the process. Pressed “start”, clicked “control panel” and paused to begin the road to computer condemnation.

With finger poised over the delete key, she breathed, ‘Say your prayers, Clarke!’ Then, she remembered. Always save data, files…anything. While this archaic monstrosity had some glimmer of life in it, she must endeavour to save what she could. She fished out a USB stick stored in the tin box below the screen. In the side of Clarke’s box-like body, a quartet of receptacles where these vintage sticks could be plugged. She again paused the execution process.

‘Will, have you saved all your data?’ she asked.

‘Save? Save? Do I have to save something?’ Wilhelm called from above through the floorboards.

‘Um, I’m just wondering if it isn’t a good idea – I don’t think I would have time to programme it all back in. It’s like spaghetti code,’ she said trying to sound as in control as possible. After the computer had consumed the whole morning, Letitia was ready to eat this computer like pasta.

 Wilhelm’s voice floated in from above. ‘Can those little sticky things I have in the tin box, will they be able to hold all the information?’

‘Only one way to find out.’

Letitia examined the tube. She pulled off the top and matched the probe to the plug on the box that held the menacing machine and proceeded to insert the device into the slot. ‘Do not crash! Do not crash!’ she commanded the computer as a mantra. It seemed to work. The computer obeyed and did not crash.

Several more hours dragged by. Saving. Wiping. Back to factory settings. And then finally, loading the multitudes of programmes back onto the device. She had discovered that to a certain extent she had picked up all the old IGSF computer system’s quirks and nuances. The basics of Clarke’s system were not vastly different from what she had managed on Mirror and was able to adapt to working and wrestling with this computer. Perhaps in hindsight, she should have been suspicious that she had become so adept controlling this yacht’s computer in such a short amount of time, but in the moment, it was an enemy that had to be subdued. After all, the system she had managed on Mirror, had been designed and run essentially, by Boris.

By four o’clock in the afternoon, with sweat dripping from Letitia’s forehead and soaking her back, she presented Wilhelm with a computer, baptised, cleansed from any Boris-contamination, and reborn to be fully IGSF-functional.

Wilhelm marvelled at the speedy IGSF satellite connection and lightning-fast processing.

Letitia mentioned in passing, ‘Oh, by the way, Clarke does not like the heat.’

‘You speak as if the computer is a person.’ Wilhelm remarked with mock surprise as he viewed a satellite image of Melbourne.

‘But, Wilhelm, he is,’ Letitia jested with only half her tongue in her cheek. She did not share with Wilhelm that she had put some of her mind and soul into the very core of the computer’s hard drive to stabilise it from further Boris attacks, and to cause it to run more efficiently. She wasn’t going to divulge to Wilhelm that she had ordered the computer to obey only her and Will’s command. After all, in Wilhelm’s early twentieth-century mind, computers were merely machines. She did not want to spoil for Will or anyone else in this time and place, any illusion that they were not.

***

Upon the triumph of Letitia over the computer, they spent one last night on shore celebrating. Wilhelm invited Letitia to join him for a function at the Cascade Brewery. Wilhelm was immensely popular and there was always a party in need of his presence. In that way, John, as Letitia remembered Mirror John, and Wilhelm were similar. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, Letitia mused as she watched Wilhelm entertain the other guests with his exploits as head psychiatrist at the Royal Hobart Hospital. Another old adage surfaced to describe both John and Wilhelm. She smiled remembering, You can’t have a party without them. After all, John is Wilhelm’s son on this Earth as well as Mirror World.

A different story for Frieda, though. Her absence was fobbed off as “not well”, “migraine” and actually, trouble finding a babysitter for Johnny. Although Wilhelm had confided in her that Frieda had been rather tired and sick in the mornings lately…

‘Here’s to Letitia, the Legend,’ Wilhelm toasted Letitia as they stood by the nineteenth century sculptured fountain in the middle of the lush green lawn.

‘Hmm!’ Letitia raised her glass of claret. If they only knew, she thought. If this is real Earth, my Earth in 1967, if only they knew what the next fifty years have in store for them…

Over by the wall of window that spanned one side of the historic building, Wilhelm entertained the cluster of elites from the hospital. They seemed perfectly at ease, perfectly comfortable in their space, time, and important positions. It was as if the plane crash in Antarctica had never happened; as if there were no terrorists; as if there never had been nor will be any nuclear attacks. As if Boris himself was null and void.

‘If they only knew,’ Letitia repeated.

© Lee-Anne Marie Kling 2021

Feature Photo (artistically enhanced): Memories of Cascade Brewery © L.M. Kling 1995

***

Want more?

More than before?

Read the mischief and mayhem Boris the over-sized alien cockroach gets up to…

Click on the link to my new novel, The Lost World of the Wends

Below…

Or discover how it all began in The Hitch-Hiker

And how it continues with Mission of the Unwilling

Out of Time (5.3)

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A Computer Called Clarke

[The continuation of the Survivor Short Story “project” in the War On Boris the Bytrode series. This time, back in time, 1967, following the adventures of middle-aged mum, Letitia…

In this episode (5.3) Will asks Letitia to fix his computer…]

Letitia stared at the scrambled eggs slowly cooling on the plate before her. 5am was just too early in the day for such generosity. Even the gentle bobbing of the vessel in its moorings messed with her balance causing a rising sense of seediness. She needed to acclimatise to the notion of seafaring. Then negotiating her way around the sprawling mess of Melbourne, and finally, the dreaded possibility of flying back to Adelaide. To teach. Then a worse thought, having to deal with Tails. That creep, who with his partner in crime, stole two boys from their rightful parents.

Tails. She remembered him. A slimy character swilling down a beer. Reeking of alcohol from every pore. Leering at her. As she dodged the drunken crowds. Keeping pace with her up Anzac Parade to the racecourse in Sydney one sweaty summer’s day. Frieda’s party were meeting there, near the racecourse, before the IGSF bus ride out West to Wagga and the flight to the LaGrange Point. Tails, uninvited, followed. The IGSF team were not fond of escaped convicts.

Boris didn’t seem to have a problem with Tails, though.

Letitia gulped and plunged her spork into the yellow mash.

Wilhelm, as if unintentionally teasing her, added the attached strings, ‘You wouldn’t be able have a look at our on-board computer – it’s been playing up lately.’

Her fork come spoon which had tentatively driven into a chunk of egg scramble, stood undecided what to do next. Me? she thought, A computer expert? What sort of computers were around in 1967? She cleared her throat from the surprise of the request and replied, ‘Thank you for the offer Wilhelm. I will see what I can do.’ She emphasised the “I” as in Mirror World, she was indeed the computer expert. However, the concept of a dodgy computer on a boat in 1967, disturbed her more than the prospect of flying. Lumps of mashed toast and egg took up residence in the back of her throat. She coughed, then forced the lumps down.

‘Good, well you can give us a few tips what we can do. I think it’s just some sabotage, courtesy of Boris. But you never know.’ Will chatted nonchalantly mouth full of scrambled egg.

‘In my other life, I worked on computer operational systems that covered the city of Adelaide—Mirror Adelaide 2018.’ She swallowed the egg and smiled weakly.

‘Well, I suppose you could have a look. Can’t do any harm.’ Wilhelm conceded with a hint of reluctance. ‘It’s IGSF equipment. Top Secret, of course. Computers do exist, but they’re monstrous things compared to what we work with in the IGSF.’

‘I was wondering how you could have one on board and not sink,’ Letitia laughed. ‘Fortunately, I am familiar with the IGSF system. In fact, your wife, Frieda trained me.’

‘Frieda?’ Wilhelm raised an eyebrow. ‘She who can’t operate our new washing machine without getting all tangled up?’

‘Actually, by the time she becomes Admiral…Oops, spoiler alert. I mean, she gets quite adept with the programming. But you know, it’s Minna…her…’ Letitia’s voice trailed off into the uncertainty of future happenings.

‘Minna?’

Letitia waved. ‘Sorry, I’ve said too much already. Probably just what happens on Mirror World.’

‘Perhaps you could check out the computer as soon as possible – this morning even. We could leave this afternoon if you can fix it.’ Will rubbed his hands together and grinned. ‘If we, if we get to Melbourne early, I can fit in some shopping before heading to the conference in Canberra.’

Letitia gulped a large glob of toasted egg and returned the smile. ‘Well, then, what are we waiting for?’

Half an hour later, Letitia began to regret opening her big mouth when she sat confronted with the dinosaur of the computer which Wilhelm had nicknamed “Clarke”.

She stroked the solid polished Huon pine desk and then locking her fingers together, cracked her knuckles. Even the IGSF technology of the day seemed archaic. Did they really fly up to the LaGrange point for Frieda’s birthday party in 1962 using this “dinosaur”?

She peered at the clunky switches and dials, and the grey-green screen that sulked in a blank state at her.

In the background, as if intent on making her task more challenging, Wilhelm prattled on, boasting of his mistress’ (the boat called Fair Lady) prowess in the Sydney to Hobart yacht race in which the vessel did admirably coming somewhere in the middle and not getting smashed to pieces with high seas. Huon Pine maketh the vessel seaworthy, according to Wilhelm. Other yachts apparently were not so lucky in Wilhelm’s no-so-humble opinion.

‘How can I tame “Clarke” with you blathering on?’ Letitia muttered while navigating IGSF cyber-technology of the 1960’s. ‘No wonder we got attacked by Boris and I ended up in Mirror World.’

© Lee-Anne Marie Kling 2021

Feature Photo: Bellerive Marina © L.M. Kling 2011

***

Want more?

More than before?

Read the mischief and mayhem Boris the over-sized alien cockroach gets up to…

Click on the link to my new novel, The Lost World of the Wends

Below…

Or discover how it all began in The Hitch-Hiker

And how it continues with Mission of the Unwilling

Out of Time (5.2)

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A Computer Called Clarke

Part 2

[The continuation of the Survivor Short Story “project” in the War On Boris the Bytrode series. This time, back in time, 1967, following the adventures of middle-aged mum, Letitia…

In this episode (5.2) Fugitive Tails and his stolen charges await Tails’ partner in crime, Maggie’s promised return from Antarctica …]

Delayed

Liam preferred to forget that day. The Adelaide plains surrounding the airport were blanketed with the chill of an unseasonal sea-fog, and icy rain drops which seemed imported directly from Antarctica. After the broiling heat of summer in Alice Springs; a heat that drives even the locals to seek refuge down south, Adelaide’s weather proved to be just too cold for Liam’s liking. The city skyline hunkered down beneath the mist as if trying to keep warm. Liam vaguely remembered this sister city of his youth, the one in Mirror World, where buildings rose tall and proud and way out of the flight path of sleek-looking aircraft. In contrast, these low-lying buildings and stumpy hills were shrouded in a murky mist, gathering, full of foreboding.

Liam, Max and their father, lined up at the glass; sad pathetic ducks at a sideshow. Waiting. Hoping. Expecting the aeroplane from Melbourne to land any minute. The giant-sized screen of scheduled landings flicked and clicked promised landings and departures.

 ‘The flight should have landed five minutes ago.’ Tails paced behind his sons. ‘You said she rang and that she was coming, Liam. You told me!’

‘It’s 1967, Dad,’ Liam spat, ‘That’s what you keep telling us.’

‘Yeah, Dad,’ Max rolled his eyes and added, ‘and it’s not Mirror World. So, the planes are old-fashioned and not as efficient.’

‘You still remember, that? I mean, Mirror?’

‘Yes, Dad,’ Max sighed, ‘We’re not stupid.’

‘And it was mum what spoke to you from ‘obart?’

‘Yes, Dad,’ Liam replied.

[to be continued…]

© Lee-Anne Marie Kling 2021

Feature photo: Swans on the Torrens, Adelaide circa 1960 © S.O. Gross circa 1945

***

Want more?

More than before?

Read the mischief and mayhem Boris the over-sized alien cockroach gets up to…

Click on the link to my new novel, The Lost World of the Wends

Or discover how it all began in The Hitch-Hiker

And how it continues with Mission of the Unwilling

Out of Time (5.1)

/ lmkling / Leave a comment

A Computer Called Clarke

Part 1

[The continuation of the Survivor Short Story “project” in the War On Boris the Bytrode series. This time, back in time, 1967, following the adventures of middle-aged mum, Letitia…

In this short episode (5.1) Letitia comes to terms with her mission, but learns that time is of the essence…]

The Department Should Pay

Letitia tottered down to the Sandy Bay shore. Dark. Only the streetlights to guide her steps. She needed time and space to process her part in the mission her father, daughter and the IGSF had planned for her.

‘At least it’s a warm night; warmer than Antarctica,’ she muttered. ‘I’ll try and get some sleep, then work out what to do in the morning.’ She chuckled while clutching her stomach. ‘Perhaps, I can get the Education Department to pay for my fare to Adelaide. Me? A teacher? What next?’ She sighed and kicked the sand. ‘How long can I keep up the “Teacher-act”, I wonder?’ She flung her arms about in grand gestures, rehearsing her role. ‘Good morning class, I am your new English teacher, the wonderful, the magnificent invisible Miss Fahrer, or would that be Driver? Am I going to be persecuted for having a German name? Nah, it’s Adelaide, I’ll be right. I wonder where I’ll be? If it’s the Barossa, I’ll definitely be alright. Okay, not sure how I’ll manage the critters. But you know, if they start throwing paper at me, I can always disappear.’

Letitia twirled and tripped on a stone. Over-balanced. Falling…

Great! Not again!

Strong arms cradled her and lifted her upright.

Balanced, Letitia blinked, allowing her eyes to adjust to the dull tones of night.

Wilhelm’s bleached blonde hair and ghost-like complexion glowed against the blackness. ‘Whoopsy-daisy, you nearly took a tumble.’

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to…you know…impose…I just…’ Letitia stammered.

‘It’s okay.’ Wilhelm released her arm but remained facing her. ‘I’m so sorry that they have dumped this mission on you. If there’s anything I can do to help.’

‘Teaching is the one profession, I never wanted to do.’ Letitia wiped a stray tear that had decided to roll down her cheek. ‘Actually, you know, if I have to be a teacher, which I should remind you most emphatically, that I am not. But if I have to be, well, it’s only fair if they get the Education Department to pay for my fare back to Adelaide. Don’t you think? After all, how else am I going to get there? I have no money. And it would be for a good cause. You see, Tails and Maggie, those two scoundrels…they have stolen your, your’s and Frieda’s grandchildren…’

Wilhelm’s eyes widened. ‘Grandchildren?’

‘In my future. I think,’ Letitia said almost in a whisper, ‘I think, or this world is like a parallel world to mine, but out of time, sort of. I guess there must be…’

Wilhelm breathed out with a whistle. ‘Phew! And there I thought you were the embodiment of the crazy woman inside my head. Parallel worlds, well, that sounds novel—Man In the High Castle stuff.’

‘What? No, I’m serious, I thought, you being part of the IGSF and fight against Boris, I thought you must have some understanding that parallel universes are a thing.’

‘I do, I do,’ Wilhelm caught her arm. ‘But we can’t tell Frieda that. She’s still trying to get her head around time-travel. Which, even I can’t believe is possible. But hey, I get your drift. As I said, with some of the strange things that have happened to me. And to be honest…’ He turned Letitia around and guided her up the steps to the house. ‘Look, we need to drive to my boat tonight. We need to move on this plan. The Admiral called and said that time is of the essence.’

‘Won’t your wife get upset?’

‘She’s used to it.’ Wilhelm sighed. ‘It’s all part of working for the Intergalactic Star Fleet. Oh, and pretending to be a psychiatric doctor.’

He opened the basement garage with his remote and led her to his Aston Martin Coupe.

Within minutes they were gliding across the Tasman Bridge, over the brooding Derwent River, to Bellerive Marina.

© Lee-Anne Marie Kling 2021

Feature Photo: On Sandy Bay shores © L.M. Kling 1995

***

Want more?

More than before?

Read the mischief and mayhem Boris the over-sized alien cockroach gets up to…

Click on the link to my new novel, The Lost World of the Wends

Below…

Or discover how it all began in The Hitch-Hiker

And how it continues with Mission of the Unwilling

Out of Time (4.2)

/ lmkling / 1 Comment

Fugue of Fibbing

Part 2

[The continuation of the Survivor Short Story “project” in the War On Boris the Bytrode series. This time, back in time, 1967, following the adventures of middle-aged mum, Letitia…

In this episode (4.2) After enjoying the wild Weber char-grilled salmon Letitia faces the prospect of another mission; one which she may not relish…]

‘Oh, no! How awful!’ Frieda sympathetically patted her shoulder.

Wilhelm leaned back on the bench seat and cynically remarked, ‘You fool! No one leaves their belongings on the beach. What were you thinking?’

‘But, but, this is Tasmania. 1967! I thought my stuff would be safe on a near deserted beach.’

‘Well, now you know. Not even Coles Bay is safe from thieves.’ Wilhelm shook his head in disgust. ‘After all, someone stole our illegal alien this morning from The Royal Hobart Hospital, no less.’

‘Or the alien escaped and stole the cleaner’s clothes…’ Frieda nodded slowly at Letitia.

‘I guess the thief got her just desserts,’ Letitia mumbled while raising her glass, studied the final quarter of wine in the bottom of the flute.

‘What do you mean?’ Frieda leaned forward to catch her errant friend’s every utterance.

‘She means that Miss Thief who stole her identity and everything, ended up crashing in the plane,’ Will said.

‘Oh! So that’s why you are here,’ Frieda said; the Riesling had gone straight to Frieda’s head addling her brain cells.

‘Yes!’ Wilhelm and Letitia replied in unison. Letitia congratulated herself for a story well executed and believed.

‘Oh, well, then, I guess your family are relieved,’ Frieda concluded. ‘We’ve been in contact with them and heard you may turn up here.’

‘Yes, Fritz sent a message with the flight from Mawson Station that you’d been found and were being transported to Hobart.’

‘Fritz did?’ Letitia picked at her nails and glanced at Wilhelm.

‘He did,’ Wilhelm replied. ‘I was to make sure you stayed safe and undetected in the hospital. But you decided to take matters into your own hands and escape.’

‘Silly girl.’ Frieda patted Letitia’s hand. ‘And I had to go in search of you, before anyone else, undesirable found you.’

‘Like Boris,’ Wilhelm said.

The smug expression that Letitia had been inwardly harbouring drained from her face. She had not covered that little scenario. ‘Oh, beetle juice! You got me. I woke up in that hospital. I don’t know what I was thinking.’

‘Oh, you poor thing! Lettie!’ Frieda grinned before dashing into the house, and returning, armed with a solid black phone attached to the longest cord Letitia had ever seen in her life. She shoved it under her nose. ‘Here, you must ring them. They would be so worried. But, here’s the thing. You haven’t been sent here to enjoy the views and life of luxury. Your father has a mission for you. He wants you to help rescue a couple of children who have been abducted and something rather peculiar, take them back to their own time.’

‘First task,’ Wilhelm cleared his throat, ‘is to be some lady called Maggie. They say you knew of her on this Mirror World you have been going on about.’

Trembling, Letitia shook her head. ‘Me? Maggie? I look nothing like her.’

‘Of course, you’re not.’ Frieda chuckled. ‘But you only have to call their home and put on a voice like you are her.’

Heat flushed through Letitia from her scalp and cascaded down her neck, shoulders, body. Beads of sweat accumulated on her temples and coursed down her cheeks. ‘I’m not ready for this. I’m still fuzzy headed from the coma. I don’t want to stuff it up.’

Wilhelm leaned back on the table and sniffed. ‘You’ll be fine. You’ll make a great Maggie. Whoever she is.’

‘You reckon?’ Letitia twisted the cord in her hand. ‘What if Tails, that’s her husband and partner in crime, answers?’

‘Intelligence from Nathan is that Maggie’s husband has just driven down from Alice Springs.’ Wilhelm smiled. ‘Your dear friend Nathan has been tracking him. Tails has the boys, and Maggie according to our sources, is somewhere here on the island.’

Frieda nodded. ‘So, here’s your chance. Call Tails, put on your best Maggie voice and give him the good news.’

Letitia examined the contraption of a telephone with an inward sense of horror. Then in an even voice said, ‘Right!’ Staring at the angular black lines of the phone, calm flowed over her. Was this part of the plan? From above? Or at least the IGSF of the future? Was Fritz in on it? Was this plan Jemima’s doing? She was skilled at invisibility, but putting on voices? Impersonating Boris operatives?

Letitia took a deep breath. She decided to go with the proverbial flow and join Wilhelm and Frieda in their world’s script.

So, mustering up as much sincerity as possible with the view of taking on the role of Maggie, while at the same time figuring out how to sound like Maggie, she said, ‘There was this lady with red hair on the plane, she gave me a sick-bag.’ Then gushed, ‘But, there is one problem. What if they think – well actually, by this time they must believe I’m dead. I mean, Boris, he was there with his bomb. He blew up the plane over Mirror Antarctica…and – and what if Tails and the boys are on their way to Hobart? I should try by… what else can we use to communicate? Telegramme?’ She looked at the couple, both wide-eyed. Then, before they could answer, continued, ‘But I – don’t know the number.’ She had to think of some feeble excuse she can’t call the dreaded family.

‘You ring the exchange, dear. They’ll know.’ Frieda sighed. ‘Go on! At least try.’

‘But they might be using different names—aliases. Tails likes doing that. No one really knows what his real name is.’

‘All under control. Seems they go under the name Taylor. Nick and Maggie Taylor, as far as the IGSF intelligence can ascertain,’ Will said.

‘Okay.’ Letitia conceded and plucked the phone from Frieda. She did not want to admit that she had forgotten how to manage telephone exchanges in the 1960’s. The two hovered over her like hawks. ‘What do I dial for Adelaide?’

‘Here, let me.’ Frieda lifted the phone out of her hands, twirled the dial, and with efficiency, handled the exchange with the words, ‘Connect to Taylor, Nick Taylor of Somerton Park, please.’

Then, handed the receiver back to Letitia.

This will be interesting! Letitia thought while listening to the dial tone of antiquity.

A click sounded on the other side of the phone as a boy with a timid voice answered, ‘Hello, this is Liam. Who’s this that is calling?’

Letitia gaped, stunned by the randomness of her luck. Then, grounding herself that such coincidental events are rarely coincidental, she spoke in the voice she remembered of the women with red hair from the plane. ‘It’s your mother, here, Liam. I, er, survived the crash.’ She paused, unsure if her voice sounded convincing. The mosquitos hovered over her bare shoulders too, waiting to catch her unawares and sting her.

‘Mother? You don’t sound like her. Who are you?’ the boy said. ‘Are you a playing a joke on us?’

‘No, I’m – your…’ she was about to say “rescuer”, but realised that such a concept may sound ridiculous to the boy. ‘I’m alive, I didn’t go down with the plane. I wasn’t on…People sound different so far away in Tasmania,’ she rambled.

‘Your three minutes has expired, would you like to reconnect?’ an officious sounding voice cut in.

Letitia hesitated.

With a clunk, the other end of the phone went silent.

She glanced from Frieda to Wilhelm, then waved the phone receiver in the air. ‘It cut out on me.’

Frieda snatched the handset. ‘They only give you three minutes for interstate calls. Don’t you know that?’

‘On Mirror, there’s no time limit on calls,’ Letitia replied wistfully.

Will sighed, ‘Mirror? What sort of world is that?’

‘Told you, the future.’ Letitia handed the rest of the phone and the tangled cord to Frieda. ‘That’s where I’ve been. That’s why you couldn’t find me. Till now.’

‘Oh,’ Wilhelm said.

‘Time travel?’ Frieda bundled the phone and cord in her arms. ‘How’s that possible?’

With a shrug, Letitia stared out over the river, the glimmering lights bouncing off the inky water. Night had finally fallen. ‘Liam, the younger boy answered. So what’s the plan? Any more intel on what happens next?’

© Lee-Anne Marie Kling 2021

Feature photo: Eve on Hobart town and Derwent River © L.M. Kling 2016

***

Want more?

More than before?

Read the mischief and mayhem Boris the over-sized alien cockroach gets up to…

Click on the link to my new novel, The Lost World of the Wends

Or discover how it all began in The Hitch-Hiker

And how it continues with Mission of the Unwilling

Out of Time (3.2)

/ lmkling / 1 Comment

Point of Battery

Part 2

[The continuation of the Survivor Short Story “project” in the War On Boris the Bytrode series. This time, back in time, 1967, following the adventures of middle-aged mum, Letitia…

In this episode (3.2) Letitia delves into her friend’s past and makes some intriguing discoveries…]

Frieda led Letitia into her room and rifled through a room-sized walk-in robe packed-full of clothing. From what Letitia could discern from the king-sized bed which faced a wall-sized window view of the Derwent, there were at least three decades worth of fashions represented. 1940’s to mid- ‘60’s, she surmised. A bold red and green floral print dress flew through the air and gracefully landed on the bed next to her. As she picked up the polyester-cotton dress, she remarked casually, ‘Blood and bone? Isn’t that something you do to roses in springtime?’

Frieda’s voice floated out from the depths of the clothes cupboard along with a pair of knickers still in the original plastic wrapping. ‘Yeah, don’t remind me! You know Will. He’s always gunna do, but then he’s on call, then there’s a golf tournament, and then Christmas, and then the bothersome yacht race! And in the end the job never gets done. Then before you know it, the damn dog’s got into it. Poor roses!’ More rustling could be heard from the vacuous hole of the cupboard, punctuated by Frieda’s verbal explosions, that spanned several European languages. ‘Now where are those dumkopf shoes? Merde! Can’t find anything in this hole!’

Standing by the bed like a dummy awaiting further instructions, Letitia chuckled, ‘You’d fit well into Mirror World.’

‘What? What the blazes is Mirror World?’

Realising that this Frieda may have never experienced such a world, Letitia shrugged. ‘Never mind.’

After a few more crashes and angry expletives, Frieda popped her head through the door. ‘Oh, er, Letitia, you can use the en suite shower and get changed. Just throw the dirty clothes outside the door. I’ll get them and put them in the wash. They won’t take long to dry in this weather.’ Then, almost as an after-thought, ‘Oh, er, Johnny’s coming home with his nanny soon.’

Letitia raised an eyebrow. ‘Johnny? Is that…?’

But Frieda had already flown out of hearing-range.

Letitia spied the adjoining door to the closet and assumed that this led to the en suite. It did. After peeling off the offensive manure laden garb, and depositing it just out the door, she turned on the shower revelling in the warm water flowing over her parched and soiled body.

For a couple of minutes, she enjoyed the refreshing and steamy streams run over her tired skin and aching muscles. Her mind wandered over postcards of lush fertile temperate forests of the West Coast of Tasmania (Mirror, of course, and East Coast there). She had not been there yet but remembered the pristine photographs from Geographic calendars and books that Jemima had sent in years gone by (or in future years as the case seemed to be in this out-of-time world). At Christmas, a tradition was established: she would send Switzerland, and Jemima would send the Tasmanian wilderness.

Hot spicy drops of water seared Letitia’s skin, jarring her out of her Tasmanian wilderness daydreams. She leapt to the far corner of the bevelled glass shower cubicle to escape the stings of boiling hot water. Through the steam, she noticed a knob marked with a blue ‘C’. She had forgotten that even showers were not computer-adjusted in 1967. With a sigh and with careful manoeuvring, she twisted the cold tap handle until the water simmered down to a more ambient temperature. How the soft water lathered the speck of shampoo to froth into a huge volume, she marvelled. Adelaide’s desalinated water of 2018 on Mirror World, never did that. It was a good day if you managed to conjure up a few stray bubbles from that water from drought-stricken Adelaide of the 2010’s on Mirror. Since global warming had taken a firm hold, the mainland of Mirror-Australia had been in perpetual general drought for more than twenty years.

Conscious of impending future water restrictions that might even extend to Hobart, even on this world, she terminated her shower after a few minutes of bliss, and dried with a towel compliments of Frieda. Actually, the white fluffy Dickies towel had “Frieda” embossed in dark pink across one corner. She did not feel comfortable using the one marked “Wilhelm”. Carefully, she dried her long dark locks and donned the blue patterned loose-fitting dress, and underclothes Frieda had provided.

‘A bit of a tent,’ Letitia said admiring her slim figure in the mirror, ‘but cool all the same. The white floral design I like.’

Finally, she began to thaw from the freezer of the South Pole.

Her limbs felt like rubber after the warmth of the shower and for once she could move them freely without the stiffness of cold, threatening frostbite and muscle-cramp. She wandered out into the bedroom of Wilhelm and Frieda. Was that the same Wilhelm Frieda had begun dating back before the Boris disaster of the Lagrange Point? she pondered. The Derwent was bathed in the first flushes of sunset, reflecting pleasant pinks and glowing orange on the hills beyond, the flickering lights of the city shimmering against the warm dark grey blue of river and evening. She read the analogue clock that sat in its own foldable leather case on the cluttered bedside table.

‘Nine o’clock!’ she muttered. ‘I was only in the shower for a few brief minutes. Who’s been messing with my time? I was sure it was only two or three in the afternoon, surely…’

She noticed a family history book that was stacked on top of a pile of neglected receipts and used airline tickets. ‘I wonder if I’m in this family history in this particular world and time?’ She flipped distractedly through the stiff A4 sized pages. Caught a glimpse of Frieda’s brother. Their mother remained a mystery. ‘I wonder who she was? What happened to her?’ She flicked back in search of the page and elusive image. She found John, Minna’s brother. Born 1963. ‘You didn’t waste any time, Frieda,’ she muttered. Then she gulped in momentary, reflection, ‘Neither did I, I mean, we. Wow, Jemima and John are the same age, technically…’ Distracted, Letitia turned page after page, hoping to uncover her or her counterpart’s existence.

‘Wise guy! Jolly joker! Who may I ask are you?’ A man’s voice echoed through the room while a golf club nudged Letitia in the back.

With a shriek, Letitia tossed the genealogical document into the air causing it to splat inelegantly onto the homemade patchwork quilt.

‘Who are you in my bedroom, wearing my wife’s clothes, and reading my family history?’ the man accused half in jest.

Letitia replied, ‘Just seeing if…I hope you don’t mind.’

The man she assumed was Wilhelm Thumm interrupted her. ‘Well, of course! Go ahead. Have a look. You helped Frieda with the research. Letitia! How good to see you, after, after…’ He paused thoughtfully, ‘after all these months! Or is it years?’ And gave her an obligatory hug. ‘Frieda informed me of your auspicious discovery. So, this is where you escaped to! What a surprise! You know, to be honest, we all thought you were, you know,’ he cleared his throat, ‘um, gone…dead. Although, we never did find a body, so, of course certain members of the IGSF, you know the likely characters, never gave up. After all, with what happened to me…’ Wilhelm’s voice trailed off into the realm of uncertainty.

What a bonus! Letitia mused. She recalled a few discussions with Frieda as they sun-baked on the sands at Bondi but didn’t think she had done that much to help write the family history. ‘I ended up in another dimension, Mirror World, and was busy helping the IGSF there. Anyway,’ she smiled, ‘It’s good to see you too, Will. You don’t mind if I have a look through the book, you know check for, check for typos, inconsistencies and, and there’s these distant relatives from Switzerland that I want to check up on, see if they were put in here,’ she rambled. Figuring that she had to get her facts straight if she was going to appear convincing in this time frame and realm.

‘Sure!’ Wilhelm nodded. ‘Come on down to the deck. We are having a nice glass of Riesling from the Barossa, and Frieda’s grilling up some salmon on the Weber. The latest thing from America, you know. Tasmanian salmon, it’s the best!’ he sucked in the twilight air between his gritted teeth and lead the way out to the deck.

[to be continued…]

© Lee-Anne Marie Kling 2021

Feature Photo: Focus on Sandy Bay, Derwent River, Hobart © L.M. Kling 2016

***

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More than before?

Read the mischief and mayhem Boris the over-sized alien cockroach gets up to…

Click on the link to my new novel, The Lost World of the Wends

Below…

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And how it continues with Mission of the Unwilling

Out Of Time (3.1)

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[The continuation of the Survivor Short Story “project” in the War On Boris the Bytrode series. This time, back in time, 1967, following the adventures of middle-aged mum, Letitia…

In this episode (3.1) Letitia meets an old friend…]

The Point of Batteries

Part 1

‘You must come to my place. You must!’ the blonde said.

Letitia glanced around the almost empty street. The crowds had dwindled to nothing in the golden light of the late afternoon sun. Her suggestion was not a bad one under the circumstances.

‘You must come for tea.’ The lady grabbed Letitia’s arm and dragged her along the road lined by warehouses. ‘We’ll grab takeaway on the way home. There’s a lovely little fish’n chip shop just up the road near our place. Remember when we were kids and we used to ride our bikes up to The Rocks and get a three-pence bag of chips? They were the best chips, weren’t they?’ The blonde ferried her up some steep steps.

‘Hmm!’ Letitia tried to remain polite and in the know. Rocks? Riding bikes? Fish and chips? Three-pence? All familiar images that hinted at the nameless friend’s identity. Her fuzzing mind tried to stretch her still frozen memory to capture who this woman was. The harder she tried, the more futile her efforts at name retrieval became. ‘How embarrassing! I apparently knew this lady from childhood,’ she muttered.

The blonde gave a tiny snort of laughter. ‘Gunter loved those chips. Remember? He said they were the best chips in Australia.’ She paused and for a moment gazed over the cove which spread beneath the hilltop vantage point. ‘Poor Gunter!’ she remarked, ‘Boris got him, ya know.’

The sun had crept behind Mount Wellington casting muted shadows over the historic houses, the pebble-strewn beach and the calm waters in hues of purple and blue. ‘Hmm! Poor Gunter!’ Letitia parroted. She paused in thought. Gunter, my half-brother?

Bright, colourful sails of boats dotted the river. The vivid reds, yellows, and whites pitted against the deep blue of the waters almost succeeded in converting Letitia to cheerfulness. However, the reality that she may have left her old world permanently behind, lurked in the shadows of her subconscious and troubled her. Letitia tried to agree to sound as if she knew what the blonde was talking about. She tried in vain to match Gunter with this lady’s elusive name. Perhaps it’s a case of mistaken identity.

How did anyone from the past recognise her? Mirror World and nanobot repair from the burns in her first accident had darkened her skin. Letitia checked her hand. Still the colour of cedar.

 ‘Poor Gunter, we haven’t been able to find him. He left after the disaster, you know, the bombing of our ship. He blamed himself for your disappearance.’ The lady guided her, striding towards the banks of the river. ‘But…it was my fault; I should’ve never…’ She stopped at a corner and announced, ‘Here we are! The Fish’n Chip shop!’

She led the way through the open white-framed doorway to the full-bodied aroma of sizzling oil, batter and chips, tessellated tiles and stainless-steel benches. A few bored customers reclined on a wooden bench seat that lined the shopfront, reading Readers Digests from the 1950’s.

Letitia peered at the magazine of a disinterested patron to the left of her. “Behind the Iron Curtain” the cover advertised. Letitia leaned back to check what that article was all about. The man narrowed his eyes and glared at her. Then, he stood up, marched to the counter, and spoke to the manageress in muffled tones, furtive glances and fingers pointed in her direction.

Letitia’s chest tightened. They’re going to ask me to leave, she thought.

‘Do you want whiting, Letitia?’ her blonde friend, also standing at the counter, called back over her shoulder.

‘Yeah, okay,’ while waiting for the inevitable directive to move outside. After all, it was the 1960’s and Letitia was the wrong colour.

Letitia noticed the blonde make an emphasised gesture in her direction, and say, ‘My friend will have one piece of whiting and I’ll have one piece of garfish with minimum chips.’

The manageress, a woman with bottled auburn waves, and olive-toned skin, looked at Letitia, and opened her mouth to speak.

The blonde cut off her unspoken words and in her best German accent, said, ‘Listen lady, she’s my friend, got it? We’re better than that, aren’t we? That’s why we come to Australia. We are all different, but we are all human beings. Besides, I don’t know why she’s so tanned, but she is as white as me; I know her parents, they come from Europe, migrants from Germany, just as you are a migrant from Greece, am I right? So, just make those fish and chips, okay?’

Something clicked. A key turned in her mind. Letitia studied the blonde lady handing over the cash to the Greek vendor. Frieda. Only Frieda Muller would have the courage to stand up for her rights; human rights. Frieda who tolerated no nonsense. Frieda, who once confided that she’d defied Hitler, and somehow survived. Something to do with being Lebensborn, she remembered. Admittedly the last time she met Frieda, she had become Frieda Thumm and was well into her fifties (give or take a decade or two with the distortion of light-speed travel). Letitia wondered how she could have struggled to recognise her. She who defended her in the fish and chip shop and now stood before her with a newspaper parcel of battered fish and chips was Frieda. But which Frieda? Letitia assumed this world’s Frieda.

Letitia perched on the bench.

The man adjusted his black-rimmed glasses, and with head bowed, walked back to the space next to Letitia. He mumbled an apology which Letitia acknowledged with a slight nod.

Letitia rubbed her hands together and smiled at Frieda. She had retrieved the name. She had found her friend’s identity. At least that was one good outcome from an otherwise less than ordinary day. At least she had one friend in a world and time when she calculated to have few friends. There was Fritz. But where was Fritz?

Frieda strode up to her and she leapt up to follow her friend. ‘Come,’ she commanded, ‘Let’s get to my house before the chips get cold.’

In the lingering late afternoon sun, the sun that refused to go away, the sun that refused to set, the friends wended through the narrow streets of this aged and historic part of town. The roads were steep as they were narrow. Parked cars on both sides, blocked some roadways which had not caught up to the 20th Century. Letitia marvelled at the vintage nature of the vehicles. She had not seen a FJ Holden in decades. The place was cluttered with them. And brand-new Holden Premiers, the luxury version, a collector’s dream on Mirror World. And there, she mused, was a Ford Falcon, more angular than its Holden counterpart; commonly a hoon car on Mirror World (in the eastern states of Australia, mostly). In Mirror Baudin State (South Australia), only Renaults and Peugeots would do. Letitia had to hide the smirk on her face as she contemplated the ugly future of these carbon spewing air-polluting machines.

‘So, Frieda, what may I ask are you doing in this part of the world?’ Letitia ventured to enquire.

Frieda frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean…um…’ Letitia hesitated hoping to guess correctly, and whispered, ‘um, um, Hobart?’

‘Hobart? But Letitia, we’ve been here for ages,’ Frieda replied. ‘Thing is, how did you end up here?’ She made a sharp turn at a white rendered wall of a two-story bungalow overlooking the bay.

‘Long story,’ Letitia exhaled briefly, relieved that she had guessed correctly, about Hobart. ‘I mean, are you working?’

Frieda returned a pan-faced expression which read as “are you stupid?” Then she pressed the small hand-held device and magically the gate in the wall opened. ‘Nup, I don’t need to work. I’m a lady of leisure. I’ve achieved “effluence”.’ Frieda’s tongue remained firmly in her cheek.

‘You mean, affluence? Lucky you!’ Letitia remarked admiring the fine leadlight birds that framed the light-coloured pine door. She absorbed the unique brisk scent of pine and commented almost involuntarily, ‘Wow! What’s that smell?’

‘You mean the door? It’s Huon Pine. Solid…’ Frieda began to explain before another, fouler odour accompanied by a large darker four-legged creature, assaulted Letitia.

Frieda’s train of thought and keys were lost in her black Labrador’s excitement to greet the unfortunate visitor, namely Letitia. In between the fever of yelps and her face covered in fermented slobber, she could hear Frieda yell, ‘Jack! Off Jack! Down! Down! Sit Jack! Naughty boy! Get off Jack!’ But her commands were in vain. Jack, the dog kept on jumping all over Letitia, and slathering to his heart’s content.

As the torture by dog continued, Frieda’s tone changed from playful to serious and Letitia nostrils were disturbed by a particularly pungent smell that lingered on her clothes. It had that thin weedy, off-meaty, faecal, with a touch of compost aroma about it. She brushed her uniform defensively and shrieked, ‘Ugh! What’s that smell?’ Bits of pitch-black dirt the consistency of sludge clung to her fingertips.

The Labrador gave a final yelp and flung itself after a flying fried fish.

‘Quick, while he’s distracted.’ Frieda pushed her friend through the door and slammed it shut. Once inside in a darkened entrance hall, she exclaimed with disgust, ‘Pooh! What’s that smell? It’s revolting!’

Smeared over Letitia’s lime green pants and top were the tell-tale marks of a dog’s misadventure. ‘Ugh! What is this stuff?’ She choked on the strong stench of sewerage. ‘It’s worse than Boris! When you said that you was “effluent”, I didn’t think you meant literally.’ She pinched her nose with added effect.

‘Oh, gore! The bleeding dog’s got into the blood ‘n bone. Sheisse!’ Frieda’s language was becoming increasingly colourful, and Letitia had no doubt that she was indeed Frieda. She grabbed a hold of Letitia’s arm and escorted her up the stairs. ‘Come on, you better get out of these rags – have a shower – I’ll get a change of clothes – and put these…’ she covered her nose with her sleeve and breathed out a nasal cry, ‘Phew! These into the wash must go!’

[to be continued…]

© Lee-Anne Marie Kling 2021

Feature Photo: Battery Point, Hobart town behind harbour © L.M. Kling 2016

***

Want more?

More than before?

Read the mischief and mayhem Boris the over-sized alien cockroach gets up to…

Click on the link to my new novel, The Lost World of the Wends

Below…

Or discover how it all began in The Hitch-Hiker

And how it continues with Mission of the Unwilling

Out of Time (2)

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[So, continues the development of the Survivor Short Story “project” in the War On Boris the Bytrode series. This time, back in time, following the adventures of middle-aged mum, Letitia…]

Out of Context, Just out of Reach

As the doors began to close, a flash of white grabbed the lift doors, wrenched them open. The mean nurse, rushed in, huffing and puffing. Letitia steeled herself, half-expecting her to make another comment related to her cleaning ability, but she ignored her. The nurse smiling, instead turned her attention to the tall blonde golfer.

‘I’m sorry, doctor, someone must have moved her without our authority. You know this hospital, one hand doesn’t know what the other is doing,’ her apology dripped like syrup.

‘That’s okay. But interrupting my round of golf?’ he sucked in his breath through his perfect set of teeth in a way that seemed unusually familiar to Letitia. She studied him as he casually pointed the butt end of the club towards the door, willing it to open.

‘Oh, I’m sorry for the inconvenience.’ The nurse grovelled. Letitia mused at the dramatic change in her demeanour; she had morphed from ostentatious superiority to humble submission. ‘But Doctor, you will return after your round of golf to assess the patient.’

‘You’ll have to find her first.’ The doctor’s golf club levered the doors open and without a glance behind him he strode out into the ground floor lobby and disappeared through the double doors leading to the outside.

Letitia scurried out of the lift leaving the nurse to descend to the basement. While in the lobby, she pretended to dust and clean the light fittings and fixtures. Once the elevator doors were firmly closed behind her, she ditched the cleaning equipment and raced through the entrance doors in search of the doctor. She had remembered. Was he her IGSF doctor friend, Joseph? Or someone else familiar, from her past? Whoever, he must know where Fritz was. She chastised herself for being so hasty and escaping when she should’ve been patient waiting for the IGSF to sort her situation out.

As she stepped through the double-glazed sliding doors she blinked. Confused. The busy street in a haze of humid summer heat was not how she remembered the station in Antarctica. Classic Holden and Ford cars running left and right roared past her. The tunnel of three-or-four-storey buildings arranged in many shades of grey competed with the brilliant blue sky above. She squinted and strained her vision for a sign and some sense to her whereabouts. A sign at the corner of the street read “Argyle Street”. She could discern the ominous presence of a police station over the road just past the traffic lights. She decided to walk swiftly in the opposite direction. Letitia had no intention of being labelled an illegal alien.

With her head down and eyes fixed on the paving of the footpath, she kept on walking, and walking. Escaping the hospital. Evading the police. But clueless on how to find the golfclub wielding doctor. She pushed herself forward in a random direction vaguely aware of crossing streets filled with people and traffic, until confronted by another set of glass doors. She pushed open one of these doors walked through, almost colliding with a desk.

A lady’s voice asked, ‘May I help you?’

‘Oh, sorry!’ she mumbled in surprise.

‘May I help you?’ the woman shrouded behind the glass pane and counter repeated.

Letitia gazed around. People, men mainly inserted little leather books under gaps of similar glass panes at the people behind them and seconds later collected wads of notes.

‘Must be in a bank,’ Letitia murmured. ‘Er, any chance for a…nah, don’t worry, oh, I forgot my, er-um, passbook,’ she garbled. Memories of her life in Australia in the 1960’s began to emerge as she escaped the bank and into the sunlight.

Letitia wandered along a cobblestone footpath. When she looked up. A fish and chip shop. The kind that offered steak sandwiches and hot cinnamon donuts. The place was hopping with people lining up and spilling out onto the pavement. The aroma of cinnamon donuts freshly formed out of the hot oil, made her empty stomach growl. She dug deep into the pockets of the cleaner’s uniform hoping in vain for forgotten coin. The pockets were deep, yet like her stomach, they were empty. She stood in the middle of the lane and watched with envy the happy contented faces of shoppers as they sat at alfresco near the wharf sipping coffee from paper cups and stuffing their mouths with cake. The seagulls that scavenged nearby were being more well fed than her. Gulls growing fat on surplus chips and unwanted beef sandwiches. She wished she were a seagull. No one would want to feed a stray middle-aged woman dressed in a lime green cleaning suit.

A family of four consisting of mum, dad and two small children organised themselves and vacated a picnic table near Letitia. On the small wooden table flanked by well-worn bench seats, were leftovers. The sandwiches were half-eaten, and the chips slathered with tomato sauce lay discarded in amongst the white wrapping paper.

Letitia darted at the table and greedily planted herself in one of the metal chairs. She began to reach for the sandwich and then thought out aloud, ‘This is ridiculous!’ She then became conscious that a man with white hair and large nose seated at a park bench nearby was staring at her.

Utilising the cleaning disguise to her advantage, Letitia reached down and adjusted the white hospital runners, tightening the shoelaces. Upon completing that diversionary task, she rose from the table and as a cleaner would do, gathered up the barely bitten bread, and half-full cups of coffee and chips with sauce, and purposefully headed for the over-flowing grey metal bin.

Acting as though she was loading the rubbish into the chock-full bin, she instead siphoned the uneaten food into the pocket of her trousers and hid one left-over paper cup of coffee under her arm.

Then, keeping her lips pursed, she casually strolled to a small grassy patch behind an oak tree and under its shade, surreptitiously opened her stash. The beef patty sandwiches were still soft and warm although they appeared twisted and squashed from being jammed in her pocket. She crouched down on the lawn and admired the thin white slices, the limp lettuce, the grilled-on cheese, and the processed beef. In normal circumstances she would not touch white bread such as this. Such food was filled with carcinogenic chemicals and pathological fats. But this was no ordinary occasion. Letitia was literally starving. She had spent possibly up to a week in snow and ice without food and in her stint in hospital, had seen no food. She had been running on adrenalin and now that had stopped, Letitia was famished. Boy, the burnt crust looked inviting!

Letitia bit into the soft slice and savoured the blend of sugar, oil and salt mixed with reconstituted portions of beef, lettuce and cheddar cheese. She sculled the coffee. It was cold and bitter, but she didn’t mind. Too hungry to mind.

She mowed her way through the first “steak sandwich” and greedily progressed to the next. In the back of her mind, she knew that she should not be gorging myself and that she would regret it. However, the wonderful, ecstatic sensation and pleasure of eating was too over-whelming, too powerful for her to resist. Ah, the joys of feasting.

Letitia was so focussed on food that she became unaware of the world around her. All that mattered to her was food; food was all that mattered to her.

A tap on the shoulder almost made her choke on a lardy lump of meat. Her head bolted upright with shock and fright.

‘Letitia, is that you?’ A lady’s voice accompanied the shoulder tapping. Her voice sounded familiar.

Letitia swung around to face this gate crasher to her food party. The tall woman had an oval face, with blue eyes framed by straight golden tresses. The woman’s identity to Letitia remained just out of reach; with the place and time out of context, her name eluded Letitia.

‘There you are, Letitia! We’ve found you!’ She smiled and hugged her. ‘It is you! Fancy meeting here in Hobart of all places! How many years has it been?’

A few weary workers emerged out of the tired warehouses near the wharf and soon disappeared down the street. ‘So that’s where I am!’ Letitia muttered.

This twenty-something blonde fixed Letitia a confused expression. ‘What?’ she asked.

‘Oh, er, I meant, of course I remember you! How could I forget? Surely, it wasn’t so long ago.’ Letitia did not want to appear peculiar. She hugged her back. On the other side of her shoulder, she puzzled over who she could be. And how her counterpart in this Out-of-Time World was connected to this woman.

© Lee-Anne Marie Kling 2021

Feature Photo: Poatina golf course © L.M. Kling 2010

***

Want more?

More than before?

Read the mischief and mayhem Boris the over-sized alien cockroach gets up to…

Click on the link to my new novel, The Lost World of the Wends

Now Available in Print…

Or discover how it all began in The Hitch-Hiker

And how it continues with Mission of the Unwilling

Out of Time (1)

/ lmkling / Leave a comment

Land of No Dreams

[So, begins the continuation of the Survivor Short Story “project” in the War On Boris the Bytrode series. This time, back in time, following the adventures of middle-aged mum, Letitia…]

Letitia did not dream. Had no visions. Only elusive threads of the past few weeks—missing time—that troubled her. It seemed every part of her psyche had excuses, plausible explanations for the conundrum that began to be her life in yet another world that was not hers. Or was it hers? Her world the one she remembered back when she left it in the 1960’s, and this world she was in, seemed the same. How could that be? Surely times, people, places, not to mention décor and colour schemes would have changed in the 50 years she had passed in Mirror World.

Two women dressed in simple lime green uniforms and wearing white pannikins on their heads, conversed in hushed monotones.

What is this? Letitia pondered, Variations on the flying nun?

‘Do you think she is an illegal alien?’

‘Who knows. She looks like one.’

‘Does she speak English?’

‘I don’t know. She hasn’t woken up yet.’

‘You better get the Department of Immigration onto it.’

‘Hmmm. We have to have a psychiatric report first. We don’t want to happen what happened last time.’

‘No!’ The other agreed. ‘Still these illegals can be pretty cunning. Antarctica! How the Dickens did she end up there?’

‘Where is that Doctor? He was supposed to be here half an hour ago!’

‘Oh, Thumm, he’s always late. Once they get as high up as him, they think they own time.’

Letitia lay on the bed, eyes tightly shut, pretending to be unconscious. Alert. Lucid. No longer coughing. Chest clear. She had an impression that the nanobots in her system had aided her speedy recovery. Who needs Vitamin C, or Flu vaccinations with nanobots? Carefully, she opened one eye to spy on the talkers. Their backs were facing her.

Stealthily, she reached for the medical report that was slung at the end of the cot, pulled it towards her and scanned the details. She trembled. My goodness it really is 1967! she thought. With hands shaking, she replaced the chart on the hook, and resumed her unconscious repose, hoping that her racing heartbeat would not alert the two nurses to her altered state of consciousness.

Then, without a second thought, she pulled out the plug to the monitoring system to be sure.

The two nursing ladies seemed less concerned with the void of monotonous humming from the machines, than they did about their tea break.

‘Tea break?’ asked the taller one.

‘Why not?’ the shorter dumpier one replied.

With recess on their schedule, the two disappeared out the door and left Letitia. Two thoughts troubled her. First, that she might in their world of 1967, be an illegal immigrant. Well, she hoped that was what they meant by the “alien” reference. Secondly, and more disturbingly, the idea, that she might be crazy. At all costs she must avoid that doctor. She must get out of this place.

Letitia assumed she was in the depths of the South, surrounded by Antarctic snow and ice. Still thought this even though the sun shone brightly and warmly through the window. Air-conditioning had taken the sting out of the heat, and she assumed that the cool climes of the medical facility were the direct result of the frozen world beyond; that the technicians had done a good job of warming up the joint. Hastily, she ripped the IV tube from her arm, abandoning the funnel to drip clear fluid onto the white tiled floor.

She tottered down the pastel green passageway—why did the décor fixate on green? —in her hospital gown; not a good look and would not get far endowed thus with the back of it open to the hospital corridor breeze. The little blue flowers on the bubbly cotton irked her. She wandered to the end of the hall where the elevator existed. Surprisingly, no one seemed to notice; no one seemed to care. All too busy. Never-the-less, she could not go around like this, with her posterior exposed to the elements. She had to find some clothes, and fast.

She ducked into a ward where an old lady slept. A dressing gown hung in an elongated cupboard. Begging: “Pick me!” With only the slightest measure of guilt and hesitation, Letitia took the bright pink velvet padded gown and wrapped it around herself. The extra layer flushed her with heat, but she tried to ignore the beads of perspiration dripping from her temple.

A nurse robotically strode into the room.

Letitia dashed into the nearby bathroom and hid behind the shower curtain. Drops of water from a recent shower caused her to slip. As she teetered, she grabbed the curtain. Satin green, of course. She clung to the curtain, fearful of stumbling over the commode. Water seeped between her toes, tempting her to release the curtain and land bottom first on the damp floor tiles (tiny green square ones, of course). She eased her body onto the commode, rubbed her feet and waited. The pastel green wall tiles and shiny dark green freeze didn’t escape her notice.

The nurse seemed to be taking forever. Papers rustled, blood pressure machine pumped, wheezed, and beeped while the nurse chatted with the old lady.

Letitia spent the waiting time constructively, planning her escape. She puzzled over how crowded the medical quarters had become and assumed that she was not the only survivor from the plane crash.

What happened to Fritz? She wondered.

Finally, silence on the other side. She slipped out of the en suite. The damp corners of the dressing gown slogging against her shins.

‘Who are you?’ the old lady stared at Letitia in an incriminating fashion. She wore this purple rinse in her thin curly hair and her piercing brown eyes marked her intruder’s every move like a hawk.

‘Oh, er, I’m your room-mate,’ Letitia said.

Baring her nicotine-stained buck teeth, she spat words of accusation at Letitia. ‘I have this room to myself. What are you doing here?’

‘Oh, haven’t you heard? There was an air disaster. The plane crash. They’ve had to double up.’

‘But there is no bed for you.’ She pointed a wiry finger at Letitia. ‘And why are you wearing my dressing gown?’

Letitia glanced lovingly down at the velvet chords and stroked the soft fabric. ‘Oh, is it? What a coincidence, I have one exactly like this!’

The old lady leant forward and indignantly replied, ‘How could you?’ Then in measured words, ‘That – gown – was – an – exclusive – from – Harrods – London.’

‘Really? Well, I guess salesmen, even Harrods ones, will do anything for a sale.’

The aged lady glowed bright red. ‘You mean…How could…what you…?’

The lady groped for the panic button.

‘I’ll go and see where the extra bed has got to,’ Letitia stammered before dashing from the room. She made for the nearest door that resembled a closet.

Letitia squatted in the cleaning cupboard surrounded by squeeze mops and buckets, and the stale musty smell that accompanied them. The fumes of antiseptic spray and wipe mingled with chlorine overwhelmed her. A lime green uniform was slung on a hook on the back of the door. Again, without too much thought, she donned the tunic-cut dress and dark green pinafore and slipped some available white sneakers onto her feet. ‘Don’t think too much about who wore those shoes before,’ she muttered with a shudder. The sneakers were a little tight and had a damp, cold feel on her bare feet. A surgical mask hung by its elastic on the hook that also held a green gown (pastel green, naturally). She took the mask and placed it over her nose and mouth. The fumes had been making her eyes water and she had begun to feel dizzy. The mask gave slight relief from the vapours as well as acting as a disguise.

‘Pity I’m no longer invisible,’ she muttered as she pulled open the door.

Fully dressed as cleaner with trolley laden with mops and buckets in tow, and vacuum cleaner barrel trailing behind her, she left the storage room. Eyes down, Letitia hoovered the short piled grey carpet. The nurses ignored her as cleaner. Domestic staff were unimportant to them. They were stationed in life and employment above cleaners.

‘You missed a spot there.’ There’s always one pompous nurse who had to be the exception. She had to make it her business how clean the med lab was to be.

‘Sorry!’ Letitia bleated while rubbing that corner of the corridor with the vacuum nozzle for some extra few seconds to satisfy her.

‘And don’t forget to empty the bins in the toilets – you forgot yesterday, and they are overflowing,’ she said.

‘Yes, ma’am!’ Letitia replied not actually looking at her. But silently she mimicked that particular nurse behind her surgical mask, then continued to vacuum away from the nasty nurse.

A few meters down the passageway, she glanced back. The nurse had turned away from her and had busied herself with a pile of clipboards, thank goodness.

Letitia worked her way to the large green and white “exit” and “lifts” sign at the end of the hallway. So far, so good.

Standing before the metal doors of the lift, Letitia expected them to open on command. She had forgotten that these lifts reinforced with an ornate brass gate, were not the sensor-lifts of the advanced Mirror technology. Mirror lifts are intelligent. They automatically sense the presence of an individual and whether the person is intending to go up or down. ‘Of course, this is 1967, on this world; lifts are not intelligent. I s’pose I have to press the appropriate button,’ she muttered while gazing at the lift. ‘Now, where’s the button?’

A man endowed with a yellow and blue striped polo shirt, baggy grey shorts and wielding a golf club waltzed up to the lifts and poked the “down” button. The fellow, tall, blonde hair receding, and dark blue eyes, appeared familiar, as if she had seen him somewhere before and long ago. The doors opened and Letitia joined the golfer in the lift.

A petite lady in a pale green mini dress smiled at them, and announced, ‘Going down? Going down?’

‘Er-oui,’ Letitia replied behind her mask. ‘I mean, “yes”.’

The golfer glanced at her and raised a blonde eyebrow.

‘Oops, habit,’ Letitia muttered and turned from him. Hoping she hadn’t given her “illegal alien” status away.

© Lee-Anne Marie Kling 2021

Feature Photo: Aurora Borealis Icebreaker, near Battery Point Derwent River, Hobart, Tasmania © L.M. Kling 2016

***

Want more?

More than before?

Read the mischief and mayhem Boris the over-sized alien cockroach gets up to…

Click on the link to my new novel, The Lost World of the Wends

Below…

Or discover how it all began in The Hitch-Hiker

And how it continues with Mission of the Unwilling

Choice Bites–The Survivor (4)

/ lmkling / Leave a comment

Hope

[The final episode in an extract from another of my little projects in the War Against Boris the Bytrode Series…]

She pulled the old jacket around her arms and grimaced as she drew in the damp mouldy aroma that accompanied it. At least it was warmer. A large lopsided figure lumbered through, parting the sea of the dozen or so bowling competitors. Black balls skittered in all directions onto the concrete floor and the white ball snuck irretrievable under the bar fridge. Imagine, a fridge in the coldest continent on Earth! In chorus the crowd cried in protest, ‘Oh, Fritz!’

‘Oh, sorry, sorry!’ the hairy awkward form mumbled as he thrashed his way through the maddening mob. As some of the group sank to their hands and knees in search of kitty and bowling balls, the klutz continued to apologise oblivious to the search.

Maybe I can pretend to be part of the crew, Letitia thought as she slithered to a table in the corner. She perched on the edge of the seat and observed this peculiar group of people undetected.

‘I’ll sus them out, and when I have worked out what’s going on, I’ll make the right impression before hitting them with the fusion bomb of bad news,’ she whispered.

The clumsy man had his back to her and was standing on the green carpet. The group of bowlers were furious, ‘Get off, Fritz! We are playing, Fritz! Get off, will ya? You’re in the way!’

As if only half aware of his surroundings, the man of all feet and no grace, turned and stumbled towards the table. Behind his crooked glasses, his eyes grew wide.

Letitia gasped. I know him. He’s the Chief Physicist from the IGSF (intergalactic Space Fleet).

Fritz his face pale as if he’d seen a ghost, pointed at her.

‘Fritz!’ she stammered. ‘I mean, Professor Grossman.’

‘Letitia? W-what are you d-doing here?’ Fritz collided into a nearby metal chair causing it to clatter onto the floor.

She shrugged. ‘Er—I don’t know—just sorta thought I’d drop in.’

‘You’re alive.’

‘Yes.’

‘After all these years…’

‘Yes, um, Boris ya know.’

Fritz adjusted his spectacles and then rubbed his eye. ‘We never gave up. Nathan never gave up. He’s been looking for you. He sent me here, to look. He kept me working—worm holes, parallel universes, you name it, he kept on searching for you. Everyone thought he was crazy.’

‘Nathan?’ she asked, the words choking in her throat. The 1960’s—he’d been so right for her—they’d been so right for each other—except at that time, the world-view their relationship as so wrong. The 1960’s, on Earth, in Australia, when tall, dark Nathan had been classed as “fauna”. No rights to vote. No rights to own a house. Yet, in the ISGF, Nathan and Letitia as an item, had been accepted.

Letitia wiped a tear from her eye. ‘After Boris attacked our ship, I thought I’d lost him forever.’

‘He never gave up,’ Fritz said.

‘How did he know? I was involved in a plane crash—Boris—he said he was sending me to another world. I think I’ve just arrived.’

‘Oh, there was a plane crash about a week ago—somewhere—over there.’ He waved his hands about. ‘Some other station…far away from here…’ His voice trailed off into uncertainty.

‘When did you arrive, Professor?’

‘About a week ago.’

‘He never gave up, Nathan…’ Letitia frowned. ‘But, why would Boris do that? Why would he be so kind?’

Fritz shrugged.

She bit her lip and avoided the obvious conclusion that someday, some time, Boris would demand her to return the favour.

The calendar of 1967 with the not-so faded photo of the Central Australian rock troubled her too. ‘What’s with the calendar? Has no one pride in the place to change it? Update it in—I know it’s Uluru—memories of a warmer clime.’

Fritz glanced at the glossy time device. ‘Oh, that. Tacky, yeah, I know.’ He saluted the calendar half-heartedly. ‘At least they have the year right. Pff!’ He looked again. ‘Oh, yeah, and the month’s right too. It’s January, isn’t it? We’ve just had New Year’s a couple of days ago. Some of the crew are still recovering if you know what I mean.’

Letitia shook her head. ‘Hmm, Boris, he did send me to another world.’

‘Yeah, well, it’ll be alright,’ Fritz said.

He stood and offered his hand.

‘Will I see Nathan?’ she asked taking his hand.

‘Hopefully—soon. Listen, you need rest. I’ll organise the transport.’

Fritz pulled Letitia to standing and then guided her out the common room and to the dormitory.

As she snuggled into a thermo-sleeping bag, she drew the hood over her head and asked, ‘Do you think you can keep the others from noticing I’m here?’

‘What do you mean? I thought that’s what you were doing—I mean using your invisibility skills.’

‘Invisibility?’

‘As I said, Nathan detected your presence.’ Fritz fiddled with his spectacles. ‘These glasses use sonar to detect things that are cloaked. Like you. It may just be this world.’

‘I’m invisible?’

Fritz patted the hood of her sleeping bag. ‘Get some sleep. We transport back to Earth in the morning. Nathan is looking forward to seeing you.

‘Fritz? One more thing.’

‘What?’

‘I have a daughter—Jemima. She’s Nathan’s…’

‘Huh? Jemima? You have a…?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh, Her! Yes, she’s been helping us.’

Letitia nodded and closed her eyes. Her head spun. Nathan…Jemima helping…And the thought that crept up behind her and caught her off-guard. What arrangement had Jemima made with Boris?

Fritz returned with chicken noodle soup in a flask. He set it on the small tin cupboard beside her bunk.

Letitia sat up and sipped the soup. She tried not to think about the deal Jemima made to save her mother from certain death on Mirror World. And maybe, the driving force behind the gesture—the need for a daughter to find her father.

Snug in her cocoon, stomach filled with soup, her heart content with anticipation to see her first love again, Letitia thanked God, and then drifted off to sleep.

King of the Springs

In an exclusive club on the edge of this desert town, Tails positioned himself on the stool at the bar and prepared to down an ice-cold beer. Nothing like a chilled beer in the middle of a hot summer in the Centre of Australia. He raised the schooner of amber liquid and savoured the moment…

A commanding figure strode into the bar. Walking in his direction…

Tails’ eyes narrowed. He spat out an expletive. Then muttered, ‘They’re after me!’

Appetite for his beer lost, he abandoned the full and frothing glass. Alighted from his barstool. Scuttled from the bar, through the Pokies Parlour. Into the melting heat of midday.

Packing up the boys and escaping south, to Adelaide foremost on his mind.

© Lee-Anne Marie Kling 2021

Feature Photo: Mt. Wellington summit © L.M. Kling 2009

***

Want more?

More than before?

Read the mischief and mayhem Boris the over-sized alien cockroach gets up to…

Click on the link to my new novel, The Lost World of the Wends

Below…

Or discover how it all began in The Hitch-Hiker

And how it continues with Mission of the Unwilling