by Christy Shorey and you

ARCHIVE: NOV. 2 edited for spelling and grammar

5145 words

Dresden ran the last stretch to the high school where he worked. The final bell of the morning rang just as he skidded into the main door. Slowing to a brisk walk he headed towards his classroom, and nearly collided with the two people coming out of the administrative office. He offered a quick apology, and steered around them, hurrying to his classroom.

"I see there are still some students who don't know what the final bell means," said Superintendent Morgan with a chuckle.

"Actually that was a teacher," the principal corrected.

Dresden pulled open the door to his classroom with as much dignity as he could muster when he heard the superintendent's next question "What's with these shoes?"

He let the door slam shut behind him, startling a few students who were lying with their heads down on their desks, as well as himself. Calming his nerves, and trying to put on his most regal bearing, he crossed the room to his desk, ignoring the snickers that came from his students. Luckily first period was freshmen, and they weren't brave enough to make fun of him to his face. The real ordeal would be third period, seniors. They already found reason to mock him for his prematurely gray hair - he was still in his twenties, but his hair was nearly white. The first year of teaching he made the mistake of trying to explain this to his students. That had only lead to worse teasing, from all grades, and from several of the parents.

Since then he had simply ignored questions regarding his appearance - there was simply too much fodder for them if he tried to explain. Instead he stuck by his phrase "Well, let's get back to work, shall we?"

He said that now, and a few of the students groaned. The current unit was on Shakespeare, and no one really liked that unit. It was hard to teach, harder to learn. Dresden had asked if he could change the curriculum to incorporate more innovative teaching methods into the classroom, thinking that acting out some of the scenes from the work would garner more interest than just assigning readings and discussing them, or worse, writing tedious essays on the various acts of the play. But his idea was very sternly shot down. All teachers had to present the material in the same way - that was how standardized teaching worked, and it was how the school ensured to parents that each student was getting an identically superior education that would enable them to get into college.

Dresden started to step out from behind his desk to stand in his usual place in front of the chalkboard, but when he heard the first snicker, thought better of it. "Angela, can you tell us which act we are on?"

A petite brunette in the back of the class picked her head up off the desk and glared at him. "How the hell should I know?"

"Angela....?" Dresden said, trying to put an impatient tone to the word.

"Oh right, sorry," the teen said with a roll of her eyes. "I know not the answer which thou doest seek," she intoned, and put her head back down on the desk.

Dresden gave a nod. "Good, thank you Angela. Does't anyone else know the answer I doth seek?"

There was a lot of grumbling, and several students shook their heads. Near the door a group of three girls were giggling, then had a whispered game of rock, paper, scissors. The girl with long blonde hair one, and tossing her hair over her shoulder and ignoring her friends' disappointment, turned to face Dresden, her hand raised confidently in the air.

"Yes Kristen?"

"Thou doth believe we art on act the third, scene the first, where in Viola doth arrive as Cesario to deliver the amorous message of Count Orsino"

Dresden looked down at his planner, and nodded. "Thou are most correct in that, I thank thee Kristen."

Kristen and her two friends broke into another fit of giggles at that, and Dresden pointedly did not look their direction again. Pushing up his sleeves he turned to the class. "Please use the rest of the period to finish your essays about Viola as Cesario, and hand them in when you are done."

A few students got up and handed in finished essays, having completed them as homework, but most grumbled and opened their notebooks to blank or half-filled pages and sat down to write. Dresden looked at those who had finished the work already, and waved them back up to his desk. "Thank you for your hard work, you all may play a game from the cabinet, if you'd like." One boy rolled his eyes, and a pair of girls shrugged, the three of them then returned to their seats. The other studious boy, Trevor, stayed, his shadow remaining over the papers that had been submitted. Dresden looked up at him.

"When you offer us games like that, it makes us feel like we're in elementary school, not high school. And your shoes don't help. Just thought you should know."

"Thank you Trevor."

Trevor nodded, and went back to his seat. He pulled out a fantasy book and was soon lost in it. Dresden watched the minutes tick by, waiting for the time until the bell. He didn't have a second period class, and maybe, if he was lucky, the gym teacher would have an extra pair of shoes he could borrow for the rest of the day.

****

Logan picked up copies of the papers at the newsstand. He knew that the newsstand clerk liked him, every day he said "You're my best customer, you know?" as he rang up the purchase. Logan tucked the five papers into his brief case, and picked up the package of peanut butter cookies he'd added to his tally today. It was the closest thing that resembled breakfast on the rag-tag cart which stocked mostly candy and chips in addition to the titles of magazines and papers that still were released in print.

"I don't mean to be negative," the newsstand clerk said, like he did every day, "But I hope you don't find what you're looking for." He gave a little chuckle and waved as Logan walked away.

Ever since he was young, Logan had the persistent nagging feeling that all the answers he sought could be found - that there was someone, somewhere in the world that would be able to understand why he had such vivid flashes of past lives, tell him why he felt so out of place in the world, and explain why sometimes his eyes looked red.

When he had tried to explain to his parents this sense of something missing - something that he had to find, they shook their heads at him, shook his shoulders and said "Logan, you must not talk nonsense. You are a normal boy, like everyone else."

They told him the same thing when he tried to explain the sensation of past childhood lives, the games he'd played as other children. They told him he had an overactive imagination, and they told that to anyone who would listen. "Oh Logan, he's a normal kid, but his imagination tends to run away with him, I wouldn't listen to a thing he says, if I were you." So all the adults in his life, his teachers, his friend's parents, and even his friends, laughed when he spoke about things he couldn't possibly know - about how drinks were made in the eighteen hundreds, or how medicine had evolved.

The truth was his parents were afraid of him. When no one else was around, they sent him to his room, or if he wouldn't go, they left the room he was in. They only had the bare minimum contact with their son. He'd finally gotten the story out of a babysitter he had tracked down years later in his search to find just *what* was missing.

The baby sitter was wary of him, and hung up the phone the first time. She started screening her calls, and finally, because he was persistent, agreed to speak with him, only once, as long as he promised to never call again. She was scared of him too, she had been there the day of Logan's first words, the day that his parents learned their son was not just a normal boy.

He was three months old, and Kelly heard a strange noise on the baby monitor. She had gone in to his room, and he was there, chatting away to the mobile which spun above his head. She panicked, and called his parents home from the movie they had gone to. By the time they had gotten home he had switched from French, which Kelly had recognized from her classes, to English. He was talking about a man who had wronged him, and would surely get what was coming to him.

Needless to say, his early venture into speaking caused the fear that Logan later recognized in his parents. He realized that his young vocal cords were merely replaying a conversation from a previous life, but it was enough to scare his parents. He called them once after talking to Kelly, and apologized for his childhood, and promised to never call them again. They hadn't answered the phone, but had gotten the message. His belongings had been shipped to him, and he found out from neighbors that they had seemed rather relieved when their house sold and they left, though no one seemed to know where they went.

Logan got to the gourmet coffee shop, and bought the premium blend, with real cream. Sitting down at the window bar, he pulled out the first paper. His eyes darted over the headlines, looking for something, anything, that might give a clue as to what he sought. He always bought one local paper just to remind himself when and where he was at the end of the day, but now he scanned the national papers. He would find the international news online, or at the library, though he only scanned that once a week - there was only so much time in a day, and he felt, somehow, that what he sought was closer than that.

He looked down at the paper, and saw a pair of old-fashioned scissors which weren't actually there, surrounded by clippings of other, older papers with fancy script. Black and white photos were also spread around, and he knew he had been searching for a very long time. Some how, though, something told him he was getting close. He was excited by this feeling he'd soon be getting answers, but he also didn't trust it. From what he'd seen from his past lives, it wasn't the first time he was close to an answer. But he could never remember what happened after he had found an answer when he was who he was before.

Shaking his head, coming back to the present, he sipped at his coffee, only to find it had gone cold. He bought another one, and forced his mind back to quell the past. He opened a new page, and was suddenly bumped from behind. The coffee he had just bought was warm, and dripping over the spread of the paper he just opened, soaking down through all the pages of the paper. He stood up quickly, as the girl who had hit him was starting to apologize, and tried to get the hot liquid off his legs. In his flailing he managed to hit the girl who was still apologizing, and knocked the coffee out of her hands. It fell in slow motion, and bounced onto his still-open brief case, soaking through the satin-finished lining, and all the other papers he had bought.

The girl gave a shriek, and apologized again. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean" she flushed, and ran off before Logan could say anything. He quickly got the sopped papers from his briefcase and dumped them in the trash. Grabbing some of the flimsy paper napkins, he tried to blot his briefcase, hoping there was no permanent damage to the lining or the leather. He had just bought it recently, and was, in fact, the reason he'd had to cut his papers down to five. With a sigh he decided it would be wise to spend a day in the library, abandoning his search for the mystery that seemed right at his door, and looking for some sort of employment instead.

*****

Lacey pushed open the back door the tattoo parlor where she worked, ignoring the new crude message that had materialized in spray-paint over the night. Hanging her purse over the third hook in, she retrieved her apron from the fourth hook, slipping the strap over her head, and tying it in place.

Rocky tipped his chair back far enough that he could see who had come in. "Oh, hey honey, glad you're here. You've got one of your regulars back asking for you, wanted a bit more on a full back piece."

"Who is it?" Lacey asked, pulling a pad of paper from the pocket of her apron.

"Not sure, some girl, April or May or something like that?"

"January?" Lacey asked, and Rocky nodded.

"Yeah, that's it.   She brought you coffee, too. Don't know what she was thinking, wouldn't you want your artist to have a steady hand? Doesn't seem like a very practical gift to me. Plus, it looked like she was wearing another cup already. I had to give her some paper towels, she was still dripping when she came in."

Lacey scrunched her nose. She didn't like coffee, the taste was too bitter for her, even with four helpings of sugar, the most anyone had allowed her to try. She wasn't about to buy a coffee machine to make her own and experiment with sugar levels. What if she hated it, that would be good money down the drain, and the only good money she had seen was the off-book tips she got from some of her clients, and those were few and far between.

"Is she in a room yet?" Lacey asked.

"Nope, still in the bathroom, I think. I told her to go back to the front when she was cleaned up, that you don't come in 'til nine."

"Thanks Rocky."

Lacey pulled January's file, and pulled the Polaroid of the art as it stood on her last visit. Each time this girl had come in, she had wanted another small segment added to the work. A college student, January didn't have a steady income, so Lacey normally saw her around the time that financial aid paid out, or she had managed to worm some more money from her unsuspecting parents.

Looking at what was already in the piece, Lacey started to sketch out an idea for what she would do today. As much as she complained that January only did small pieces at a time, and seemed too chatty on most days, she had given Lacey freedom to make the full back image pretty much from her own creation. When January had first set foot inside the tattoo shop, she had a vague notion of wanting a moonlit scene on her back. She was so impressed with Lacey's initial drawing, a gibbous moon with some clouds drifting over it, that she had handed the reins over to Lacey entirely.

Lacey looked at the dark figure she had sketched, then looked at the calendar. Realizing it was the middle of the term, she sketched a smaller figure of a wolf, figuring that January might not have the funds for a human at this time.

She added some color lines on the side, reference for the ink she would use in each sketch, and headed out to the front. January was there, pacing as she always did, as if she didn't have other ink already, and was a nervous first-timer.

"Oh, Lacey, I brought you a coffee, two sugars and cream the way you like it."

Lacey took the cup, took a sip and smiled at her customer. "You remembered."

"Of course, you are only the most awesome artist I know, I couldn't forget." January flashed a smile. "Of course, I had trouble with the first cup, so I had to go get a second, but not a the same shop, because I totally spilled it all over this really hot business guy at the first place, so I'm sorry if the blend is different."

"It's no problem, why don't we head back. I think room 3 is open, and I can show you my sketches, unless you had an idea of what you wanted?"

January shook her head. "Nope, my life, well, my back, is in your capable hands."

Lacey got January settled in, and handed her the two sketches. "I put the prices there on the bottom. The man isn't too many colors, like the wolf is, but he's bigger. The wolf has more detail work and more colors, though."

January looked between the sketches, one held in either hand. For several moments she was quiet, looking at the sketch of the man, a dark from with glowing red eyes. She shook away whatever thought had trapped her, and with one last wistful look at the image of the man, she handed back the image of the wolf. "We'd better do this one, I only told my parents that I needed cash for a couple more books the profs sprung on us late in the term."

Lacey nodded, and started setting up the inks and needles she'd need for the job. When she turned back she found January still looking at the image of the dark man. Finally she had to clear her throat to get her customer's attention.

"Sorry, he's just so ... compelling. I totally love this image. I promise I'll have enough for him next time, so please hold on to the sketch for me?"

Lacey took the picture, and nodded. "Sure. I'll add it to your file."

"Thanks."

"I'll be back in a minute. I was going to put the wolf near that rock we did last time, I thought I'd add a little bit of hill for him to stand on, free of charge?"

"Sounds good."

"Well then, you know the drill, I'll be back in a minute."

Lacey left to allow January time to remove her shirt and unhook her bra and then get settled in the chair. When she knocked a minute later, January let her know it was safe, and Lacey went in, and went to work on the piece.

As the needle puncture skin for the first time January let out a little "Oh" in surprise, and then started talking. Chatting made her less nervous about the process, so Lacey dealt with it. She was halfway done with the wolf, and about to set in to do the details of the fur when January started with the normal barrage of questions, meaning she had run out of things to say about her classes and roommates.

"So, how's your girlfriend doing? Erin, right? Are you two still together?"

Lacey said "Yes, we are, though we had a pretty bad fight a few weeks ago. She wanted to get a puppy and I wanted a cat."

"Oh no, that's terrible. What happened?"

"Well, there was some throwing of some items, and some shoes, and finally I told her the whole fight was stupid because I'm allergic to both, anyway. She looked at me and said "why didn't you say so?" and I told her it was because I liked it when she got mad, because then we could make up."

"Did you?"

"Of course we did. Making up is great fun."

"I'd bet. So did you end up with any pet out of the deal?"

"Yep, actually. We got a beta fish, you know, the Siamese fighting fish, whose fins look kind of like bird wings when they're all spread out."

"Oh, I love those fish. I used to have one, but it only lived about three weeks, so I got another one, and it only lived two days, so I gave up. I figure my destiny wasn't to be a fish owner."

"Seems like. Almost done, just got to add some highlights to make the fur stand out, and the hill, how you holding up?"

"Good, thanks. I always think it's going to hurt more than it does, you know?"

"Um-huh." Lacey said.

"But then it's not so bad."

There was a pause, and then, "Lacey, you know what? You know that business man I spilled coffee on?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, your picture, the other one, reminds me of him somehow. It's really weird. I wonder if maybe you've met him and used him as a model."

"Not that I know of. Erin looks at me funny when I tell her I've met any strange man." Lacey picked up the needle just in time for the laugh she elicited from January.

"Right, I can see that. Still, I might try to see if I can find him again, get a picture on my phone and show you what I mean."

"Okay, that might be fun," Lacey said.

She managed to finish the tattoo with minimal conversation, and accepted January's wad of cash with a smile. If she hadn't left a generous tip, the college student would have just had enough to cover the cost of the other image. As January left the store, Lacey called out. "See you next time. And don't forget that picture."

The door closed, and Lacey put the profit from the job into the register, and pocketed the tip. Settling down in a seat behind the register, she waited for another customer.

****

Margot walked into the office of the University English department. The student assistant behind the desk looked up from his lunch. Margot cocked her head to the side in confusion, and the young man put down the chopsticks, dusted his hands and offered one to her.

"Welcome, would you like some sushi? One of the profs just got tenure, and he's treated everyone to a nice sushi lunch."

"At 10 in the morning?"

"Would have been earlier, but he just got word at 9:30 that he got tenure."

Margot heard laughing from the other room and presumed the rest of the department was in there enjoying the sushi "lunch" while the student was left to man the desk. She looked at the plate he was now offering her. "What is it?"

"Not sure what's in it, but they told me it was a dragon roll. Actually it's my first time having sushi, but it's pretty good."

"No thanks," Margot said, and reached into her bag. "Actually, I'm here to drop off a resume for a job? I saw it posted on the online job listings, secretary for a professor Thomas? If he's in, I figured I could give it to him directly, instead of sending it by mail."

The boy gave a small laugh. "Actually, he's the one who just got tenure. I'm not sure he's really thinking about the vacancy right now."

"Ah, I see. Thank you."

"I can certainly give him the resume, though."

"Okay. Can I ask you, how is it, working for this department? Are the people nice? Good atmosphere and all that?"

The boy shrugged, and dropped another piece of sushi in his mouth, chewing it while he thought. Speaking around the food he said, "'s okay. Some days it's kind of slow, tedious, really, but that's more from a student worker perspective," he said pointing to himself with the chopsticks.

"Secretary positions, now those have more work, though not necessarily more interesting, I'd say. But the people are really nice, unless you get a student upset about a grade or something, then the profs don't want to talk to them and leave them to lowly staff to handle, but other than that it's good."

Margot nodded, saying "Thank you. Please make sure professor Thomas gets my resume, and tell him I stopped by?" even as she already was dismissing the job from her prospects.

"Sure, though I hope you don't get the job." The boy said with a casual air.

Margot blinked and looked at him. "Why?"

"Because they got a policy against inter-office dating," he said with a grin.

Margot managed a pretty blush, and excused herself quickly from the university. That hadn't gone quite as she had planned. Heading over to the main HR office for campus, she figured she should be able to find another opening on campus where she could go and drop off her resume and polish her pre-interview conversation before heading over to the doctor's office where she really hoped to land a job.

****

Third period was bad, really bad. Dresden had meant to stay behind his desk the entire period, to not let the seniors see his embarrassing dog shoes. But then the principal had shown up with a new student, Kyle, a transfer from a private school. Dresden was so thrown off by this turn of events; he rushed over to hold the door for the principal, to invite Kyle into his class. Dutifully the class burst into laughter. Dresden looked around, afraid his students were laughing at the new student, that it signaled some upcoming trouble for the transfer, but quickly realized the laughter was directed at him.

Worse, the principal was also snickering.

"What are they supposed to be," asked one of the football players. "Scooby doo or somethin'?"

"Wouldn't those be brown, and not white?" asked another student/

"I dunno, but those shoes couldn't possibly be more gay than if they were purple slippers, right boys?" said one particularly uneducated woman, given her track record in Dresden's class.

"No children, calm down. I'm sure your teacher has a perfectly rational explanation for his shoes. Right?"

Dresden felt his heart drop into his stomach in panic, and was trying to come up with a good answer. Fortunately he was saved by Candice, who was perpetually late to class. She came running into class with a speed that would make the track coach proud, already apologizing to Dresden as she bounded thorough the door. Unfortunately she didn't see the principal and new student until it was almost too late. Trying to correct her course, she bounced off the doorframe with an "oof," propelled into Dresden, who tried to catch her, but she managed to step on one of the ears trailing off his shoes, and her foot slipped sending her backwards.

There was a loud "Crack" as her head hit the desk, and she sat smartly down on the floor with a bump. "Sorry I'm late," she whimpered, then blacked out.

All the students were up from their seats in an instant, trying to see Candice, and Dresden felt bad, but was relieved that the attention was off of his shoes. Until that same uneducated girl pointed at him and said "It's your fault, teach. She slipped on your damn gay shoes. Better hope she doesn't sue."

The principal yelled for quiet above the din. "No one is suing anyone," the principal said with what was meant to be a pointed look at Dresden. The effect was greatly diminished by a sudden wince from the principal, who suddenly moved his hand over his eye. "Son of a - all right, who shot that rubber band?" the principal yelled, trying his best to glare at the students. The effect was lost due to his hand being clutched over his other eye.

Dresden managed to tug on the principal's shoulder, his stomach already feeling queasy. The principal whirled, directing his anger at Dresden "Don't think you get off that easy."

"Urm, no, it's just your eye. It's bleeding," Dresden managed before passing out in a dead faint.

****

Logan walked into the dry cleaners, his silk shirt and pants in one hand, his still-dripping brief case in the other. The proprietor looked up at him, and raised an eyebrow. "This is new, usually don't get your pants. And is that a new look for you, sir?" she said, indicating the shorts Logan had bought at a shop on the way over.

"I had an incident at the coffee shop," Logan said, handing over the clothes. "And newspapers," he added when Tracy unfolded the pants to reveal both coffee and runny ink on them. "It was easier to just come straight here."

"So I see. Do you want me to have Larry take a look at the briefcase?" she said.

"Please." She nodded, and called back to her husband about the case, and called her son out to mop up the puddle of coffee which was forming on the floor.

While Larry looked at the damage on the back, to determine if he could salvage it, Tracy set to work on the pants. "I should be able to get this out, it's good you came right here," she said, but anything after that was lost as the scent of the cleaner she added to the water brought back another flashback to another time.

Logan's hands were submerged in water, back stinging from a lash used when he wasn't working fast enough. There was some singing, mournful, low. Not a happy sound, but a broken one. The chemicals in the water burned his skin, leaving his flesh spotty. He was in a good mood though. He had finally found out why he was repeating life. He had found the source. All he needed was to wait until night, and he'd be free to get that last bit of information, the name of the man who had done this to him, and he would be free from the cycle, he knew it.

The cold of the linoleum floor on his cheek and Tracy screaming for Larry to call an ambulance greeted him when he regained the present. He tried to sit up, but found that Tracy was quite strong, "You just lie there for a bit, sir. Larry's called 911 for you."

Logan blinked, tried to shake his head, but winced at the pain it caused. "What happened?"

"Not rightly sure, sir, you had some sort of episode. Epileptic?" she asked, and Logan said "no."

"Maybe some sugar imbalance, diabetes or something? Anyway, you bumped your head on the way down, and, oh," she said, then was yelling back at her husband. "Tell them to hurry. Might be his brain is bleeding, is eyes have turned red."

She turned a comforting look to Logan, that he only barely saw as he slipped back into the darkness of a lost memory.