A man observes bizarre events in his neighborhood. As curiosity gets the better of him, he regrets ending up in a dimension with no apparent way out.
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Watching for Fitness
As his waistline approaches 40 inches, Andrew recognizes the need to pay more attention to his health. A motivating factor was an elderly man hunched over his walker, making his way around the block each morning. With better health in mind, Andrew purchases a fitness watch that keeps track of his steps, reminds him to take vitamins, and much more. His phone tracks steps, but the watch is far more accurate.
Each day, he becomes more fascinated by the features of his digital watch. When adding prescriptions, it checks for conflicts. It can provide handwashing alerts and queues when he should stand after sitting too long. He set it up to dial emergency contacts with a double clench of his fist followed by a double tap of his fingers.
Modest fitness goals include walking briskly around the neighborhood. First, it’s one block, then two. By the end of the first week, it’s four blocks. This exercise not only burns calories, it clears Andrew’s head, making him feel more creative and less stressed.
As a semi-retired mechanic, Andrew splits most of his time between tinkering in the garage and watching sports. He’s inherited a dilapidated 1953 Crestline Sunliner from his grandfather, who passed down only a few photos of the car in its prime. Restoring it feels like an overwhelming, perhaps even futile, task—Andrew doesn’t know if it’s worth the effort. The car is sentimental, but he’s unsure whether he can ever bring it back to its original glory
Alert Walking
On a sunny afternoon, Andrew follows the reminder to take his medications and begin his walk. Even though he lives in an upscale neighborhood, he is alert to his surroundings to avoid dogs, criminals, or tripping over a sidewalk crack.
Up ahead, about a home’s distance away, a pretty young woman wearing a miniskirt is maneuvering herself into the passenger seat of a late-model white sedan. He realizes the appropriate action is to avert his eyes. But the curiosity to see how she might modestly maneuver herself wins out.
The vehicle pulls away from the curb, and parks two houses further down. Oddly, a different woman exits the same door as the earlier woman with different clothing. By the time he catches up, she has disappeared between the buildings. Andrew shrugs it off, figuring that she may have changed clothes in the backseat.
The next day on a different block, another woman enters the car, which he assumes is a ride-share service. It, again, drives up a few houses before letting out someone else. It then makes a U-turn and a woman in cosplay enters before the car does the same thing across the street.
The suspicious activities are not a crime, so there is nothing to report to authorities. But this becomes an interesting development requiring more attention. He dictates the automobile make, model, and license plate with a recorder on his watch.
While working beneath his antique, Andrew runs the details through his head. It is always a provocatively dressed young woman entering. But a modestly dressed woman exits. Are they one and the same or are more people in the vehicle?
Catching Up to the Past
The next day, he can’t wait until 4 o’clock to find out more. So he begins a walk two hours earlier in search of the car that is not on the usual route. When his usual time comes, Andrew begins another walk and sees the car up ahead. At the risk of appearing like a carjacker, as the young lady makes her way into the front passenger seat, he hurries into the backseat.
When the door closes behind him, the watch records his heart racing in response to what’s in view. The interior of the early-model vehicle resembles one he is restoring in his garage. Even the driver is dressed from that era, as illumination from the windows dims.
She asks, “Where are you heading?”
“Let me out here!” Andrew responds to the surreal experience.
So the vehicle doesn’t appear to travel very far before he exits on the same block, decades earlier. Women with parasols are pushing baby buggies down the street, lined with very few automobiles. He makes his way through a neighborhood of homes, landscaped differently, back to where his address is, discovering a house occupied by other residents.
He looks for the date on his watch, but with no signal, the screen is black. His effort to peek into the garage raises the suspicion of the occupant.
“Is there something I can help you with, stranger?”
“Oh, I, uh. I was just, uh, looking around. I seem to have lost my bearings.”
“Okay. Maybe I can help you out. My name’s Jed. What’s yours?”
“Andrew. My name’s Andrew. You wouldn’t happen to have a calendar, would you?”
“I don’t reckon a calendar will help you find your way. Perhaps you need a map?”
“Oh, yes, Jed. One of those too, please.”
Jed invites Andrew into the garage, where a Crestline Sunliner sits as if on a showroom floor. In the passenger seat, Jed pulls a map from the glovebox along with a calendar. It appears that Andrew is within what will later become his own house, more than a half decade later.
“This sure is a nice car. Thanks for your help, Jed.”
“What’s that strapped to your wrist?”
“Oh, this is a wristwatch. But it isn’t working.”
“I never seen no timepiece like that. Can I drop you off somewhere?”
“No, I’ll be on my way.”
Before Andrew leaves the past, he takes one last look at the Sunliner, feeling a strange sense of belonging and a mysterious bond with Jed. Now he must find the vehicle that drove him back in time. It should still be nearby. So Andrew hurries around the corner and sees an early-model white car up ahead driving into the distance.
He shouts while waving his hands, running as fast as he can until it parks and the passenger door swings open. As a beautiful young lady steps out, he jumps inside. The driver asks, “Where do you want to go?”
His last response wasn’t specific enough. So this time he appends the calendar date when requesting to be let off here. This gets him back to where he needs to be. The watch on his wrist vibrates with awards for surpassing distance goals.
When he returns to the present, he’s left wondering if his journey was real or simply a vivid dream. However, when he arrives home to inspect his rundown Sunliner in the garage, he notices things he hadn’t seen before—small design details, a graceful line of the fender. It’s as if he’s seeing the car’s beauty for the first time, with fresh eyes and a renewed commitment to the restoration.
As Andrew opens the glove box to search for his tools, he finds something unexpected—a faded map and an old calendar, exactly like the ones Jed showed him in the past. These items confirm his experience wasn’t just a dream and suggest that Jed was, in fact, his great-grandfather, someone he’d never had the chance to meet.
This realization deepens Andrew’s connection to the car, transforming it from a difficult project into a cherished family legacy. With new motivation, Andrew commits fully to restoring the Crestline Sunliner, seeing it now as a tangible link to his family’s past.
In the future, Andrew walks a different route and doesn’t jump into backseats of strange vehicles. However, the experience gives him an idea. He begins an antique-car ride-share service that dispatches retro-dressed drivers via smartwatches. This lets others experience the same bond with the past that he now enjoys.
The End
This story was inspired by a walk through the neighborhood. Staying fit improves creativity.
Return twice weekly for miniseries. Any relation to actual persons or events is coincidental. Login provides the most immersive experience. About 1400 total words. Educational review questions are available for ClinicalNovellas Scholar members. Cinematic materials are available with ClinicalNovellas Cinematic membership.
