Driven by Emotions

A Jumper, that’s what I call myself, if there are others out there with the same affliction I’ve never met one. It’s usually brought on by intense emotional moments. So, what does that mean? Don’t get angry, don’t get sad, happy, really happy is out too, and forget about excited, that does it before—well, before you get excited.

I had a moment a few minutes ago by my linear timeline, however, it took place a couple hundred years ago. I was in France at the 1889 International Exposition, or World Expo as we call it now. There was a lovely woman who caught my eye, and I hers. We ended up at a small Bar a vin, a wine bar. Neither of us spoke each other’s language, but it didn’t seem to matter. After a glass and into the second one, she leaned in and kissed me. My mind immediately was stirred up, and I was gone in a blink.

Now I’m here. Where is here, or when is here is the best first question. It looks like I’ve travelled into a future, the future is hard. I have no reference to work from. No vague recollection of the history of a time and place. All around me there are, for lack of a better term, futuristic-looking buildings and crafts. Some of the vehicles are using streets others are scattered in various layers of the sky above the streets and above the buildings.

My original time frame is the early twenty first century, it all started in 2020. I was in a science class at college. We were all goofing around with some basic lab chemicals and a friend’s taser. We were taking turns daring each other to do this or that. Well, first I was dared and it became a bet that I wouldn’t drink the concoction we poured together, all of it should have been innocuous. Anyhow, I did it and it tasted awful, but I won fifty bucks. Then I was dared to get zapped by the taser, others had done it, it looked shocking but not too painful. I was supposed to put it to my tongue. I honestly don’t know if it happened or not, I assume it did. The next thing I knew I was in medieval times.

Sometimes I stay in a place for minutes and sometimes for weeks. I’ve gotten better at monitoring my moods and quelling my emotions or sometimes using them to get out of a situation.

What I would like to do is somehow, one day, return to my earlier time, a date just before that stupid day in class and warn myself, stop myself from doing what’s become a curse. I just want to enjoy a good meal, share the warmth of a bed with someone, anything.

“Blarm. Tak ah shem re!” someone yells behind me.

When I turn around the creature behind me isn’t human. It’s tall, taller than me, and thin in all its proportions, wiry even. Where am I? “Sorry, what did you say?”

Then in perfect English I hear, “Idiot. Get out of the road!” I know it’s him talking, but his voice rings in my head more than my ears and his mouth didn’t move.

“Oh, Sorry.” Looking down at the ground I see what looks like lane markings. Without clear designation I step two steps to the left and watch as he tosses a small box on the ground. The box instantly changes into a vehicle; he climbs in and it whisks up in the air.

“You’re new here,” a different voice is clearly cast into my mind. It’s a weird thing to ‘hear’ something without the use of ears, it almost tickles. I scan around me and there’s another unfamiliar looking alien in the doorway next to me. It must be a woman, or at least I want to think that; her body has more shape and form that the last. She is wearing a long piece of metallic fabric that looks tight but comfortable. Her stature is also less and her ‘voice’ sounds softer.

“Yes. Where am I?” I ask, then realize I try not to ask questions that make me look lost. This time lost is what I am.

“Where? Interesting question. I would think you would ask when. Your tone feels different. What time are you from?” She knows. How is that possible? In all these years I’ve never talked about being a Jumper to anyone and without me saying a thing she knows.

“My tone?”

“Yes, the vibrations that make you, they’re from the past. You’re from the past. What brings you here?” she asks bluntly.

“I uh, well you see I’m just visiting. I have this problem…” I stop myself before saying anymore. She may think she knows but telling her feels altogether too honest.

“You can’t control it can you? That’s a shame. Have you ever been to the future before? The year is thirty nineteen as your people kept time. And the city is where New York used to be.”

“You said kept time. Are my people still around?”

“Oh, yes. Sorry, that did sound bad. Your people are here. They mostly serve the others. There are a lot of new races here. We all followed your beacons you sent into space. It was a, what would your people call it, a trail of bread to follow.”

“A bread crumb trail. Are my people happy, do they like what they do? Serving you?”

“Oh, they don’t serve me. I am just a lowly Macedian, that’s what we call my people. Your people serve the greater beings. You will learn that soon. You won’t be able to stay untethered for too long. And no, I would not say they are happy. They serve.”

Looking around in the street I see a few Macedians like her watching me, there are also other creatures mixed in, four-legged beastly looking beings that are wearing suits not leashes. They are all watching me. “Is there somewhere safer we can go to talk. I want to learn more.”

“Yes, but I can’t be the one seen taking you in. You need to walk around back; there’s a door back there. I’ll leave it open. My room is the first one you will see on the right.”

“Okay,” I respond while quickly heading that way. I wrap around the corner, too many eyes on me. Further down that street there is a thinner alley. I quickly turn in and find a door ajar.

Even though the outside of the building feels unfamiliar and foreign a hallway is a hallway on the inside. Immediately there is a door standing open on the left and I duck in. My new friend waits for me inside. She is reclined on a soft long chair. The door automatically closes behind me. Her metallic fabric dress reveals a more feminine shape to me than before. “I’m glad you came in,” she says patting the couch next to her.

I’m in a daze, with little self-control and an unwillingness to even try to stop myself I sit next to her. I can feel the warmth coming from her. Her people must be warmer than us, she gives off a radiant heat. “Are you a woman?” I ask, what a stupid question.

“I am what you would call a woman. My name is Cleo and I must warn you. We can have a powerful affect on your kind. Don’t let it distract you from learning what you want to learn.”

“My name’s Anthony,” I say without being asked, I want her to know me, I can’t explain it, I need her to know me.

“I want to get to know you Anthony. What brought you here?”

“I call myself a Jumper,” why am I telling her this, “I’ve got an affliction that sends me travelling through time when I get emotional. How did you know my name?” Why is this happening.

“Emotional. Anything?” she says reaching out and touching my arm.

A fire burns through me, passion, intense passion, and yet I’m still sitting here.

“Well, you must have felt something, and yet you are still here.”

“Felt something? That’s an understatement. Your touch had me ready to leap out of my skin. You’re right though I didn’t leave,” I am stricken with an honesty I’ve never had before and barely fazed by this new information.

“Yes, I wanted to see. We are passionate people; your kind finds us hard to overlook. Okay, your turn. Ask me a question if you wish,” she says, I notice a depth in her dark eyes, I feel myself pulled into them.

“How could you tell I wasn’t from this time? You mentioned my vibration felt different,” I ask, deeper I travel into her eyes.

Her voice rings further inside my mind, its pleasure filled, “You have, we all have, a time we are connected to. Your vibration rings you to an earlier time. There are people that could pinpoint it. I’m not one of those people. I can only tell it felt earlier. And, if I’m being honest, I could tell it wasn’t from this time, and there will likely not be a future for your people here.”

“No future for us?” I ask, not sure if my words came out or I just thought them.

Nevertheless, she answers me. “Yes, there are safeguards in place to stop those among us from procreating. You see we are a peaceful people; we wouldn’t overtake your world by force; we wouldn’t kill off all your kind. It is more like we control you we let you serve us. We have also stopped your ability to have children, and eventually we will be rid of you.”

“My people were all made sterile?” I ask before thinking. Or more likely I thought it without asking.

“Not all of them,” she says while reaching out and touching me again. Again, a powerful electrical surge of passion pulses through me, and once again I don’t jump.

“What’s going on? Your touch sends surges of…”

“Passion,” she fills in for me.

“Yes, passion, through my entire body but I’m staying here. Normally I would be gone in a heartbeat.”

This time her hand stays on me the fire burns in me, my body reacts by making me squirm, sweat, and undoubtedly flush. “You shouldn’t go, not without me at least.”

“Not without you? If I could take you with me you would be the one that would be controlled and scrutinized. You would be studied by the scientists of my time or any other,” I say, as I talk my heart, my will, my strength flows from me. She isn’t taking it I’m giving it to her, freely.

In the blink of an eye, she transforms. Sitting before me now is a lovely young human woman. “Is this a more pleasing form? I can keep myself in this disguise for as long as you wish. We could stay together, be together, and no one would question who or what I am. And, as you can see, I can hold you in the time you wish to be.”

“Yes, in this disguise you could walk among my people without question. Why do you want to leave with me?” I ask, not because I don’t want her with me, I do, but because the question rose to the surface and flowed through our link to her.

“I told you before I feel your vibrations. You feel to me how I feel to you. Our souls sing together. I also want to experience your time and see your world. Who knows what could happen,” she replies.

“Then this isn’t normal?”

“No, not at all. We may be from different worlds, different times, but our beings are like one. I have never felt this before either. More than anything I want to be with you. It may also be possible to get you back to your time, your life. I think I can tune your next jump to your specific vibrational frequency,” her hand is still on me, I see it there. However, now the link feels solid I feel her breath, her heartbeat, we are no longer two beings, we are one.

I can’t say no, I think without stopping myself. “I can’t say no,” she hears.

“Great, then let me get a few things and we can go. It’s safer that we get you out now.” She let’s go of my arm, for the next minute I feel broken, alone, as if I’m missing a key part of myself. She walks past me, touches my head on the way by and instantly I feel whole again. It is by far the deepest love I’ve ever felt. Love doesn’t even describe the sensation; it’s a perfect oneness.

She again comes to me; a small bag carried in her hand. “I’m ready,” she says, for the first time she uses her mouth to speak. Her voice sings in my ears, it’s perfect, hypnotic.

She reaches out her arms and embraces me; I can’t even begin to describe the sensation. It is as if every bit of passion I’ve ever felt in my life were packed into one moment. Even still we are in this futuristic time.

“Pardon me,” she says, “I have to try something different.” At that moment the overwhelming emotion turns sour, distasteful, hate filled, anger, rage, and finally fear. Terror grips me, I’m cowering crying, and lost in a gloomy horror. In my panicked state, I see her emotional push works. My fear forces us out and away from here. Normally my Jumps take a brief second, today I see time passing inside a raging vortex all the while my darkness swallows me. It feels like a lifetime passes before we settle.

There’s a brief moment, like the point where fresh and saltwater mix, and in that briny place between the two is an outflow of my fright and the rebuilding of my desire and my want for my new partner. She is wise to hold me for every moment she does to wipe away the memory of the terror that took me. When I open my eyes I see we’re standing in the town of my birth, not where I last lived but the place I lived my first many years.

“This is where your vibrations sent me, sent us. Is this your home?” she asks, her voice only in my head again.

“Yes, my hometown.”

Over the next few days, I show her the town, trying to explain my people to help her understand. “We are good people, sure there are those that are not, but for the most part we all try to do our best.” Cloe is friendly to everyone, and everyone seems to enjoy her.

In time I become lost in her world, lost in my passion and devotion to her. She becomes quite adept at talking to anyone and everyone. There isn’t a soul that doesn’t like her. She, however, is mine, or I should say I am hers.

We eventually begin to travel so she can see more of the world, meet more people, win them over with her charm. It would seem she is infectious, beloved by all that meet her.

“Dear, will you fetch me some food? I grow hungry,” she asks anything of me, and I am glad to serve her. I get so much from a single glance these days each look sustains me. Others have fallen into our fold, taking care of Cleo. It doesn’t take long before her arms embrace more of the state, the country, and beyond. If ever anything could unite my people it would be Cleo. She is my queen. She is our world.