Where do they go, he thought as he looked around. Neither knew where they were, almost as if they wandered onto the set of a cliche horror movie. "I almost expect some guy in a flesh mask to come out and kill us," he says. She laughs and looks around, trying to remember where they were before it happened. It was one kiss and now they were somewhere they didn't expect to be. She looks around at the unfamiliar surroundings, trying to get bearing. They were still in Florida, much to her chagrin, and it was still night out, but what night? Was it the same night or did they somehow lose time somewhere? She turns to him and in a flash of lightening that arcs through the sky, he vanished.
He opened his eyes and struggled to focus on the room around him. His eyes slowly adjusted and he looked around in confusion. How did he end up here, he silently questioned himself. He knew this place, but his mind was still foggy. He slapped at the side of his head, trying to clear the fog when it struck him. He was in New York! Panic grips him as he tries to understand how he got here. They kissed, a flash, and they were somewhere neither of them had been, they looked at each other again, another flash, and he was in the North. He patted his pockets, desperately looking for his cell phone, he needed to make sure she was okay.
She stood only for a short time before the shock wore off. Her phone was missing and his was shattered on the side of the road. She started walking up the road, the effects of the liquor they drank wearing off under the strange circumstances. She could see lights in the distance, so she made for them, walking with determination and just a slight bit of worry about him. People don't vanish in a flash of light, she told herself. He had to be somewhere, she just had to get to a phone. Lighting up a cigarette and tasting the menthol, she calms herself down and tries to piece the events together.
He opened the door to the room he was in, only to be blinded in a flash of brilliant light. When the flash fades, he is no longer where he was. He knew this place too. The old wooden furniture and the sweet scent of country air brings back fuzzy memories from his past. He spots a phone sitting on a faded oak end table and strides towards it, stopping as his gaze falls on a phone book sitting next to it. He lifts the book, keeping it open to the page that it was open to. Her name was there! It wasn't possible, he thought, he didn't know her then and he hasn't been back here since they met! What was going on? He tosses the book to the side, barely hearing the sound of it striking the solid door and falling to the floor. He picks up the phone only to be greeted with dead silence. He looks around in much more panic than he had before, nothing is right. Something was very, very wrong. He rushes to the door, flinging it open, covering his eyes as if expecting another flash. When nothing occurs, he steps out into the brisk Irish morning, glancing up at a perfectly clear blue sky. He knocks on door after door, frantically trying to get someone to answer. A rumble of thunder stops him in his tracks. He glances to the cloud covered sky just in time to catch the next flash to the unknown.
She walked for an hour, her legs killed her. She had no phone signal where ever she was. Strange thing, she thought, she passed by two cell towers since she started walking, there should have been no way she couldn't get a signal. Even stranger was the lack of cars on the road. It's still early in the morning, could be a late starter area. She reaches the outskirts of the town and stops at a payphone next to a gas station. Picking up the receiver, she frowns and hangs up, frustrated at the upkeep of these old phones. Never work, she complains in her head. She hears a rumble and turns, hoping that is was an overnight trucker or something, someone, to get her out of this, only to come face to face with a flash of brilliance. She opens her eyes and struggles to keep standing. This time she felt ill, something she didn't feel last time. Maybe because he was there. Only this time he wasn't there, she didn't know where he was. She looks around the room and leans against the small desk that was in there against the wall. Still trying to get a grip on her stomach, she glances down at the table and see's papers with names that she knows on them. Moving closer to inspect, she notices a small phone book laying next to the door. Dipping slightly to pick it up, she randomly opens it to a page. "Not possible!", she exclaimed. His name was the first entry in the book, but it wasn't his number. Starting to panic, she lurches towards the door. As she turns the nob and begins the unstoppable act of opening it, she hears a rumble of thunder. She saw a small apartment and two people sitting in it before the flash covered everything.
They stood no more than a few feet from each other. Every muscle aching to touch, to caress. Lips half parted, wanting with all their might to tell the other how much they missed them and worried about them. Two pairs of eyes, searching deep in the other, wanting. The air around them was motionless, just as they were. Two statues locked, kept apart by forces they couldn't comprehend. They could feel nothing, hear nothing. They could only see each other and the feelings that passed between them unspoken. It has always been this way with them, they thought. A moment in time, that is all they ever had. So close to letting something happen, but fear and trepidation keep them from saying what they really want to say. Forever kept apart by their own insecurities. All they could do now was watch each other and dream about what could have been.
Footsteps echo near them, accompanied with the squeal of rusty wheels. The sound of a broom being pushed and the tinkle of broken glass. A male voice mutters a greeting and shuffles away. They don't panic that he didn't stop to help them, but continue to look at each other, eyes locked as if in stone.
Two potential lovers, forever kept apart, I think as I watch them from a bench nearby. Their stone hands extended to each other, but never able to touch. I set my pen down and reach for my coffee, making sure my story doesn't blow away in slight breeze. I sip the coffee, my eyes going back to the cursed couple. What could have been might have never had a chance, I muse. I glance at my notes and read a few lines from each of the stories I wrote about them. Two passionate people, crossing paths for a brief moment, only to be ripped apart eternally. My phone rings, filling the air around me with Journey. I laugh to myself, "adequate". As I stand up and answer the phone, I give one last look to the statues and smile. We make our own prisons just like the one their are trapped it, I say to myself, drawing strange looks from those around me. I walk away, leaving a small phone book at the foot of the statues with the names I had given them as the only two entries.
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