Timesong

The crowded outdoor scene faded from his vision. The cordon of Sumerian guards pushed him and the crowds around him, back, away from the ruler's procession. He had been struck on the head. He shook his head to clear it, and tried to rise up.

It was dark around him. The disorientation hit him in waves. Where was he? He fell back on a soft surface. Alien music and words were softly audible -- "If you love somebody, set them free..." Who was he? It came in staggered chunks. He was Eric Hunter. He was Eric Hunter, computer programmer, living on the Eastern Seaboard. The soft surface was a bed. He sat up, and the sensors gently filled his compact living space with diffused light. He began to remember.

"Radio off. Time." Holographic numerals appeared -- 6:00 AM. Refreshed from his hygiene cubicle, he turned to the east wall. "Exercise." Equipment unfolded out of the wall.

At breakfast, he scanned incoming jobs for the day. Nothing that required him to physically visit his work site. Good! He needed to gather his thoughts. He had not been sleeping well lately. The dreams had been more frequent, and more vivid. He sat at his workstation in the second room of his flat, 97 floors up, with an expansive view of New York City to the south. He called up New York Central Library, with Sumeria as the reference. He scanned historical references. They bore a remarkable resemblance to his dreams, except in some details, and he could swear his dreams were the more accurate.

By midday, he needed to get away from his work. He chose a mass transit excursion to Cape Cod, one of the few park reserves on the northern East Coast. It was a sunny day, and he boarded a two hour seaboard excursion for the afternoon. The hydrofoil raced towards Maine, and he stood on the upper deck, glorying in the sun and the warmth. As he looked to his right, he saw a slim woman with light brown hair frowning into the distance. She was somewhat taller than him --- Eric was wiry and relatively short --- a woman's height made an impression. She was wearing blue jeans and a jacket.

Suddenly he was back in the Sumerian crowds, being pushed by the guards. Before being struck by one of the royal guards, he had seen a concerned face looking towards him. He was dumbstruck. It was her, out of his dreams. He stared at her openly, and almost instinctively, she turned towards him. The shock in her hazel eyes was enormous. She recognized him! There was a slight jar as the hydrofoil began to dock. Before he could call to her, she disappeared into the disembarking crowds.

By the time he returned to his flat, it was early evening, and he had convinced himself that the whole incident was colored by his fevered imagination. He thought of calling one of his few friends, but felt that the whole tale would sound too bizarre to be credible. A session with his therapist might help -- he booked an appointment for the next day. In late twenty first century America, good mental health received the same attention which physical fitness had in the last decades of the previous century.

Instead of resuming work on his assignments, he accessed an arts/graphics package, and tried to reconstruct the face of the young woman on the boat.