Date: Sun, 22 May 94 12:07:03 EDT From: "Tracy E. Finifter" Subject: Meant to Be - Pt. 1 Message-Id: "Meant to Be - August 12, 1953" by Tracy E. Finifter Part 1 The brilliant blue-white light of leaping quickly faded away into a dark, noisy room. Sam looked around to gain a sense of his new surroundings, and found himself in a small, noisy, and crowded hospital ward in a rather run-down condition. Sam shivered with the vague feeling that something was very wrong. From the strange looks of the patients and the general setting, Sam quickly deduced that he had landed in a mental hospital, sometime early in his possible leaping period. It suddenly reminded him of another hospital, one which he could barely remember, but one which instilled fear deep inside him. In a sudden panic he looked at his own attire to try and determine what side of the care he belonged to. He hoped very much he was *not* a patient, and was grateful to find a badge on a white uniform top that read "Margaret Kerr, R.N." "Oh, boy," he sighed in relief. Even being a woman was better than being a patient here. "What's that, Peg?" asked another young nurse walking in from the next room. She was short, with black hair and dark, Italian eyes that were all business. Sam recovered from his immediate disorientation quickly, a result of his countless years of practice. "Oh, nothing." "Good," replied the nurse. "Then you'd better get those patient reports up to Dr. Zimmerman before he has a fit." "Right." Sam looked in his hand to see himself holding a small pile of old file folders. He slowly started out of the room, watching the nurse for any signs that he was going the wrong way. She just looked back at him, amused by his confused expression. When Sam finally left the room, the nurse just shook her head and went back to her work. Facing the flight of stairs in the hallway, Sam had a choice of up or down. He decided to climb up, figuring that that's what the nurse literally meant. His guess was right, for at the top of the stairs was a meager office, among several meager offices, with the name "Dr. R. Zimmerman, Chief of Staff" mounted on the door. Sam knocked quietly. "Doctor?" "Come on in, Nurse Kerr. Do you have those patient reports?" He was a tall, dark haired man with a pale face that seemed to rarely see the sun. He was hunched over some paper work and didn't look up when Sam entered. "Uh, yeah. Right here." He placed the files carefully onto the desk and waited. For what, he wasn't sure, but Dr. Zimmerman's indifference made him inexplicably nervous. "Is there anything else, Nurse?" he said after a while. "Uh, no, Doctor. Sorry." Sam turned to leave. He didn't see Dr. Zimmerman begin to say something and then stop himself before returning to his paperwork. Sam returned to his point of entry to gain a closer look at his surroundings. The place was miserable; dirty and crowded and depressing. It was apparently a mental hospital for the underprivileged, as much a refuge as anything else. He wondered how many of these patients actually needed medical care, and how many were just abandoned here because their families couldn't afford, or didn't want, to care for them. He spent a few minutes walking around, trying to acquaint himself with the surroundings and the patients he would have to be dealing with on this leap. With his medical training, he was able to recognized those who suffered from Down's Syndrome, schizophrenics, manic depressants, etc. He felt sorry for all of them for he had obviously landed in a time that didn't consider mental care a very high priority. Finally, he caught up with the nurse who was doing her rounds. "You look out of it today, Peg," she said. Sam shrugged. "You don't know the half of it," he replied. "Then why don't you go in the back room and take a break? I have to finish my rounds anyway." As Sam heard the sound of the Imaging Chamber door open behind him he said to the nurse, "That sounds like a good idea." He motioned Al to follow him and he went into the back room. As Al did, he, too, grimaced at the surroundings. He glanced in the direction of one young patient, eyeing her quickly with curiosity before walking through the wall into Sam's company. The back room was as dreary as the rest of the building. It had a tiny window which faced another building across a narrow alley, a single overhead lamp hanging from a thin wire, and a meager cot set up in the corner. On one wall hung a cracked mirror, which revealed the reflection of a woman in her mid- thirties. There was nothing extraordinary about her, one way or the other, just a plain looking woman that seemed to fit in the role of a nurse rather well. Sam sat down and took a deep breath. He had been here long enough to know that he didn't want to spend any more time on this leap than was absolutely necessary. "What's up, Al?" Al was dressed in his usual bright fashions, this time his silver jacket over an elaborately printed shirt, and toting a lighted cigar, every inch of him a stark contrast to Sam's current environment. He eyed his friend with concern, "You don't look so good, Sam." "I'm just tired. I think this is one of the worst places I've ever landed in." Al relaxed his stance. "Yeah, I'll say. But you know, there's something vaguely familiar about this place." "Yeah, I had the same feeling too. It reminded me of somewhere, but I couldn't put my finger on it." Al's expression changed back to concern for his friend. "You remember... the mental hospital?" Sam's eyebrows creased in confusion. "Mental hospital?" There was a foggy vision of a room full of moaning people. He remembered Al being there, and something about shock. Nothing else. The whole scene looked no more real than a bad dream, fading in the morning sun. "No, not really. Was that a leap...?" "Uh, yeah." "I don't remember." "Yeah, well, be grateful for Swiss cheese," Al said dryly. "Anyway..." he flipped out his handlink, anxious to change the subject, "let's see where you are and when, and why you're here." He eyed the handlink closely as he punched in the necessary codes. "Good. I want to leap out of here as soon as I can." "Let's see, your name is Margaret Kerr and you're a nurse in Harborside Mental Hospital in Baltimore..." Sam watched Al as his voice abruptly trailed off. His eyes became drawn to the handlink's display, and he suddenly took on the look he had when he was hiding a some sort of secret, either about Sam or himself. Sam knew Al well enough to see he was about to begin his usual tip-toeing around the subject before a hasty retreat to the future. "What is it, Al? What's wrong?" he asked. Al, who was busily pounding on the handlink's buttons, was immediately defensive, nervously so. "Wrong? Nothing. Nothing's wrong, Sam. Really..." He trailed off again as he refocussed his attention on the handlink. When he started speaking again, he seemed to talk more to himself than to Sam. "The chances you would land here when..." He stopped abruptly to look at Sam, who was giving him the sternest gaze he could muster. "It's August 12, 1953," he said with a sigh. "Listen Sam," he said as he summoned the Chamber door, "I gotta go run some scenarios through Ziggy. You take care..." He stepped through the blue-white slice of air, and with a touch of the handlink, the door began to slide down. Sam lunged to where Al's image had been standing. "Al, wait! Why...?" But he never finished his question. Al was gone, again, and his sudden disappearance angered Sam. What upset Sam more, though, was the fact that Al was obviously greatly disturbed by something related to Sam's leap, but didn't trust Sam enough to tell him what it was. After all the years and all they had been through, Sam didn't think that there was anything Al couldn't tell him. Al was the only person in the world Sam could share his troubles with, and he thought the feeling was mutual. Then again, Al wasn't isolated in time, with a single holographic image as his only friend. Even more depressed than before he had talked to Al, Sam walked back into the main room. Keep Leaping... * Tracy E. Finifter + finifter@gandalf.rutgers.edu + New Brunswick, N.J. * * * * "I've got a strong urge to fly, but I got nowhere to fly to." * * -- Pink Floyd, "Nobody Home" *