Chapter 41 — The Missing Phone
Rufus describes how WTF’s are just a reframing of his theory of questions.
Followed by Chapter 41 —— The Missing Phone, in which Saskia deals with the aftermath of her pickpocket intervention.
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Hello Friends,
Last week’s chapter ended on a pretty significant WTF——Saskia, after being pushed by Zeno, having smashed her head on the concrete sidewalk——and it’s had me mulling the importance of cliffhangers.
I once had a writing partner, Ken, who insisted on a death every five pages (of a screenplay, that was, which typically run about 100 pages, with the loose rule-of-thumb of a minute a page). As soon as you adopted Ken’s mantra, you started naturally wondering: who was expendable? would their killer get caught? and, what would become of those left behind? It didn’t take long, though, for the idea of that many casualties to strike me as a little unnecessary, gratuitous even, not to mention the risk it ran of deadening the impact of each. Of course, Ken wasn’t really wedded to deaths, and in the end we settled on a capital WTF moment every five pages. The WTF could even be a revelation of pregnancy, or, given we once wrote an adaptation of The Island of Dr. Moreau, the shocker that said pregnancy wasn’t human. But I digress.
I’m sure that by now you probably recognize the WTF theory as my theory of questions dressed in different clothes. And, in the same way that Ken and I worked to have lower case WTF’s sprinkled between the upper case ones, I believe it’s important to litter niggling little questions between the major hooks. And so it is, today’s chapter returns to Sienna, Saskia’s double, who we last saw about ten chapters back when we left her face to face with the pickpocket who she’d just stopped from, well, picking the phone from her younger self’s pocket.
If you’ve been bingeing this story then you probably recall that incident along with the attendant implied question of whether the younger Sienna was indeed the same Sienna we were following who had just made the intervention. In case you are otherwise a dedicated weekly listener, you can now consider yourself reminded of that question. Either way, let’s get to it.
Until next week, be kind to someone and keep an eye out for the ripples of joy you’ve seeded.
Cheerio
Rufus
PS. If you think of someone who might enjoy joining us on this experiment, please forward them this email. And if you are one of those someone’s and you’d like to read more
And now, without further ado, here’s chapter forty one in which Saskia deals with the aftermath of her pickpocket intervention.
— 41 —
The Missing Phone
Sienna hadn’t been sure what she would do after her intervention with the thug. Then, when the moment arrived and everything went sideways so fast, instinct took over. She’d quickly drawn the attention of a well-built passer-by. Her recruited reinforcement sufficed to dissuade the miscreant of his menace, and the dark hoodied punk had made the judicious decision to retreat. Sienna had thanked her anonymous shepherd and high-tailed it, managing to board the last car of her train before the station master blew his whistle.
As the train pulled out of the station Sienna had checked her pockets. Her fingers crinkled the outer wrapper of the box of tampons she’d bought while waiting for her southbound train later today, but somehow, the phone hadn’t re-materialized. It had been a lot of effort for naught. Unless her younger self had re-lost it? Perhaps she was destined to lose it. She’d left so much else behind, what difference was a phone? Besides, hadn’t the very intrusion of technology been one more of those things she’d always wanted to escape?
Partly in resignation, and partly giving in to her fated freedom, she had let her eyes droop closed and her head tipped back on the headrest.
Two hours later, she’d switched trains in Santa Barbara. On the new train, she’d felt compelled to seek out the version of herself with the phone. Unfortunately, walking up and down the aisles, there was no sign of her double. Perhaps time was a loop and her double had gone back to retrieve the phone, though that didn’t really make sense any more, given she’d now prevented the hoodlum from lifting it . . . unless she’d never had her pocket picked in the first place. Could she have somehow simply lost it, only to later suspect it that her pocket had been picked? It was all very confusing and Sienna returned to her seat at the back of the train.
Arriving in Paso Robles brought a visceral reminder of the convenience of her missing modern technology; without her phone she had no idea of which way to head for something to eat. Happily, a local woman noted her disoriented glance about and asked if she needed help. Technology wasn’t everything after all.
After re-fueling, Sienna decided to stick with her original plan: to bum a ride to the coast and take a couple of days to make her way up north. Her ride dropped her off in Cambria and she was briefly chagrined that she’d met up with the shoreline above Cayucos. That was, until she recalled that Ruddell’s Smokehouse had closed a couple of years back. The memory of Ruddell’s fish tacos almost made the thought of slogging back, not just south, but two years into the past seem worth a try.
Instead, she wandered down to the beach to feel the sand between her toes.
Two days later, when Sienna had made it up to Carmel-by-the-Sea, she stopped abruptly near the center of town. Half a block ahead of her she noticed the other version of herself. Her other self had her head buried in her phone.
∞
Sienna looked up from her phone. The pics of Dutch Door Donuts’ wares were the most delightfully misshapen little zeros she’d ever seen, but the store was not on the street front. She scanned for the access alleyway to the shopping courtyard but was instead surprised to see Tina, her savior from the train.
She’d been a couple of hours outside LA when she felt that annoying warm spotting. That dampness that signaled the unexpected onset of her period. Twenty-eight, and she still found herself caught short on occasion. Worse, she realized that, in her haste, she’d forgotten to pack supplies. She really wasn’t due yet, anyway. Unless, perhaps, it was possible slipping in time had mucked up her rhythms. She had tried the restroom at the end of the carriage, but the unisex lavatory hadn’t even had a dispenser.
A quick check with her phone revealed she was still hours from Paso Robles, even San Luis Obispo was two hours away. She had mused that she could just go back in time and put one into her bag. Unfortunately, that would have been more effort than it was worth. She could just as easily have slipped forward in time, but there was an immediacy to her need and a displacement in time was no different to a spatial displacement.
Her variant of time travel didn’t afford a direct line to even her younger self. It felt analogous to the difference between sending a letter and texting. Incredible though it was, her ability fell short of her current need.
Anyway, it had all been moot. She had needed a tampon, pronto. She’d scanned down the cabin for a savior. Tina had been that woman, and here she was now, hours up the coast and right in front of her. Across the street, sliding into a car.
“Tina!” Sienna shouted as she leapt out to cross the road. To catch her.
“Sienna!” She heard the scream from behind her. A voiced laced with alarm. She turned. It was Saskia. Or another her. The other woman was gesticulating frantically.
Sienna followed the direction her twin was pointing. She saw the car heading right at her. She heard the tires squeal. And then everything went black.
