Never the Same IC#37 Making Time or Missing Time?

What the heck was it? Big changes in the works. Cue: “I Ran” https://youtu.be/BJ7NVjZ-Eyg

 

Hot and sticky.

We’re talking the weather in late summer. It made working in the hot, still air at the dealership miserable for Kirk.

Hot and sticky, greasy and tired of all the BS.

 We’re talking Kirk now. Working over already hot engines, underneath dashboards, and under cars spraying undercoating not to mention all the other dirty, greasy jobs Kirk dealt with on a daily basis. Kirk wondered how long he could put up with being a bottom-dwelling, low-wage, low-ranking auto mechanic. It made him question his worth even more as his time there rolled well past a year and a half. What was he doing with his life anyhow?  Not much. Here he was working in the field he had chosen, dreamed about in his early teens and now, he can’t say he’s loving it all that much. Not a prestigious job once he got down and wallowed in it for awhile and experience how being a mechanic really was.

On the other side with the ongoing high point of his life, Kirk spent a lot of time with Sarah Elizabeth through the summer. It’s what kept him going. As August rolled on, they went to the races together twice every weekend. Kirk never did any better in the races, racing his slow heat and the consolation race, but never qualifying for the feature race except for that once. Racing against the same competitors every time, but his persevering tenacious mindset drove him on to enter every race knowing every outcome. Though his persistence allowed him to slowly, ever so slowly rise up in his class standings. He didn’t do much with his stock car: that pesky engine oil lek showed no sign of abating, but then he didn’t do much to address it anyway. He wiped down the engine all the time afraid that the race officials would get on him and black flag him like his brother-in-law Mike. At this point, Mike didn’t really show much interest in racing after the “incident” with the officials. Kirk knew that he’d never get to that point of frustration, or do we wonder, would he?

Anyway, you can see Kirk was not highly invested in his racing career�"or was it a pastime, hobby, or a weak attempt at a claim to fame? Well undoubtedly, there was no chance for the latter with the way things were currently going. Sarah Elizbeth was Kirk’s outlet to forget about his failures and melancholy in his life. 

With Kirk’s Firebird parked for the time being made his pink van became his usual mode of transportation. With Sarah in tow most of the time, he figured the van would be handy when they got in the mood for fun and shenanigans. Does anyone use the term shenanigans anymore? Anyway, Kirk and Sarah lived twelve miles apart via the winding, secondary backroads. Often, they were torn between spending the evening at her house, and then his parents would complain, or spend the evening at his parents and her parents would complain. So they tried to divvy up their time between the two locations eating up time just driving back and forth even though it wasn’t all that far.

One moonless night, the stars shining bright as Kirk and Sarah cruised back to her house just enjoying each other’s company without much discourse. On their most often used course to her home, they approached the low, stretched out gray factory that no one knew exactly what happened in there or what was made there. Not anything to worry about too much, just a solid barb-wired enclosing chain link fence encircling the complex. Sometimes there lingered a chemical odor in the air as rumors of secret government projects lingered in the town’s rumor mill. Well, the couple cruised on relatively early in the evening on the road approaching said factory.

Sarah suddenly pointed out while announcing a bright light in the sky. Airplanes and helicopters were common everywhere, but Kirk slowed and as they watched they noticed it didn’t seem to moving. Kirk pulled over. They watched the light shifted from white, to yellow to red in color. Pretty odd, Kirk noticed aloud and mentioned that commercial sky-borne vehicles always had flashing lights. At first notice, the light appeared to hover beyond the factory, but as they watched it grew larger or closer though without magnification of some sort it would be hard to define. Fascinated they keenly watched as it drew closer.

Sarah said, “I don’t feel good just sitting out here with that thing hanging out there. C’mon let’s go!”
            “Geez, don’t you want to see what it is? Sssshh listen, it’s not making any noise.”

But as they looked back for the light, it was gone, just like that!

“It must have heard you say we were leaving.” He snickered.

“Stop it! You know I have those feelings about these sorts of things.”

“Yeah, I remember a couple things you’ve told me about that were downright�"eerie and hard to grasp.”

Kirk restarted the van and they slowly continued on their almost daily trip, but they scanned around the sky as they went but seeing nothing after that. With glances, without words they mused if they had seen something�" momentous --otherworldly.

Getting Sarah home, Kirk went inside with her for maybe a black coffee and some television watching, but her parents were way pissed! It was passed her curfew time they said without a phone call or any explanation. They wanted to know where they’d been. Getting into trouble? They asked. Befuddled, the young pair checked the time�"it was past eleven o-clock! What was significant about the time is that they left his parents before eight o-clock! So, the usual twenty-minute drive with maybe five minutes of light in the sky watching took three hours! Kirk and Sarah looked at each other with her parents impatiently waiting for an explanation. Sarah told them the timing of their departure and journey and about the light they watched, but she didn’t add that what they saw seemed a bit weird in itself. They apologized quietly with shoulder shrugs.

Sarah went outside with Kirk to say goodbye with a kiss, but to Krik, she appeared exceedingly anxious relative to the incident.

“I don’t know what happed to us, but I feel a little different, weird in some way,” she said quietly to the ground.

“Yeah, I do too after your parents bitched us out.”

“No not that! The light.” Sarah was upset. “Did something happen to us out there that we don’t--remember? What happened for what, two hours plus? Something to do with that light�"object”

“Nah,” Kirk scoffed. “We just lost track of time�"or something. Maybe we sat there longer than we thought.”

“Not for two hours’ worth. Face it, the time doesn’t add up.”

“Maybe not,” Kirk shrugged, “But what can we do about it.”

“I s’pose you’re right.”

They kissed again.

“Goodnight.”

“’Night.”

Kirk watched as she sashayed to the house pausing to give a low-key wave as she went inside. Kirk backed out of the driveway and slowly drove home pondering Sarah’s concern. In his ponderance of the incident in question, Kirk developed a thrill down his back. In his self-preservation without Sarah’s protection and back up, he decided to drive home the longer more populated route not caring how late he was because his parents would not care how late he’d get in.

For some reason, the sighting had changed Kirk. At the time, he scoffed at the significance of it to uphold his macho image for Sarah’s benefit, but the event wore on him over time. Obviously, soon thereafter he checked his body for any incisions or penetrations or implants. When he was Sarah the next day, they extensively checked each other’s complete bodies finding nothing unusual and afterward the usual occurred.

Maybe something did happen out there along the road when they saw that light in the sky over the mysterious factory. Kirk was about to undergo some uncharacteristic changes in his life situation.

Stay tuned for Kirk would Never be the Same!