The little brown-haired girl sat up, holding her knee that was torn open and black and blue with swelling. “I’m sorry, mister.  The man pushed me and I lost control. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” She began sobbing.

“What man?”  There was nobody else around.  “Don’t worry about me, kid. You’re in far worse shape.” Tim stood back up and asked Tristan, “What do we do?  Did we just alter history?”

“Jesus, Tim.  Do you even hear yourself? Random people have random things happen all day long.  Besides, they say ‘time heals’ right? It’ll get sorted out.” Tristan kneeled back down.

Tim pushed the bike to Tristan and he helped the little brown-haired girl get into the seat.  She wobbled at first, and then caught hold and raced down the street.

“Only in New York are kids riding bikes in January.” Tim shook his head.

As they arrived at the newspaper stand they scoured the papers for the first one with a visible date.

There it was, just above the headline that read “At Least 597 Are Killed in Japanese Quake.”  The date read January 17, 1995.

What little color there was in Tristan’s face vacated.

“Jesus.  I don’t even remember that happening.  It’s crazy how things like that are lost to history,” Tim offered, noticing his cousin’s apparent shock. “Are you okay?”

“We’re too late,” Tristain mumbled.

Tim grabbed the paper from his cousin’s hands to take a closer look.

“Careful with that!  Unless you’re buyin’ it, and I don’t see either of you reaching for your wallets!” the voice of a man buried in a minimum of three layers of sooted clothes startled them.

Tim looked again at the paper.  They were, in fact, 12 days too late.  Tim dropped the paper and turned back to Tristan, “How the hell did you mess this up?”

The look of defeat on Tristan’s face was so obvious that Tim took it no further.  He was frozen in place. Neither of them paid any mind to the shouts of the over bundled jerk behind them.

“We’re late,” repeated Tristan.

“It is what it is, now.  We need to get indoors and figure out what we’re doing next, Tristan.  I don’t suppose my debit card will get us very far in 1995?”

Tristan stood in the same place and mumbled, “I have some old cash on me.  Let’s get a beer.”

Despite their current situation, or maybe because of their current situation, the thought of a cold beer was very appealing to Tim.

As the news stand whisked the morning’s paper away in favor of the evening edition, Tim and Tristan made for the warm glow of the Miller Genuine Draft sign in the window of the building down the street.

The laugher within penetrated the heavy wooden door, burdened with several layers of paint.  The most recent, black. Tim needed a good laugh. The reality of their failure was finally hitting him, and it wasn’t sitting well.

He felt anger with the cousin, who before this morning he hadn’t thought of in a long time, but toward whom he was beginning to feel some sense of comradery.

He didn’t even know how to process this feeling of loss he was beginning to feel.  He was only a boy when his folks left. It was a few days past the big birthday bash.  He’d just turned twelve, Tristan about five years his minor, Elise fifteen, and their fathers were in their thirties, younger than Tim stood today.

Today, well the real today. It felt like a lifetime ago, but here it was fresh.  It only happened almost two weeks ago. If he drove out to Chicago now, he’d find himself in the spare room at Grandma’s house, covered in blankets, bawling over the loss, with his dear sister Elise by his side offering comfort.

Elise, the sister that never shared with him the secrets of Essence House.  How did she even know? Was it a secret shared at an age he had yet to reach?  That didn’t feel right.

And this feeling.  What was this feeling?  It felt as if being in 1995 brought an abundance of unearned knowledge, no not knowledge, maybe intuition.  Tim didn’t know, Whatever it is, he felt it present, but could not access it, and he felt like that block brought on his headache that hung heavy on his brow.

Also he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being stalked.  He didn’t want to alarm Tristan (though at times he wanted to ring his neck) so he hadn’t said anything. It wasn’t something he could even put into words.  There was an underscore of paranoia to his thoughts. Something just didn’t feel right.

As Tim pressed the door, the door appeared to press back.  It wasn’t locked or stuck. It sort of felt like the door just wasn’t meant to be opened.  Again, hard to put into words.

That was perhaps the overall feeling that Tim was experiencing.  Everything he did here took extra effort, an effort he could just barely make.  A constant reminder that he didn’t belong here.

Suddenly the door was lighter as a young couple on the other side swung it open to exit the establishment.

“Pardon me,” said the young lady, as she and her beau slipped past them, the latter handing the door back off to Tim.  Tim couldn’t help but snicker at the guys purple IOU sweater, the brand logo and neck of the sweater adorned in turquoise.  He looked almost as absurd as Tristan.

Tim looked back.  Tristan. Where was Tristan?  Tim had been so lost in his thoughts that he hadn’t noticed him slip away.  They hadn’t spoken in several minutes, but he knew he’d been right behind him.

Tim looked ahead to see if Tristan had slipped into the bar ahead of him as the couple had slipped out, but the bar was desolate.  The heavy door that Tim had been holding for what felt like an eternity was suddenly weightless. Had it been an eternity?

A fog hung low in the air.  As his headache surged, Tim felt queasy in his stomach.  Was the color drained of this place, or was his vision impaired by whatever had come over his body?  A noise in the back of the bar drew Tim’s attention.

While not typically the nosey type, the unusual circumstances piqued Tim’s interest enough to drop the door and make his way across the empty bar.  

The bar was empty in every sense of the word, besides dust.  No glasses, no bottles, no tables, no stools, no patrons, nobody to serve patrons, not a single decoration adorned its walls.  Completely abandoned, save the noise of the room behind the bar.

Tim rounded the bar and made his way to the room.  He peeked in, trying to assess the situation without giving up his presence.

From where he stood he could see three people, though he felt like there may have been a couple more out of sight.  Adults all, more or less sitting around the table. They were playing a card game of some sort. It was not a joyous time being had.  Tim felt confusion and anger in the room. More of that intuition, he supposed. He also felt like he recognized some of the people in the room, though he couldn’t place it.

Tim leaned on the door jamb a bit as his head became hazy.  A heaviness in his gut gave way to a pressure in his throat and he made a noise that appeared to startle the folk in the room, as his vision faded.  The last thing he heard as his eyes went black was the slap of his face hitting the mess below.

Some time passed.  Tim didn’t know how he knew.  He’d not yet regained his vision, but it felt like it’d been some time.  He laid there, not fighting whatever was happening. Was he dead? He couldn’t feel his body, or hear a sound.  Complete silence.  

Then he could hear something.  He didn’t know what he heard. There was something there, sight unseen, but a subtle noise that reminded him of the last sound he heard.  The slapping of flesh, but glitching and reverberating.  

He realized that his headache was gone.  In this void he no longer felt ready to pour out his insides either, but he didn’t feel good.  In fact, whatever was with him felt devoid of any pleasantry. It emanated dread and despair. 

“Tim!” a voice cried out over the expanse of black.

Tim tried to return the call, but couldn’t make a sound.  

“Tim!” he heard again, and the fleshy slapping noise grew louder this time.

Suddenly Tim was struck with such force that it blew him off his feet.  He fell back and crashed to the ground.

As he lay there he could see a white light strobing faintly overhead.  It grew, and in his peripheral he caught a glimpse of his antagonist as it scurried away.

As his vision was returning he could make out a figure standing over him, and he could feel it slapping his cheek.

“Tim!  Come on, Tim.  I need you,” Tristan pleaded.  “You just lay there with your eyes open and the occasional moan.  Ugh, we need to get back. I just don’t know what to do. We don’t have anyone to turn to.  I can’t call Elise, she’s only fifteen. And my Dad would freak out if I called him. I’ll be right back.  I need a soda.”

Tristan placed his hand on Tim’s for a moment, grabbing it in solidarity and then releasing it and dragging it away with him.

He closed the door behind him and walked past the nurse’s station.

“Please keep an eye on him, Jessica  I need something to wake me up,” he told the pretty, young redhead behind the counter.  She smiled. 

“You keep it up, you could be a commercial for Coke,” she shot back. He chuckled some, enjoying the moment as it slipped away the further he drifted from the cute, young nurse.

Tristan didn’t get it.  He knew Tim was having some trouble from the moment they arrived, and he felt it too, but not like that.  When Tim fell in through the door at the bar entrance he hadn’t known what was going on, but he was terrified.

The paramedics didn’t seem fazed at all.  They said they were doing this all over town, with the flu outbreak being what it was, but the doctors determined it wasn’t flu-related.  Tristan had removed Tim’s wallet. They couldn’t know who Tim was, and nobody could see the things within. 

He played it safe and told them he’d found the guy and was concerned as a Good Samaritan.  Maybe staying by the stranger’s bedside was a little much, but he had nowhere else to go.  

It’d been a long three days since they had dropped the two off at New York Presbyterian Hospital - Brooklyn Methodist.

Tristan approached the soda machine with a bit of excitement.  He didn’t often allow himself sugary treats. He slipped in his quarters and punched the button.  A few clicks and a thud and his soda dropped into the slot below. Jessica was right, he had been downing a lot of these. This wasn’t like him. How appropriate, though. Better for her to not get to know the real him. Hopefully he wouldn’t be here much longer.

The Coca-Cola bottle, with the beautifully painted festive Santa Claus label, fizzed as it was turned upside down and Tristan felt completely at ease as he dumped the freezing beverage down his throat.

As he walked back past the nurses station Jessica shouted for him.  “Excuse me, Trist...er...Mr. Edmund. I have something for you.” She handed him a folded paper.

Tristain thanked her and smiled.  Part of him hoped it was her phone number, and part of him knew that could never work out, since he’d be missing for the next 25 years or so.  His daydreaming came to a halt as he unfolded the paper and read the words, “Get back to Essence House and leave.”