Sunday, December 29, 2024

The Mission of Oskar Hammar - Chapter 2, Part Eleven

 : Present Day New Orleans

Little Brian L stares down his “sister” Erica L, as Rex the Wonder Dog stands between them, not quite sure what to do.

“Who are you?” Brian asks again, this time more of a demand than a question.

Struggling to decide what to do, she mutters,

“W-well, who do you think I am?”

“You look like my sister, but you don’t act like her. She’d have slapped me by now, just for talking to her. And this dog’s new, too.” Brian points at Rex, who wags his tail happily because everyone is a gift for him. Brian’s eyes narrow as he shrieks excitedly,

“See that? That’s not right!”

Rex’s ears lay back, and Erica crouches down to him.

“What? He didn’t do anything!”

“I know,” Brian says quietly, putting his hand on Rex’s head to pet him. Rex responds with a lick on his face and rolling over to get belly scratches. “My sister’s dog would have bitten me by now, hard. This dog is friendly.” He looks up at Erica. “And, my sister always calls me a turd. You haven’t. So? Who are you?”

Erica suddenly finds herself in a situation she’s always laughed at in her sci-fi stories. Not knowing whether to tell the truth or come up with a lie. The answer is always tell them the truth-especially kids. In all her books and stories, it’s always the kids that seem to know better. The problem is, now, that she suddenly knows better and isn’t sure what to do.

“Kid, if I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.”

Brian continues to scratch Rex’s belly, then looks up again and asks,

“Is it because of that bright flash last night?

Erica looks amazed. “You saw that?”

“Yeah. And so did you. I snuck into your room last night. I was gonna leave a frog on your pillow, to get you back for pushing me down at the pool on Tuesday. That’s where I got this.” He pulls up his left knee, covered with an impressive scab. “You woke up and caught me. Rex jumped up on the bed and tried to bite me. You grabbed my arm with the frog in it. And then the flash happened. You both fell back to sleep, and I went back into my room. Then, you showed up at breakfast. Who are you?”

Erica isn’t sure if he’s telling the truth. What happened? Mind transfer? Absorption? Corporeal replacement theory, what? Whatever happened, he’s the only one of the family so far to make any sense of it. She’ll just have to go with her gut.

“My name is Erica. I am your sister, but in my timeline I--” She takes a moment to reword things. “In my timeline, we don’t live like this. There was a man named Hammar. He had this--thing. I can only call it a time machine. I got really close up to see it. He nearly caught me-us, in his house, over the--”

She turns to point to Oskar Hammar’s house and realizes that it isn’t there. Not only isn’t it there, the lot where it was isn’t there either. Two houses now sit where there were three. This just got harder.

“Look,” she says, getting down to his level on one knee, holding his shoulders. “I don’t belong here, neither of us do. I come…from a parallel dimension! That’s it. A parallel dimension. And I need to get back to my own dimension and find out what happened to bring us here.”

Brian looks deep into her eyes, like Rex does when he really wants something. He really does look like her-their grandfather. His nose crinkles a little, then he grins widely, saying,

“I knew it!”...This is My New Orleans.


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