Eliot Fintushel - Izzy and the Father of Terror

"I won’t poke my eyes out, Nora."

"I’m not asking you to. Keep them open. Keep them wide open."

"I will… Hey!" The cafe was shaking and whipping like a flame in the wind. Izzy was beeping again. "Izzy, who’s doing an epoche?"

" I am, Melba," Izzy said. "There’s a number of things wrong here. I don’t like monarchies in North America, or Vietnamese troops either, not yet; also, this rest stop belongs in Texas, and Abu?which means you ?better haul ass back to the Magellanics right now, if I’m gonna have time to patch you permanent and still make coffee and Danish before the morning shift. Keep a tight ass now, Melly, but don’t bother to buckle up. Ten… nine… eight…"

"Take this, son!" Johnny threw me his guitar.

The relic background radiation spiked to three point eight, then dipped to three again, and we were gone.

Izzy’s epoche left Nora standing between the zucchinis and the cherry tomatoes behind the house Johnny Abilene had built her in upstate New York. Somehow, a year had passed, and her mouth was full of clothespins. She found herself hanging diapers to a yellow nylon line while she stared southwest at dusk’s rosy fingers. She was in the wrong hemisphere to see the Magellanic Clouds. But I could see her ?and Junior too, inside, in the wicker basket next to Nora’s bed: