Let's Do The Time Warp Again!!!

The following story is true. More or less.

Jay walked into work on Saturday morning like he always did. The sun was beaming through the front windows of the Bulk Barn, casting a pleasant banana-yellow glaze upon the off-white cash desks. Jay looked to the left and saw Josh putting an empty shopping cart back into the cart bay.

"Good morning," said Josh insincerely. He was never sincere. Greeting people was merely an unconscious habit.

"Morning Josh, how are ya?" Jay asked enthusiastically.

"Meh," uttered Josh. "I've had better days. Natasha got mad at me for showing up to work late this morning."

"Um."

"Geez!" Josh shouted angrily as he shuffled out of the cart bay. "It's not my fault my sixteen-year-old car picked this morning to die!"

The old car was dead. So it goes.

Josh recomposed himself and cleared his throat. "Sorry, about that, Jay. You're probably wondering what I want you to do today, eh?"

"Um, yeah."

"Thought so. Natasha said to make sure that you go through the snack shelf this morning. All pretzels and some corn nuts can go out, and most likely the 89's, 50's, 51's, and maybe the corn chips. Last shipment was a big one." Josh yawned. "When you're done that, hop on cash for a bit."

"Kay."

"You really don't waste any words, do you Jay?"

"Not today."

Jay scurried to the stockroom. He always walked quickly at work, in the belief that it made him appear busier and more motivated than he really was. As soon as he closed that door to the stockroom, Jay took a step to the right and picked up the big ladder. Jay was not very strong, and he felt like he was doing some sort of stupid jig as he awkwardly moved the heavy ladder over to the north end of the room. Too tired to unfold it and use it properly, he leaned it up against the snack shelf and began to climb. The ladder was banana-yellow.

Although the snack shelf was only about three metres above the cold, hard floor, one needed to climb almost to the top of the three-and-a-half metre tall ladder to comfortably move boxes. Five steps up the ladder, Jay felt the ladder jiggle. His forehead and brow became cool and moist out of fear. Jay swallowed, looked down, and saw that one of the ladder's rubber feet was sitting on the corner of a crushed brown jujube box. The ladder would surely slip if he climbed any further.

Jay took a deep breath and averted his focus to the step beneath him. He took one cautious step down toward the safety of the ground, and the ladder lurched to the right. Jay's hands and left foot lost contact with the ladder as it cut through the air. By the time the ladder's angle with the ground decreased to sixty degrees, Jay's right foot came off of the ladder. He was falling.

His mind was racing much faster than he was falling. He was preparing himself to land on his back. Preparing himself for physiotherapy and weekly chriropractic treatment. Preparing himself for the possibility of becoming paralyzed and wheelchair-bound for the rest of his life. Preparing himself to hit his head. Preparing himself to lose conscious. Preparing himself to receive a nasty concussion and possibly brain damage. Preparing himself for the possibility of meeting Jesus in a matter of minutes. Preparing himself to look his Lord in the face and witness him say, "So it goes."

Once his mind was prepped and ready after that half a second of worrying, Jay closed his eyes and braced himself for the imminent shock of smashing into the ground. He held his breath and hoped for the best.

He hit the floor, but it gave surprisingly little resistance. So little resistance that it felt like Jay was hitting water. Warm, tropical water. Jay's body hadn't been rendered immobile from falling on his back after all, because he actually was landing in water.

Jay's body went fully under the surface of the water for two seconds before he came up to look around him. He realized that he had just leapt from a boat and was currently treading in the Pacific Ocean off of Floreana Island in the Galapagos archipelago. He had been here before, about eleven months prior to falling off that banana-yellow ladder in the Bulk Barn stockroom. On this day, March 19, 2010, he recalled that he had just finished prepping his mind for getting gobbled up by some horriffic sea monster.

He stopped looking at his surroundings and started seeing his surroundings. There was a white Ecuadorian boat anchored about three metres in front of him. There were fifteen of his schoolmates all around him, wearing their bright yellow flippers and snorkels. They were all having a blast, learning how to breathe under the surface of the salty water. Jay had narrow feet, and was forced to wear a pair of funky snot-green flippers, and quite contrarily to the rest, he was having a dreadful time learning to breathe below the surface. You only live once. May as well make the best of it, Jay thought in regards to his commencing snorkeling experience.

Jay began to kick his flipper-clad feet. He couldn't see his legs, but he envisioned them looking somewhat like a pair of scissors with blades made wholly of floppy rubber. His head was above the surface (out of fear for his snorkel filling up with the briny Pacific water), so he took note of a boy who was swimming rather close to him. A little too close.

The boy accidentally kicked Jay with his yellow flipper. This caused the boy to lift his head. "Sorry, dude," he said to Jay insincerely. Instead of putting his face back in the water, the boy gave Jay a look that seemed to say something along the lines of "you look absolutely hilarious, with your rubber legs, detached snorkel, and slender snot-green flippers."

That was me. I was there. I was that boy.

Slightly intimidated, Jay put the 'J' of his snorkel into his mouth, slid his goggles over his sunburned eyes, and dunked his face in the water. Scared that his snorkel, mouth, and lungs would fill with sea water, he decided that breathing out would keep him safe. Just like blowing bubbles through a straw, he thought.

When Jay lifted his head up, his outside environment seemed darker. He was no longer wearing goggles. He was no longer wearing a snorkel. He was no longer wearing his ridiculous flippers. He was no longer surrounded by his peers. He was no longer in Darwin's world. He was in Water World.

It was no longer 2010. It was 2003. His instructor was congratulating him on finally putting his face underwater for the first time.

Just like those crazy transvestites from Rocky Horror, Jay had done the time warp again.