The Dry Cleaners

"A what?" I repeated, staring blankly at the old woman in front of me.

"A time portal." she wheezed angrily, as if this was just an average Tuesday, "You know, to travel back in time."

I stared dumbfounded with my mouth agape and brows furrowed like someone told me pigs can, indeed, fly. Nothing about my extremely average day could have prepared me for a conversation like this —  at the dry cleaners no less! I'd like to think something magical or miraculous would happen in my life. Maybe I would run into the love of my life at the grocery store, our carts bumping into each other leading to an exchange of numbers. I could win the lottery. A long-lost, greedily rich uncle could find it in his heart to be generous and award his entire estate to me. 

But happily, I had woken up at the usual 6:45 with only one snooze allowed. By the time I got out the door of my 15th floor apartment and waited obnoxiously for the elevator from hell to arrive, my mobile order at the corner coffee shop was ready for pick-up as planned. "Speedy Clean Dry Cleaning Services" opened at 7:30 on the dot and Mr. Zhao unlocked the front doors every Tuesday to see me standing on the other side, coffee in hand. Tuesdays aren't as busy as Mondays. I hate being rushed.

Mr. Zhao didn't unlock the doors this time. Instead, a wisened lady, who I surmised was a relative, unlatched the premises and permitted me inside like any other morning. After handing me my pressed suit in its protective plastic slip, she said it was time to return to my timeline. If it wasn't such a wild statement, I probably would've responded with the classic "You, too" and turned to walk out the door without any eye contact like the rest of us. She threw me off, standing in for Mr. Zhao like that. My senses were on higher alert and scanning the completely normal dry cleaners for anything else that was amiss. When a waiter tells you they're short-staffed this evening, you start to wonder where the stress lies in the restaurant. You begin to notice how fast the workers are rushing in and out of the kitchen, how tense the floor manager appears, and how slow the food is to be served.

The dry cleaners, however, was painfully the same. The same three women dodged the clothing conveyor belt that wound its way around the ceiling like a rollercoaster for your fabrics. The same smell permeated this sanitized store — a combination of Lysol and cotton balls with a hint of floral perfume. This relatively insignificant, family-run business was an integral part of my weekly schedule. I've come here every Tuesday for over five years. I can't remember what life was like before my simple routine. And now this small, hunched crone just ruined my perfectly average day.

"No," I blinked, "what do you mean it's time to 'go back to my timeline'?"

The woman clicked some more keys on the register before closing the cash drawer, "Robert, you've been in this timeline for far too long. You're being recalled."

"Robert?" I was almost shouting, "My name is Andrew. I don't know who or what you think I am but it's more so time for me to leave." 

I don't consider myself a rude person, especially to the elderly, but her conviction and straight-faced manner of relaying this news in such a nonchalant tone made me feel like the crazy one. I even thought for a second that she was right and I had forgotten an important time-space continuum deadline.

As I finally turned away and approached the front door, I suddently felt a cold hand on my wrist. The old woman had somehow raced me from around the front counter and caught up to my swift steps. In that moment, a surge of electricity rippled through my forearm. Her wrinkled face met mine and it was quite unsettling.

Yanking away from her grasp, I pushed through the door, barely hearing the bell chime overhead. I practically ran onto the busy sidewalk before settling into a normal pace, like every other commuter among the morning rush. Why did this bother me so much? She is a wacky old lady with no sense at all. I should have pity for her and cut her some slack, with her advanced age and all.

The coldness from her touch never left my still-tingling arm. Getting back to my normal routine was easier said than done. At this point on a regular Tuesday, with coffee and dry cleaning in hand, I should head to the office. My receptionist job isn't glamorous, but it pays the bills and doesn't require much of my mediocre resumé. After all, it is incredibly difficult in this city to secure any sort of work even with a college degree. I don't recall my college years in any great depth. The paper within my few earthly possessions states my attendance at the state university, so it must not have been memorable.

As I reached the law office where I've served as Lead Receptionist for five years, my heart dropped: that same, creepy elderly woman from the dry cleaners was sitting in one of the front lobby armchairs. She was waiting with nothing but a small purse on her lap. When she saw me approach the door, her head turned and she moved to rise. How on earth did she get here before me, and wasn't she working right now? 

At this point, do I call the police? I didn't have time to make a decision on the matter before she stepped outside the lobby and in front of me. 

Grasping my coffee and clothes even tighter, I yelled, "What do you want from me? Why are you —"

She placed the same, cold hand on my forehand. Her palm flush against my skin and her fingers pointed up to the sky, like she was high-fiving my face. The tingling feeling on my arm felt like nothing compared to the heat building in my skull. Did time stop? I have no idea. As far as I could tell, the coffee and plastic slipped-suit fell to the ground. There was no feeling at all in my limbs. I became blind and viewed nothing but blackness.

As if a movie started playing in my own mind, the darkness gave way to a bright light. I watched myself in some kind of windowed conference room in a high-rise building. The cityscape appeared like a regular metropolis, except for the occassional small craft whizzing by the window and the hundreds rockets launching to and from space. A set of executives handed me a set of papers, some of which had photos of my apartment building and the law office. In this film, I turned a page over to examine a picture of Mr. Zhao. The executives were murmuring about something unintelligible, but they were clearly exasperated by this dry cleaner.

As soon as it began, I abruptly returned to the sidewalk. The movie had stopped. The old woman was gone. My coffee and clothes were in a jumbled, wet mess at my feet. Nothing had changed except this returned knowledge that I am not of this world. The crazy lady was right. I am Robert.

Something obviously happened in my time travel process. Did I bump my head and lose sight of the mission at hand? Is that why I couldn't recall Andrew's childhood memories or remember his attending his past work or education? Those few personal possessions were a dossier of my fake identity in this timeline. I've spent the last five years as someone else to the point of forgetting who I really am.

I broke the cardinal rule of time travel: never integrate into their world. The old woman was sent here to collect me. I'm not sure that I want to go back or if I'm ready to return. I like being Andrew, but this isn't my world. I don't belong here. Making my way back to the dry cleaners to ask the woman to transport me to the portal, there is a sense of bittersweetness building in my chest. A shame of forgetting who I truly was and letting down the team. While I'm ready to face my critics and possibly lose my role as a traveler, it's better to just get it over with. This world doesn't seem like home anymore.

When I reentered the dry cleaner, I asked for the elderly lady. The three women who are stationed in the back shook their heads — an old woman has never worked here before.

I shook my own head in response, "What do you mean, she was right here like ten minutes ago!" 

The women were startled by my agitation and returned to their tasks. Mr. Zhao emerged from the sea of plastic slips and asked if he could be of assistance.

"Mr. Zhao," I said quietly, "what are you doing here?"

The shopkeeper blinked at me, "Why, I work here. You know that, Andrew." He reached under the counter to grab something, "This note was left for you this morning. It's not signed, but they obviously knew you come here on Tuesdays."

He pushed a small piece of paper toward me, like a ripped sheet of a notepad, returning back into the sea of plastic. Dumfounded, I picked up the note as if it was covered in a poison: "You broke the rules. Now you must live with your guilt. The portal is forever closed for you."

"Mr. Zhao, who left —" but there was no sound except for the whirring of the conveyor belt. I decided to walk around the counter and through the plastic slips. I went to the push the tailored suits and shirts to the side, but was met with a force so strong that the plastic felt like boulders or an immovable wall. It felt like a portal.