Tag: Unstuck in time

Unmoored

Leaping out of the recliner, he looked wildly around the dark room.

Where am I? How did I get here?

Hunting for the ship’s control panels — they should be — there — he swung left to right and searched his mind for the moment’s handle.

Calm fell into place, followed by recognition that he was in his den. He’d fallen asleep watching television, but had set it to time off after an hour.

Relief swept him. Trudging down the hall to go to bed, he muttered, “Unstuck in time, Mister Vonnegut? More like unmoored in reality.”

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Oh, The Times

If it’s the year of twenty-seventeen, then you know an airline is in trouble. I don’t accept the year unchallenged. Like Billy Pilgrim, sometimes I feel like I’ve become unstuck in time. It comes mostly from hearing male Republicans say things like, “Nobody dies because they don’t have access to healthcare.”

Well, not if you’re rich! Ha, ha. Oh, that Raul Labrador. He was kidding, of course. Ha, ha, what a joker. Thank the gods someone in the nation’s capitol has a sense of humor that matches Trump’s White House. You know those guys have a sense of humor when they decide they’re firing scientists from the EPA’s advisory board and replacing them with members of industry. That’s got to be a joke, right?

This year, depending on what Trump does — and his potential for disaster is infinite — might go down as a pivotal year of change for the U.S. airline industry. Each week finds another one in trouble or the news in recent months. First, there was United Airlines, politely trying to re-accommodate a passenger by taking him out of his seat and off the flight, to put him on another. Then American Airlines became the focus of social media ire when an employee bonked a woman on a flight with a stroller. American Airlines tried to fix it all by announcing that they were going to reduce leg room! That’s terrific news! Next they’ll be telling us that they’re going to start charging us to recline our seats or to use the restroom. After all, they’re making money and experiencing record profits, but, you know how it is with money and corporations: there’s never enough.

Delta Airlines, jealous over the the other airlines gaining so much attention, decided to boot a family off a flight from Hawaii.  They made up with them, afterwards, of course, because it was just another spat between an airline and those ungrateful people buying tickets.

Today, in the spirit of U.S. airline news, Spirit Airlines canceled nine flights. People were upset. The airline blamed the pilots. The pilots blamed the airline. We all know that Spirit Airlines really just wanted their time in the news. All the other U.S. airlines were in the news. Even Southwest Airlines made the news after reports that their CEO is resisting changes to the baggage policy and still letting people have two free bags. What a madman! Doesn’t he know he’s leaving money on the table? Gads, the scoundrel.

Of course, the wealthy have had enough of the commoners and their problems with those pesky airlines. They’re either buying their own aircraft or using the terminals constructed for their exclusive use.

It’s exhausting to contemplate. As Alvin Lee of Ten Years After said at Woodstock once, “I think next time, I’m going home by helicopter.”

Maybe he didn’t say it. I am getting old. Or maybe I’m just unstuck in time again, and he’s going to say it in the future.

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The Pilgrim Effect

He awoke in a leather recliner that he didn’t know and stared at the large television screen.

White on black, 04/08/04 was shown. Beneath it said 3:02 AM. The two pieces of information floated around the screen like they were tied together.

The room was cold around him. He needed to pee. He needed to drink. He felt parched but also like his bladder was ready to burst. He stood to attend those matter.

Mental cohesion began undoing. He didn’t know the chair or the floor. The walls weren’t familiar, nor was the other furniture. He didn’t know them, but then, he did. They came to him like long ago learned and forgotten information, forgotten because it wasn’t used. Then he was saying to himself, “Oh, yes, I remember buying that recliner.” He regarded it with deeper thought.

But then, he didn’t remember this body. Taking in his hands, he processed their shape and condition. He understood, these are not the hands I fell asleep with. He understood, but these were the hands I fell asleep with.

Trying to reconcile the dichotomy between what he saw of himself and his furniture, he looked again at the television. At 3:04 AM, he should be going to bed. He should turn off the television. He looked for the control to do that, asking with irritation, “Where is the remote?” It should have been with him at the recliner. With that reasoning, he considered, maybe it fell between the cushions.

As this was thought, he saw a remote in his mind and knew that it was a virtual device generated by a chip in his skull. He just needed to think of the remote and what he wanted it to do, and the remote would do it. This was information that he should have already had, because he’d been doing that for years.

He reconsidered the date. He’d fallen asleep in twenty seventeen. That date said 04/08/04. The oh four was for twenty one oh four. Yes, because that’s what year it was. His hands looked different because he’d received a new body in twenty fifty-six for his one hundred birthday.

They’d told him this might happen. Becoming unstuck in time, he’d time-traveled in his dreams.

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