I know where I am now.
That day, years ago, when my family went tubing down our favorite river.
My family.
The finest people I know.
When I’m with my husband and children, I’m safe from the rest of the world and the madness that consumes it. Being with them is my happy place, no matter where we happen to be at the moment.
They are my home.
My husband grins from a short distance away, firmly planted in the center of his inner tube, the 4MSKTR tattoo showing above his right knee.
My daughters, Greta and Angela, their 4MSKTR tattoos located above their ankles, float behind us.
With a few strokes, I catch up with my own wayward inner tube and haul myself back onto it.
This is one of my favorite memories.
My daughters laughing. My husband’s casual arm around my shoulder. A beautiful summer day. All is right with the world.
This day happened about 30 years ago. It should be just a memory, not the reality I’m experiencing right now.
I’m floating down a peaceful river with the people I love, but I know this will change soon. They’re not really my family, just memories of them. Any minute now, something devastating will happen.
The world has devolved into nothing but madness, and I can’t find a safe place.
I chew on my fingers until they bleed.
Floating ahead, my daughters scream, “Waterfall!” They flail and panic, their arms flapping wildly as they paddle toward shore, but it’s too late. They sink below the surface of the river as roaring clouds of mist rise above the place where my girls vanish.
I bite on one finger so hard that I hear the bone crunch beneath my skin.
“Greta!” my husband cries. “Angela!”
He disappears, too.
Now I’m alone on the river, drifting toward the edge of a waterfall.
This isn’t right. That day, decades ago, we drifted down the river without incident. There were no waterfalls.
Day turns to night, and stars fill the sky. The river expands and expands and expands to the size of an ocean. A voice somewhere behind yells, “Iceberg! Straight ahead!”
I’ve always known I’m related to Molly Brown. As the Titanic sank, she insisted as many people as possible be admitted onto the lifeboats intended for the wealthy, only to be ignored.
When there’s room on the lifeboat, you save as many lives as you can.
In the space of a moment, I’m no longer floating on the water but now screaming on a roller coaster, back in broad daylight in the middle of an amusement park.
This is something that happened before Greta and Angela were born.
A different memory. A different time.
But it’s not a memory. It’s as real as “real” gets.
I focus on the family tattoo on my wrist.
Nothing changes.
That’s never happened before.
Something clicks steadily in my head, like the sound of a roller coaster when it slowly ascends to a high point from which it will plummet, every click heightening the anticipation of the fall.
Click. Click. Click.
Resa Nelson is a member of Science Fiction Writers of America. She is also a graduate of the Clarion Science Fiction Writers Workshop. She has sold more than 20 short stories to magazines and anthologies, including Clarkesworld, Science Fiction Age, Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Sword & Sorceress XXIII, Women of Darkness II, Future Boston, and 2041. She was the TV/Movie columnist for Realms of Fantasy magazine for 13 years and also wrote articles for SCI FI magazine. She has published 24 novels. Visit her website at resanelson.com.
Copyright © 2025 Resa Nelson
I am confused and intrigued! The narration is beautiful