All's Well That Ends Well

Trudy Baden stooped into the drizzly wind as she trudged from the carpool van to her house. A puffy-cute little pillow of a package greeted her from the porch with a warm splash of yellow-orange. Trudy's shoulders slumped like broken wings as she read the name Samuel L. Smithson, Jr. on the address label. So much for a pleasant surprise to lighten up the drab Monday.

Misdelivery by drones was rare, but not unheard of. "Artificial intelligence not 'intelligent' enough," her ex-boyfriend, a wannabe sci-fi writer, used to joke, gesturing air quotes with two pairs of sausage-like fingers.

As Trudy's face contorted into a half-frown, the hoary canard about government-sponsored virtue tests came to mind. Nah. She scowled. The ex-boyfriend was big on conspiracy theories, too. She shrugged. Glad I don't have to listen to that jerk anymore. And you,-- she moved the package aside with the tip of her shoe --keep sunbathing on my porch.

That was when the unusual punctuation of the rubberstamped-in-red-ink-inscription grabbed her attention: TIME. Sensitive. Could it be what everyone at the office had been raving about? Her pulse quickened as she swallowed a surge of excitement. Trudy looked around, picked up the package and went inside.

Wasn't it odd that she, born and raised in Georgia, had never heard of Smithsonville, GA? But that didn't matter. What mattered was that she had the right address and Smithson, Jr. would get his package. She would see to it as would any good person and upstanding citizen. There could be no doubt about that. What else would she do with someone else's package? Of course she wouldn't keep it. Keeping the package would be against the law, wouldn't it? That would be stealing, and she had stolen nothing in her life. She was simply curious if indeed it was what she'd thought it might be. Who wouldn't be, right?

The package felt light. An elongated bulge in the middle wouldn't budge under her fingers. It could be anything. She tried to slip her nail under the flap, but it wouldn't budge, either. There was only one way to find out. As if by themselves, her thumb and index finger pulled the tear-off ribbon.

Oops! Too late now. Her puckered lips morphed into a half-smile as her hand slipped inside the opening. The gray plastic container she had fished out looked like a thermos with the words GOOD TIME stenciled in gold. A large green button under the transparent screw-on cap was labeled Press and hold.

Sweet Jesus! She had been right. It was a good time. Smithson Jr.'s good time. How long had he been saving? A year, two or longer? Was he a benedick getting ready for the honeymoon? A single father taking kids for a long-overdue vacation?

Lightheaded, Trudy plonked herself down on the couch, clutching the container in her sweaty palm.

She knew well what she had to do. Only needed a minute or two of her own sweet time to congratulate herself on guessing right and to imagine what time from the GOOD TIME container might feel like. Five minutes passed. Trudy's hand kept clutching the container while the other one caressed the cap with a counter-clock motion. Was it as unimaginably good as the TV commercials claimed? Would she ever forgive herself for not trying just a smidgen of it when she had a chance? Her grip on the cap tightened. That wouldn't hurt anybody, would it? No one would even...

Trudy's reflection in the large screen TV across the room grinned at her like a possum eating a sweet potato as she kept pushing the large green button until it stopped working.

Trudy's first thought the next morning was that she'd had the time of her life.

But what if it was the test? A shame, remorse and fear tightened her scalp. She gasped for air. Her eyes welled with tears. How could that happen? She didn't mean any harm; she only wanted to see what was in the package and perhaps try just a bit of it. Who knew that GOOD TIME would be so ... so irresistible, so captivating? She had tried to resist, hadn't she? But it had captivated her, captured against her will. It wasn't her fault, but somehow she had failed the test and now she would have to pay the price.

Trudy's stomach twinged, cold sweat beading on her forehead. Feeling guilty was bad enough, but not knowing what would happen next was much worse. Of course, the commercials never talked about the side effects of misusing GOOD TIME. The rumors had been vague, too.

She stumbled through the morning and left for work. As nothing bad happened, her fear reached its apex and began to wane. What if the GOOD TIME package wasn't a test, just a misdelivery? If it were, she would know by now, wouldn't she? Around lunch time, a hope crept in that she might get away with using up someone else's GOOD TIME after all. Oh please, please, please! She'd be so happy to put the entire experience behind her and forget that it had happened. And, of course, she'd do nothing like that again. Ever!

In the afternoon, Trudy stepped outside for some air freshened by the mid-day monsoon storm. A puddle on the sidewalk looked knee-high to a grasshopper, but it swallowed her entire shoe. The rest of Trudy followed into darkness, silence, numbness.

In the dark, Trudy sat on something hard and rough; her feet dangled over the edge of it. An invisible resistance counteracted her attempts to move away from the edge, get up, or lie down. She could lean forward but didn't want to for fear of falling. The light, moist breeze carried a briny and slightly funky aroma and flirted with her hair. The distant, high-pitched laughing calls of seagulls broke the silence and were soon complemented by a regular sibilant shhhh-aaaah sound of the surf. Somewhere far off, a raspy voice, accompanied by a drumbeat and a guitar, sang about the morning sun.

The sky lightened and pinked as the sun peeked over the horizon. Trudy sat on the very end of a long, weathered wooden dock. The deep, dark-blue water below made her regret she never learned how to swim.

The warmth of the rising sun caressed her skin. Ahead lay a cove with a city on one hilly side and sweeping fields of grass giving way to a beach on the other. Between Trudy and the ocean, a reddish-orange bridge straddled the bay. It was propped up by two rectangular towers holding each other's gracefully suspended cable-hands still partly shrouded in the morning fog.

The voice sang louder now about ships going in and out.

Several big container barges and a snow-white cruise liner, guided by tugboats, were entering and leaving the bay. It was fun to watch them maneuver around each other, conversing in long and short horn blasts. Seconds combined into minutes.

The song got louder.

More ships entered and left the bay. Watching them and listening to the song while being careful not to fall off the edge was all Trudy could do. It wasn't fun anymore. Definitely not something she would like to do much longer. Not when she wasn't sure where the hell she was and what the hell was going on. She simply didn't have time for that.

It hit her hard. TIME. Oh yes, it was about time. How did the song go? With palpitations resonating in her throat and neck, she searched for the clue in the lyrics. WASTING! That's what it was--her punishment! She had squandered someone else's good time and now had to waste hers in return. With all her strength, Trudy tried to get up and, as before, couldn't. All she could do was sit there, wasting time.

Minutes combined into hours; the song boomed, looping over and over again. An appalling loneliness swept over her like a chilling wind. Shame, helplessness and despair followed in waves. By sunset, the misery became unbearable; Trudy's eyes swelled with tears and she sobbed herself to sleep.

At sunrise, Trudy's feet still dangled from the dock and the soft, invisible something kept her in the sitting position. Sitting and wasting time. The thought, sudden and sharp as a needle, made her cringe. The same song kept playing. Another day of wasting time? And then what? Another one and--

The total helplessness and uncertainty were more than Trudy could take. No! She wasn't going to sit on the dock and waste time anymore. Granted, using up someone else's good time was a mistake. An unfortunate one. It wasn't her fault, but if she could go back and correct it, she would. And she would certainly never, ever steal anything again--but she couldn't go back in time, could she?

Trudy was feeling sorry for herself. Why did that have to happen to her? It wasn't fair. But it did happen and now she had to pay the price. Worst of all, she didn't know what that price was. How much more of her own time would she have to waste? Days, months, years? She couldn't take the uncertainty any more. And she wasn't totally helpless. There was one thing she could do. As the voice boomed nothin' to live for, Trudy pushed herself off the edge into darkness, silence, numbness.

Trudy stood in the bright sunlight. Her legs shook with the weakness of not being used for a long time. A gust of air brought a trace of masculine aftershave. A bushy-mustached, uniformed cop leaned from the pilot window of the time enforcement cruiser. His lips moved, revealing a gap in his front teeth, but Trudy couldn't hear a word. She turned her head. A puddle next to her looked familiar. And then her hearing returned.

"... time served." The cop finished his monolog, flashed his cute gap once more in a broad, friendly smile, and revved the thrusters of the cruiser. "Enjoy the rest of your day, ma'am!"

"Bless your heart!" Trudy feigned half a smile in return. All's well that ends well. She turned and ambled away from the puddle.

Another yellow-orange envelope greeted Trudy from the porch when she got home. This one lay face down, so she had to pick it up. It was addressed to Virginia Scott of Scottsville, GA, but the familiar lightness, almost weightlessness, felt right in Trudy's hand, as if it belonged there. Her fingers recognized the shape under a springy bubble wrap. Didn't she deserve some good time after everything she'd been through? All's well that ends well...

In Scottsville, GA, Virginia Scott was expecting her GOOD TIME to arrive at any moment.

Ripping the package open, Trudy commanded herself to worry about Virginia and everybody else later. She hurriedly changed into her favorite sporty track pants and lurex-striped hoodies, settled down on the couch and, trembling with anticipation, pushed the large green button. Her thumb met no resistance.

A pain, reverberating through her arm and spine, and a loud, revolting snap hit simultaneously. As the paralyzing shock loosened its grip, she drew in a gasp of air and pulled her hand away from the cylinder. Blood welled from what was left of her thumb. The container on her lap undulated slightly as a matter-of-fact voice stated: "It's imperative to disinfect the wound immediately after amputation. Provided inside the device you will find..."