The Transfixed

chapter one

"Well, I can control the power, but I never really know how, where, or why I end up where I do. It's like a vague, intrinsic hope that I land where it's most necessary." She said with hesitance, crossing and uncrossing her legs on the examining room chair. The gum she was gnawing on made a snapping sound every time her teeth collided.

The grey haired doctor nodded, though he was far from a point of believing her. "You say it's like you just leave reality?" He repeated, leaning wearily into his desk, with elbows resting beside a pile of insanity-filled files.

"Not exactly; because when I leave reality, I'm still in reality, just not in my life anymore."

Dr. Banks blinked and let out a shallow breath. "What kinds of places do you go?"

"It depends on the circumstance. I can go anywhere. I usually end up in situations that relate to something else I've thought about or know of. I see things no one else sees. I enter conversations that I can't be a part of." Her voice shook as she tried to explain the phenomenon.

"Can, um, these people you come across see or hear you?"

Bridget bit her lip almost sadly. "No."

"So they don't know that you're there." He repeated.

She nodded as confirmation.

The doctor rubbed his temples and sat back. "When did these... uh, situations, begin happening?"

"I've been zoning off into different worlds for years. Since forever."

"How long do you stay zoned out?"

Bridget felt her eyes shifting above his head to the wall clock. "This one time when I was thirteen, I was transfixed by a set of keys on my uncle's dresser. I was transported to the place I'd spent many days dreaming of. The place kids everywhere, at some point or another, wish to visit. Disneyland. I ended up finding an important ring of keys for this janitor who was about to lose his job if he didn't find them and lock up a pool house.

"Anyway, the point is, what happens when you put a twelve year old in the happiest place on earth with no supervision whatsoever? Time flies. I had been exploring the park for about thirty minutes when I began to feel light-headed and ill. My hands began to shake. I felt cold all over, then hot. The world seemed to stop moving and my heart stalled. Then the minute passed over to thirty-one. Exactly thirty minutes had passed. 

"When I tried to leave the park to go home, I couldn't. I kept plowing through every door I saw; and none of them led me back to Bedford. Long story short, I ended up phoning my aunt about the situation; making up something about my friend giving me last-minute plane tickets to California. I think she and my uncle bought the far-fetched lie so easily because the emotion that ruled out all others for them was worry.

"I found something out that day. If I stay longer than a half hour, I become trapped in the location of that alternate reality, but am transported back to the true reality. So, I try to limit my time to fifteen or twenty minutes, unless I don't mind taking a cab or flying halfway across the world to get back home. When what needs to be seen is seen, I leave."

"You leave?"

"I leave." She glanced back down at him.

Dr. Banks narrowed his eyes. "How do you leave?"

"By the closest exit."

"Meaning what... exactly?"

Her sky blue eyes sparkled. "When I'm inside a building, I must leave through a door. When I reach the outside, I'm back again in my usual reality. If I begin outside, I must open a door inside to return home." She said it in a plain manner that seemed to disturb the doctor.