Friday Romance: Dating In The Teleportation Age (Romance/Sci-Fi) (Parts 1-5)
After slipping on his socks that were draped over the couch, and pushing his feet into his shoes by the door, he disappeared.
James was running late for work. His dog followed his every step, from one side of his studio apartment to the other, as he got dressed. After slipping on his socks that were draped over the couch, and pushing his feet into his shoes by the door, he disappeared.
James was sitting in his office chair by the time his manager did the morning rounds.
“Good morning, Mr. Carver,” said his manager, a tall middle-aged man who often dressed in suits that were two sizes too big.
“Morning, Sir,” replied James, the sweat still cooling on his brow.
“You forgot your tie.”
“Sorry, Sir. I’ll be right back.”
James appeared in his apartment and searched for the tie he’d worn the day before. He heard a whimper and looked down to see his dog at his feet, with the tie on the floor covered in slobber.
“Thanks, pal,” said James, rubbing his dog’s head. He put on the tie and then reappeared in his office chair.
“Much better,” said his manager.
As the day droned on James scrolled through his phone, went home several times for bathroom breaks, and visited his favorite coffee shop whenever he found his cup empty. He was aware of the surveillance around his workstation, and kept within the allotted ten teleports per business day.
With the final hour taking its time on the clock, he clicked through various job offers in the area. Since the teleportation chip had become mandatory, being implanted into the neck at birth, most jobs of old had gone to the wayside. James enjoyed visiting his grandparents and hearing stories of their lives, back when people drove cars through the countryside and soared above the clouds in planes. With everything being instantaneous, things were more convenient, but James felt those conveniences came at the cost of relishing all the beauty the world had to offer. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy his current job, since replying to emails and relaying the information to the delivery team wasn’t all too difficult, or helping customers with returns over the phone, but he wondered what the world was like outside of his bubble. He wanted a job like the ones he heard about in his grandparent’s stories.
His grandfather had been a truck driver and spent his working hours on the open road, and his grandmother one of the founding members of Tidy Delivery, the company James worked for which eventually was changed to Tele-Delivery, where she regularly attended meetings that required her to take a plane to the other side of the country. Through their stories, he heard about every facet of the world before teleportation was discovered. All the jobs he clicked through were multi-layered, something he managed to avoid with his position. Many companies liked using teleportation to put someone in charge of various tasks, something he heard about in great detail every time his parents would come home during his childhood.
His mother had been a teacher in charge of four different classes, each in their own rooms, and each at the same time. His father, forced to retire early after accidentally teleporting outside of his new office and falling three stories, an accident which resulted in the ‘Familiarity Act’ which required people to be familiar with where they were going, either by visuals or physical presence before teleporting for the first time to said location, had worked at Tele-Delivery all his life, climbing the ladder from delivery tech to manager in his forty year career.
“Jimmy!” James closed his eyes and let out a heavy sigh as the nickname lingered in his ear. The only person in the office who insisted on calling him that was Dave, or ‘Davey’ as he preferred to be called.
“Hey, Dave,” said James.
“We’re going for drinks. You want to come?”
“I’d better not. Last time it got a little out of hand.”
“You’ll be fine.”
James rolled his eyes. “Where to?”
Seconds later James found himself in Las Vegas, which was on the other side of the country from where he lived. He followed along with Dave and a few others from the office as they teleported from one casino to the next. Places such as casinos, banks, and stores would still use doors. The buildings were also outfitted with force fields, which served to prevent people from teleporting in an out at will, thus requiring people to use the doors at the main entrances and be ID’ed on their way in by security guards. Homes and businesses required your individual chip being granted access to the location, something the home or business owner was then able to update at their own discretion to allow family members or new employees.
By the time they left the fourth casino, James was feeling more than ready to leave, but teleporting after a few drinks wasn’t an easy task.
“We should get a room for the night,” said Dave. “Who else is in?”
“I need to let my dog out,” said James.
James tried teleporting but when he looked up, he found he had only made it a few feet away from his co-workers.
“Guess I can ask my parents to let him out,” said James, pulling out his phone.
The next morning James teleported home and got ready for work. Making sure to give his dog lots of attention as he went about his routine.
“Apologies, Faber,” said James. “It was a last minute thing. I know I told you we’d watch a movie.” He filled his dog’s bowl up using a heaping scoop of dry food. “Tonight. I promise.”
When James appeared at work his manager was looking down on him, with arms folded in a mess of cloth, and a stern grimace that forced his brows down towards in nose in a manner so ridiculous it was almost enough to distract from the gleam of light shining off his baldhead.
“I’m going to have to deduct an hour from today’s pay,” said the glowing orb.
“Apologies, Sir. It won’t happen again.”
“I’d hope not. Just because your family has a history with this company doesn’t mean you get to slack off.”
James turned around in his chair and glanced at the time on his computer. He was two minutes late.
As time droned on James answered calls, checked his phone, visited Faber, got coffee, and disappeared before giving Dave the chance to visit him at the end of the workday. At home, he tossed his phone onto the ottoman and collapsed on the couch. He looked up when he felt his fingers being licked.
“Movie night,” said James. “I know.”
He sat with his dog at his side as the screen flickered before him, one hand scratching the canine’s belly and the other scrolling through his phone. Dating had become a fleeting experience, at least according to his grandparent’s, but the process of matching with someone on an app and meeting them moments later was all James had ever known. Nights he dedicated to dating, he’d usually meet three or four matches within the hour, and more often than not appear in his apartment alone at the end of the endeavor. He found a few matches throughout the movie, but refused to meet up with any of them in the moment.
The next night James met with each match, first at a bar where he ordered a seltzer, then to a coffee shop, a park, pier at the beach, then back home again, alone. With each match, whether sitting and sipping a drink, or strolling and looking at the scenery, he noticed the woman across from him, or too his side, looking behind him, almost through him. He was but a fleeting encounter and he knew it. The second he was gone someone would take his place.
Late to work. Eight hours finding his way into the crevasse of a paycheck. Gone before Dave could stop by. The monotony was relentless in its grip on the world James had created for himself. He loved the stories of road trips and vacations from both his parents and grandparents. The trips became mandatory by the time his parents were reaching their teenage years, giving them both enough time to fathom the world as an endless adventure. He sought refuge in their stories as he fell back on the couch and closed his eyes. He opened his eyes at the sound of Faber’s whimpers for attention.
“I’ll get you some treats,” said James. “Then I need to head out for a moment. I’ll be quick about it.” He checked the cabinets for his dog’s treats, rolling his eyes, as each one was barren aside from a can of chili or a package of noodles. “Here.” He opened the refrigerator and pulled out his dinner from the night before. “You like steak right? There’s a little left from this salad. Don’t worry, I know you don’t care for anything green.”
After he placed the plate on the floor he sighed and teleported. He kept his hands stuffed into his pockets as he walked along the trails of the cliff-side. It was a place he’d visited with his parents as a kid, somewhere they’d go every so often to watch the sunset. It was their own little piece of the world. It’d been a couple years since he’d stopped by to watch the world fall asleep, but as life churned out day after day of the same he found himself yearning for the place where he had his first adventure. As he walked to his usual perch, he noticed someone was already there and hung his head low as he readied himself to vanish.
“Hello?” The voice caught his attention. He looked up to see the person at the edge of the cliff-side looking over at him.
“Uh, hi,” he replied. “Sorry, I didn’t realize someone was already here. I can go.”
“It’s okay. I didn’t think anyone else knew about this spot.”
James walked over, his hands still in his pockets, his head still down.
“I used to come here,” he said, “but it’s been a while. This used to be my special spot.”
“Well, it can still be yours I suppose. I’m Elissa, by the way.” He watched her get to her feet before removing his right hand from his pocket.
“James. How long have you been coming here?”
“About a year now. The Adirondacks are quite beautiful. You know if you sit right here you can see the most wonderful — ”
“Sunset. I know. That’s why I love it here too.” He smiled as he looked up at her. “Mind if I join you? I’ve had a rough week and can really use this.”
“It was your secret spot before mine,” she said, matching his smirk, “I’ll join you.”
Pink and yellow slivers cut through the sky as the sun turned a golden orange and sank into the earth beyond the mountains. James wiped a tear from his eye, and then got to his feet.
“I should be going,” he said. “Work tomorrow.”
“What do you do for work?”
“Customer service at Tele-Delivery.”
“Do you like your job?” she asked, getting to her feet.
“Not at all. I like having a roof over my head, though. So, I guess I don’t have much of a choice. What about you?”
“I’m an artist. Sometimes.”
“Sometimes?”
“If the government didn’t threaten to turn off our chips if we didn’t go to college or work full-time jobs after eighteen I’d probably never work another day in my life. I’d only create, which for me isn’t work, it’s love. My day job,” she turned and looked back to where the sun once was, the freckles on the side of her face visible in the moonlight, “is staring at a screen and watching my life tick away in the right-hand corner.”
“Do you work in the cubicle right beside me? Because that’s sound awfully familiar.”
She turned and cracked a smile before breaking into a fit of laughter.
“Same time tomorrow?” she asked.
“I’d like that.”
Time at work seemed to move faster, or perhaps James was no longer paying attention. He had something to look forward to for the first time in months, maybe years. He couldn’t remember how many hours his boss had docked from his day after being almost four minutes late, but he didn’t care.
“Jimmy! We’re going to hit up the bars again tonight. You in?”
“I’ve got plans.”
“Just come along for one drink.”
James stared at the time in the corner of his screen.
“Jimmy? What do you say, man?”
Five. James looked over to Dave and shrugged. He teleported to outside the grocery store and grabbed a cart. After finding half of the items on his list and thanking the cashier, he picked his bags up from the cart and appeared in his kitchen.
His dog came running over and James pulled out a new bag of treats.
“I’ll give you two tonight if you promise to be good. I have to go again; I kind of met someone last night. Well, not kind of, I did meet someone. Maybe you’ll meet her someday.”
Faber looked up, his head cocked to the side and his eyes locked on the bag of treats.
“Here.”
When eight-thirty rolled around James appeared at the cliff-side, with a blanket under his arm and a small cooler in his hand. He found the spot from the night before, but didn’t see Elissa. He set up the blanket and opened the cooler, where he submerged his hand into the ice and pulled out a can of soda.
“What’s all this?”
James turned to see Elissa walking towards him.
“Figured I’d make things a little nicer,” said James. “Hope you don’t mind.”
“I like it. And,” her eyes grew wide, “is that Grapefruit Blast? I didn’t think anyone else in the world liked that stuff. I always buy more than I need just to make sure they stay in business.”
James handed her a can. “Well now you can cross a case or two off your list because I buy this stuff every week.”
As the sun began to sink, James tilted his head onto Elissa’s as she rested on his shoulder.
“My day wasn’t so bad today,” she said, followed by a deep yawn. “It went by so fast. All I could think about was this sunset.”
“Just the sunset?”
She removed her head from his shoulder and looked over to him. A grin curled up her cheeks.
James looked to Faber for moral support as he passed his phone back and forth from one hand to the other. He looked down at the message from Elissa, “When should I teleport over? Have you given me access yet?”
“Is it too soon?” said James to his dog. “I mean, it’s been a week. Is it too late? It can’t be, right? She wants to come over. Is my place clean? Are you clean? When was your last bath? Do I need a shower?” He teleported around his small apartment, grabbing any piece of clothing on the floor, and making sure all the paintings on the walls weren’t crooked. He took out his phone and clicked on her contact. “I’m giving her access, pal. I hope you like her.” He texted her to teleport over at their usual time of eight-thirty, and that they could watch a movie instead of the sunset.
At eight-thirty, she appeared in his apartment, dressed just as she would if they’d met up at the cliff-side, with her baggy hoodie and loose fitting sweatpants.
“I like it,” she said. “It feels very, you.” He watched as she cocked her head from side to side while looking at the various paintings on the wall. “I hope your fridge is stocked with Grapefruit Blast.”
“Of course it is. What kind of movie night would it be without it?”
“Hello, Faber,” she said, rubbing his dog’s head. “I’ve heard a lot about you. Now,” she turned to James, “about that movie…”
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Abigail Bloom's life is thrown into a sweeping romance when a new deputy rolls into the small town of Brooks Landing, but when her ex-husband enters back into her life, she's unsure if she can hold onto her new chance at true love. A break-in in the small town causes Abigail's ex to suspect the new deputy - Can she trust her new love interest or is he using her as an alibi?
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