Lost Time

The eyes of the girl twitched for the first time in a millennium as the shadow of the morning’s commuting business shuttle cruised by her 21st story window. The digital display next to the chamber that held her read: Canadia / Age:TBD /  Status: comatose / Next update scheduled for: ERROR. A hissing filled the room along the tails of a blast of air as the capsule that held Canadia clicked open.

She stepped out onto the floor, and a shock ran up her leg as her pale sole touched the cold linoleum. She stumbled her way to the window. A wildly long swath of white hair flowed out behind her making a shifting carpet that flowed around the cluttered floor in waves that matched the rhythm of her lurching gait. Reaching the large plate wall that revealed the world, Canadia pressed her atrophied hand against the glass. “Oh”. 

The word echoed off the walls of her skull. This semblance of thought brought forth like a creature from the sea thrust into a blistering desert. Where was she? She thought dully. What? A thousand blurs flew past her eyes in dueling directions;some bathed in the shadows of monolithic buildings lining the edges of the… Street? Was this a street? Trying to process everything was starting to hurt; the trillion colors that flashed in her eyes every second, wildly ludicrous signs and flying objects in the middle of an alien thoroughfare. She sank down, back against the window, and getting a good view of the small box room she had been kept in. Canadia covered her face with her hands.

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Sometime later her head started to ease it’s screaming. “Worst brain exercise ever,” Her words carried a grating of disuse. Canadia drug her hands from her face. A faint squeaking sound was added to the cacophony of input, a very noticeable counterpoint to the hums and gusts of passing ufos that bled through the window. Nothing in the room was moving except for a strange box with a light that had been blinking since she awoke.  She found the source outside the window when she glimpsed a flash. “Good old fashioned wire!,” the exclamation held unimaginable relief. But what’s it attached to?

Canadia stood on wobbly legs and bent over trying to get a look. As she was doing so, a bizarre looking grey man rose into view. No, not a man. She saw grey plates that parted giving view to intricate machinery at every joint as it came to the window on a platform. The head came to a halt right in front of Canadia’s face; two blue glowing apertures glowed out from under a slate grey dome. Really, robots? This day would never end, she thought. An awkward silence preceded the strange bit-crushed voice of the bot.”Good afternoon ma’am. I am here on behalf of Pharaoh Glass. Please pay me no mind.”

“That’s a bit hard. Everything about this is wack.” Canadia finally found her balance.

The bot had raised something to the outside of the glass, but stopped at the remark. A tilt had taken to its head. “ I do not understand. I may come back at another time as to not disturb you”

“No, no, no. I have too many questions for you to just run out on me.” Canadia’s croak had begun to resolve into a smooth alto. The pressure had been building inside her since she had awoken. Canadia let the questions ricocheting around her skull out through her mouth. A machine gun’s barrage of questions assaulted Beta who answered each cooly and simply while he went about his task. A small gun-like apparatus in his hand was continuously tipped with clear bubbles that were touched and melded into pocks in the window. 

The conversation melted the minutes into a stretch of untrackable time. Over the course of the questions, Canadia had learned, among so many other things, that the year was 2109, acid rain constantly drenched the city, and that she was in San-Francisco. This last discovery brought Canadia back to reality. Since when have I been to san fran? Inner searching led to nothing. She could not remember going to SF, or anywhere at all! Thinking backwards, Canadia only remembered her name.

Beta looked at Canadia with severe concern and interest, but remaining silent.The service bot had finished repairing the glass awhile before and then sat down on it’s platform. Canadia spoke into the gaping hole she had left in the discussion.”I’ll be…. ok …. I thi-” the word was interrupted by a crackling voice coming from around Beta’s head.”Beta-32! What’s the hold up, you’re due back.”

“Right away sir.” said Beta as it moved to hold a stiff standing position. The blue lights in it’s head lit a track along the side of the building with the slow, squeaking descent of the cart. Canadia called out to the disappearing top of Beta’s head.”Wait. Where are going; you can’t just… leave me alone” she finished in a small voice.

No response. She had too many questions left unanswered to let this slip away. Canadia turned and performed an approximation of a sprint over to the door. It was thankfully unlocked. The old slab of wood wrenched open in two pulls and made way for the rushing girl to race down the dank hallway. Canadia passed a million doors and wall decorations on her careering shot down the corridor, but not a single soul was in it with her. Her feet slapped the chilly lining of the floor as she turned the corner at the end of the stretch she had seen. An elevator door stood ajar just ahead of her; Canadia sidled in through the gap and examined the controls as she gathered up her hair that still stretched out through the door.”please still work,” she muttered pleadingly. A control panel had a vertical slide labeled with numbers and a single button. The slide made several hurried clicks when Canadia smashed it down to the label reading “ground” and slapped the tarnished button into the panel.

The entirety of Canadia’s body felt like it was being blasted by supermassive speakers pressed up against her skin. A ding sounded, doors opened, and a flood of sound came through the gap in a pair of brightly lit silver doors. Shouts sounded from a growing line of people inside the bustling lobby as Canadia darted a madwoman’s rush towards the exit. Clear doors led to an open street cloaked in shadow despite the sun in the sky. Tall boxes with rounded edges glided along the wall towards the doorway on a course to intercept Canadia.

A blind collision sounded with a soft “Bumf”. Canadia had run headlong into one of the moving boxes which had retained its rigidness, crumpling the slight girl down onto the carpeted floor. Faces filled in around her, framing her view of the plain ceiling.”Not. Again.” whispered out from Canadia. Exhaustion consumed Her vision, and Canadia’s overexerted body stopped moving except for irregular breaths heaving her chest.

 In her sleep she felt miniscule, and on the back of her eyelids played a movie in broken frames. She saw a young, grey, short haired dog running towards the edge of a dead yard full of weeds; she was running too, but after the dog or away from what was behind her she could not tell. The pair of them made their way into the empty street that made a tight bend out front of the house. Canadia paused to look back, a small, disheveled, and rotting subdivision home with no lights showing through its dead windows stared uncaringly back. There was a horn and a shrieking of tires as she spun and saw her grey friend thrown at her, and then another world of pain. 

Her eyes crawled open to a view of a dark room, the only light came mutated through a window assaulted by acid rain.