C4 antho - Chamber Four

~54~ The Chamber Four Fiction Anthology
rior’s skin, provide a very sound model for this
construction, although past travelers have
tested other methods, from weaving electrical
wiring to welding car parts (the success of these
methods remains unknown).
He slipped his steel sweater over his clothes, dousing himself
in water to find the leaks and openings where it seeped
through to his skin. I rubbed Neosporin into the bloodied
epaulets the steel wool etched into his shoulders as he stood
in front of the mirror, locking his eyes on my moving hands.
7. Do not be discouraged. Portal access is quite
difficult, especially in areas with a high concentration
of housing developments and power
lines. Rainfall has an unexplained cleansing effect
on power sources and often provides the
best opportunity for transcendence. As studied
travelers must know, a past period cannot be
specified; the convergence of time and space
differs at each vein. The essence of travel itself
is embodied submission to the unknown and
the inevitable.
He was fidgety and distracted with the summer storms. I
came home after work and folded my jacket carefully on the
back of the couch; the iron coat hanger had vanished. I
placed my keys on a clean kitchen table, the scattered papers
gone and dirty coffee cups on the drying rack. Even my
desk chair was gone. I wandered from room to room, drinking
in his absence.