Lavender Glass

May 23 2023

Misunderstood Things and the Places They Go

China looked around the empty laundromat. She knew that Elsie, her assistant, would want to leave early on such a day. If there was going to be an opportunity to catch up, this was it. Customers were in short supply today, and most of the upkeep and cleaning was already ahead of schedule. What little remained included one machine that needed a service call, and China decided her assistant could handle it as her last duty of the day, if she didn’t get to it herself. It would take only a few minutes out of her lunch break to get up to speed on something, and if she took lunch now, the entire time would probably go undisturbed.

She proceeded to walk towards the back, taking the key off the rack to the office in the rear of the employee area. Once she reached the office, she slipped the key into her apron pocket. China walked in, and when she noted Elsie wasn’t paying any attention, she quickly and quietly locked the office from inside. She went to her desk, rummaged around for a few things, including a stopwatch, a small keychain with a basketball on it, and a tiny syringe. She poked the needle into a water bottle, filled the syringe, and then tossed the now leaking bottle into a cooler near her desk. It landed with a huge thud. China looked up at the door, hoping her assistant didn’t hear, and would come knocking on the door to check on things. After a few moments of silence, China realized the TV was probably too loud, as she could hear it through the door slightly. Elsie most likely heard nothing, so China went back to her affairs. The key in her pocket would keep Elsie from interrupting her by walking in, but it would do little to stifle her curiosity or worry about sounds.

China took the basketball keychain and held it over her head, the stopwatch in the other hand. She squeezed slightly, the water dripping over her head. The stopwatch got wet as well, but was the old traditional moving parts kind, and quite water resistant. She clicked the button on the watch, and a ticking sound started coming from it, a sound that slowly changed over time. It started the way one would expect, but picked up a dull chime to the end of each tick. As time went on, the ticks slowly sounded more like a bell. China closed her eyes, and was immediately dizzy. The room began to swim and sway around her, as she struggled to hold the items over her head and maintain her balance, to keep from falling down.

A nauseous feeling settled in China’s stomach as her desk began to quite literally, melt. The walls seemed to be dripping too, the pictures and plaques bleeding into the paneling. A glob of paint, and what was once part of the roofing material, fell onto China’s forehead, and she quickly closed her mouth and held her breath. Reality itself was dissolving around her, and her feet slowly sunk into the floor. Before long, she was waist high in the carpet, now a sea of sky blue, the stains melted into a soupy liquid while the cleaner areas resembled something like quicksand.

The sound of thunder seemed to come from somewhere in the distance, though outside, there was nothing but blue skies. The same couldn’t be said for China’s office. Everything had warped, and lightning blazed across the “sky” of whatever the ceiling had turned into. Red raindrops slowly formed, and fell from the ceiling, making splat noises as they fell against the carpet. They looked as if someone had lightly tinted the rain, nothing like blood, but more like some sort of pale watery drink. The thunder intensified, and with the next flash, China was whisked away to some other place.

She blinked her eyes against the flash of light, the items in her hands melting into all the liquid now completely soaking her. As she looked around, the environment slowly took focus. The rains became normal, now only water, the color one would expect. She was now on her knees in the middle of a downpour. The red had faded completely, and the muddy road China now kneeled in seemed to go on forever in both directions. The basketball keychain and stopwatch were no longer in her hands. Instead, dangling from her fingers was a small locket.

China took the locket and placed it around her neck. She opened the clasp, and inside was a small watch, counting down from an hour. Already, about three minutes had passed. She closed the locket and placed it underneath her shirt. China got up, wringing herself off as best she could, and proceeded down the road. After a few minutes walk, she took the locket out again and checked the time. The tiny watched showed fifty minutes remaining. “I should be good,” she said to herself, and replaced the watch underneath her shirt.

The rain was beginning to subside, and the muddy road soon led to a highway, again going to opposite directions as far as one could see. China frowned as she looked in both directions. “I’m getting tired of these twists popping up,” she mused. With her left hand, she popped a finger into her mouth for a moment. Holding it up, the wind seemed to come from behind her. There was no sun in the sky, yet no clouds of any sort either. In fact, the sky was now a pale and completely blank blue, leaving it impossible to see which direction was which. China picked the direction to her left, and after a moment took out the tiny watch again. About thirty minutes were left. “I sure hope this bubble shows up soon,” she noted. “I don’t want to walk this highway for a half and hour and need to come back tomorrow.”

As she walked along, spots appeared along the highway that looked somewhat like windows into another world. Most were round, almost like some sort of portal, but they came in many shapes and sizes. A few were impossibly small, allowing a view only if one put their eye up against it, while others were large enough to walk through. China was about to give up, after looking through several of the spots, when she stumbled across the one she was looking for. It was one of the larger ones, although to get through one would have to use a bit of acrobatics. China walked up and peered through the spot, nearly sticking her head inside the hole.

On her side, the trees along the highway had started to take on a dull, gray appearance. The grass itself had also lost some color, faded into the same gray as the trees. China took out the tiny watch and checked it again. “Ten minutes,” she said to herself, putting the watch away. A light breeze had begun to blow, and with it came the most horrible stench. It was only barely noticeable now, a sharpness to the breeze, but it was obvious that if the wind picked up, or whatever was making the smell got closer, that sharpness would become something else. China looked around in the bubble, which showed a scene of a basketball court. It was empty, although someone was pushing someone in a wheelchair in the general direction of it, a ball on their lap.

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” China thought out loud. A few birds on her side whistled, but the sound was nothing like a bird. It had a scraping, metallic whine to it, something like nails on a chalkboard, but much, much worse. “And none too soon,” she added, “it won’t be long before I’m kicked out.”

The two with the wheelchair weren’t the only ones coming out to the court. After a few moments, others started to show, and China waved her hand before the bubble, causing the image to suddenly seem to skip ahead. It looked just like the story she told Sara, and she held the hand up again just as Jabal arrived. The image froze into place, and China reached into her shirt pocket. Inside, was a small jack, the kind children used to play with circa 1974. She threw the tiny little toy into the bubble, straight at Jabal. It bounced off of him, appearing to have no effect, and sparkled into a shower of purple light when it hit the ground. The man in the wheelchair’s eyes seemed to follow the jack as it sailed through the air, and yet not, almost like some sort of twisted optical illusion.

“Two jacks are better than one,” China thought to herself, almost out loud. She reached in her pocket again, but this time it was empty. “Shit,” she mumbled, “maybe not my day.” She thought about coming back tomorrow, to bring another jack. Jabal was probably going to go her way after the first impact, but two would seal the deal.

“Time to go anyways,” she said out loud. The sky was beginning to sizzle, and reality itself seemed to beckon to the four walls around her. “I’ll go crazy if I stay here much longer,” she added, also out loud.

China turned away from the bubble, and strange noises seemed to creep into the air out of nowhere as she quickly walked back the direction she’d come from. The bubbles started to wink out of existence, making audible pops in some instances, notably the larger ones that collapsed quickly. In fact, the larger the bubble and the more sudden the collapse, the louder the sound. Two of the bubbles were almost a loud clap as they winked out, and one startled China as it went away almost right in front of her. Eventually she stopped walking, and quite suddenly without any discernable warning or reason, raised her hands into the air, the same way they were before her office transformed.

The world around her became extremely bright, reaching an almost pure white, the landscape invisible beyond the intensity of the light. It took only an instant, and was gone just as fast, leaving her back in the office. She wasn’t quite in the same position, or even the same place, but fairly close. Elsie was pounding on the door violently, yelling at China worried if she was okay.

“Chi! Chi! What’s going on in there?!” Elsie continued her pounding. “Open up or I’m calling 911!”

The door shook as Elsie pounded on it. China went over and opened the door, a stern look on her face. “What’s all this racket?” she asked her assistant. Elsie frowned at her, placing her hands on her hips. “Racket indeed!” Elsie huffed. “You’re telling me you have no idea what all that noise was coming from in here?” she asked China. China shrugged, and placed a hand on the now still doorknob.

Elsie tried to look around China, to see who or what might have made all the noise. As she did so, she started to realize that she really didn’t know what she was looking for. The memory of what sort of sound she heard was fading from her mind it seemed. After a few moments, Elsie no longer had any real idea what sounds she heard, only that they were loud.

“I know I heard something!” she shouted as she pushed past China, but the room was empty. She looked around furtively, trying to discover what she’d missed. The office didn’t explain the size of the laundromat with its space, and even counting the dryer crawlspaces, it seemed like some of the laundromat was hidden away somehow. Elsie was certain a secret passageway to a closet or storeroom existed, but never found any evidence of anything. China was mysterious in some ways, but Elsie doubted it was anything serious, probably something embarrassing or just plain clutter. She still wanted to know. Her eyes darted around the room, but found nothing.

“You have a way around this place I don’t know about yet,” Elsie said, “but I’ll figure it out.”

China shook her head and looked up, rolling her eyes at Elsie. “There’s no secret passageway or closet,” she stubbornly told Elsie. “You seem to think there’s a way into some part of the wall,” China went on, “but there just isn’t.” She pushed past Elsie, letting the key stay where it was for now. It wasn’t likely Elsie would say anything about it not being on the rack, and the office was rarely locked during the day. China decided she could put it back later. She went out into the customer area and looked around at the still fairly empty laundromat.

The bell on the door jingled as a tall blonde woman walked in. “Ah Vanessa,” China smiled at her, “you haven’t been in here in a while.” Elsie had come from the back with a disgruntled look on her face. She’d looked around the office a bit more, but found nothing except the tiny syringe, and was more than a little disappointed. “Yes,” Vanessa replied, “I was visiting my mother for a bit.” She motioned to the car outside. “Do you think you can handle about five loads for me?” she asked. The back of the car was full of laundry. “I can pick them up tomorrow, or the day after,” Vanessa continued, “since I have a few changes left still.”

China looked to Elsie, and then the car outside. “Absolutely,” she told Vanessa. “So tell me,” she went on, “how is your mother?” Elsie wanted to complain, but didn’t, knowing it wouldn’t work. While she gathered Vanessa’s laundry, she kept a close eye on China through the glass of the laundromat, almost making her drop a few socks onto the gravel and pavement. China continued to chat with Vanessa while Elsie finished bringing in all the clothes.

It took her two trips. “I suppose you want me to start these, Chi?” she asked.

China nodded, and Elsie proceeded to load machines with Vanessa’s laundry, sorting out the colors. Vanessa had quite a bit, and Elsie listened closely to the conversation, but it revealed nothing. Vanessa had simply come in after a long visit home, as she’d said, and again Elsie wondered if maybe there wasn’t anything in the missing space after all. She continued to fill the machines with soap, setting the time and temperature, and was about to forget about the whole thing when she noticed something odd.

One of the blouses wasn’t a blouse at all. It was instead, a basketball jersey. On the back was the number nine, and Vanessa’s last name, Stolton. What was peculiar, however, was the team logo. Vanessa was a part of the hospital’s intramural team a few years ago. The front of the logo featured a basketball along with a tiny syringe, and said “Lady Stingers.”