The Third Stone

“Should I wear it up or down?” I inquired of my stunningly beautiful sister whose appearance suggested experience in this area.

“Well, it is a first date so...down. Wait. It depends. What are you doing?”

“He said it's a surprise. And I happen to love surprises! But he did say to wear a nice dress.”

“It's hardly even a first date! You've known him for how long now?”

“Five years...three months...twenty seven days...” I said, sad that I actually knew the numbers.

“Well, someone's got it down to a science! Wear it down, and bring a hair tie! A boyscout is always prepared!” She said, reciting the familiar phrase we had heard our father and brothers say many times. I looked around to find the perfect hair tie to match my flowing yellow dress. Just as I heard a knock on the door, I found it hidden in between a few books I had been reading and slipped it on my wrist. I rushed down the stairs, nearly tripping in my four inch heels. When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I looked at the guy who was at my door. He was not what I expected him to be. Although I had seen him in a suit before, tonight he looked different. His suit, jet black with a fluorescent green tie made anyones heart pound that looked at it. It made him seem sharp. He seemed to be at that time a man, rather than the boy I knew him as.

“Hey Marc.” I nearly whispered.

“Hey!” His eyes caught mine, and I couldn't breath. It seemed to me as if I might actually pass out. But before I could, I was taken out of the trance by my fathers warm voice.

“Alright now, you two don't have any fun! And for Pete's sake don't do anything dumb!”

“Yes Dad.” I muttered back. We were about to walk out the door, and just before it closed, I heard my sister say,

“Put your hair tie in your purse!!!” in an annoyed tone. I slipped the hair tie off of my wrist and put it in my purse, realizing that it probably did look childish to wear it on my wrist. We walked out the door smiling like the sun on a warm summer day. As got in the car, I casually asked what we were doing.

“It's a surprise!” he exclaimed.

“What time is it?” I inquired, knowing that he wouldn't be bothered by the strange and random question. I was obsessed with time and it bothered me when I didn't know what time it was, and he knew it. He looked at his watch.

“Huh. My watch is broken!” he looked at the clock in the dashboard. “Um...this one is broken too. So I have no idea what time it is.” he said frustrated.

“It's okay! I have my phone!” I checked my phone. Dead. Neither of us had any way to tell what time it was. Finding this peculiar, and knowing that I didn't like not knowing the time, he tried to ease my mind.

“It's okay, we'll make it into a game!”

“And how is not knowing the time going to be a game?”

“I haven't a clue in the slightest. Just go with it.”

“Okay...sure.” I replied to get him to think I was okay with this, and part of me was, but somewhere deep inside of me, I felt uneasy. I felt as if I had been stripped of one of my senses. Something inside of me felt off. And I knew it. And I could tell he knew it. A cool mist hugged us and a crescent moon dotted our car through the trees as we drove off into the darkness. Little did either of us know that this was only beginning of the peculiar events to come.

During the car ride, we talked about our days and what we did but an eerie feeling was still present in our conversation, though neither of us addressed it. After a twenty minute drive, we arrived at a popular theater in the next town over. He finally spilled the beans.

“Tonight, we will be treated to see a Broadway performance of The Lion King!”

“Awesome! Thats the best surprise ever!” I lied. The best surprise ever would be a pony. And second to that, would be a genie in a bottle, but this was still pretty good. Being the gentleman he was, he escorted me into the theater and into our seats. The lights dimmed, and the curtain came up revealing a cast so extravagantly dressed it assured an entertaining performance. Throughout the entire performance, our hands played a game of chicken. Turns out, we were both chicken. The entire night. But I put the blame on him because that is definitely the guys job.

When the show was over, we got back in the car and started driving. I had thought he was taking me home, until I noticed him taking wrong turn, after wrong turn, after wrong turn. I eventually spoke up.

“Uh where are we going?”

“It's a surprise!” He replied cheerily. One big surprise is enough for one night. I just want to go to bed. Take me home!!!

“Two big surprises in one night?! Could this day get any better?!” I said with fake enthusiasm. This day would be better if he would take me home already! I thought silently. I got frustrated easily at late hours, so I decided to keep up the charade. We drove for a short time before arriving at our new destination. I got out of the car and realized that we were at a park by the theater. We walked over to a small pond outlined by a bench and a few pine trees. We walked along the edge of the pond talking about the usual stuff. Although I was participating in a riveting conversation about different types of fish, my mind wondered and I ended up not really knowing what we were talking about and just thinking about my family.

As we walked hand in hand (He finally manned up!) next to the pond, he stopped at a small rocky beach.

“Let's see who can skip stones the farthest!” he said. Although at first I had felt very tired, I was feeling less so now and was up to a little competition.

“Sure! But only if you don't mind losing!” I joked.

“Ladies first!” I scouted the beach for the perfect rock to skip. My eye caught it and I bent down and picked it up, along with a few others that looked like they had come from the same rock due to their similar size, shape and color. I tossed the stone with the precision only someone well versed in the ways of skipping stones could. The stone skipped once...twice...three times...four times...splat.

“FOUR!” I shouted, “Beat that!”

“Oh I will, you'll see!” He threw his stone and it skipped only twice. We continued to play. I threw, he threw, and we were really enjoying ourselves. Until his third stone.

He threw the third stone. Skip...skip...skip...skip...skip...skip...crash. The stone skipped three times out, and then, incredulously, three times back and landed on the beach. We stood, and stared at the stone.

“What?” was all he said.

“Did that jus-”

“Yeah. It just skipped backwards.” he said with awe. He picked up the stone and threw it as hard as he could. Skip...skip...skip...skip...skip...skip...crash. He threw with all his might, but the third stone kept coming back.

“Let me try. Maybe it's just you.” I said trying not to sound mean about it. I threw the rock as hard as I could. Skip...skip...skip...skip...skip...skip...skip...skip...crash. Four times out, four times back. This time I was going to do something different.

“I'm going to try to catch it this time!” I said, determined to get a different outcome. He stood closer to me. I reached into my purse and pulled out the bright yellow hair tie. I pulled my hair up into a tight bun. Serious hair for serious business.

As I pulled my hair up however, I was unaware that in doing so, I had pulled a hair out of my head. Half of it landed on my shoulder, the other half landed on his shoulder which was right next to me. Neither of us noticed. I threw the stone. Skip...skip...skip...skip...skip...skip...skip...skip...thud. The stone landed squarely in my palm. Before I could think anything of the strange phenomenon, everything turned white. I felt like I was spinning and no matter how hard I tried to see something other than white, I failed. Eternity seemed to go by. But then, as if someone had flipped a switch, I saw something I had never seen before. I saw people screaming and running everywhere in what looked like it used to be a city. Utter pandemonium. I looked for the source of their horror, only to find it. I didn't have to look far because it was right in front of me. A giant cruise ship stared me straight in the face. It was moving slowly in my direction, down what appeared to be a tiny canal. I wondered how the boat was still moving in such a small space. I turned to my right remembering Marc. He stared at me, as baffled as I was. Where were we, and how did we get here?

“Holy crap. Holy crap. Holy crap. It's coming right at us. Holy cra-”

“SHUT UP! Let's just take a second and figure out whats going on!” I tried to rationalize with what was happening. It was impossible. “What do we know? We know there is a giant frigging boat that is about to pulverize our bodies like ants. We know this is bad.” that was all I knew for sure. I didn't even have a guess at the rest of what could be happening.

“We know nothing. Oh wait. We know we are about to die. I guess I can go buy that Ferrari that I always wanted! Well actually, I might as well steal it!” All I could think is how funny it was that guys were the ones that were supposed to comfort the girl when something bad happened, and yet he was the one panicking like a baby and I was the one remaining rational. Or at least somewhat rational.

The immediate shock of the preposterous situation we were in wore off quickly. I began to realize the reality of the situation. I had no idea where I was, how I got here, what was happening, or how to get home. I too, began to panic a bit, but quickly shunned the feelings realizing that I would never get home if I kept panicking. I reached for my purse to get my phone, not remembering that it was dead. Suddenly I realized that I had left it on the ground back in the real world, wherever that was, and however I got here, it hadn't transported my purse too. I knew that how we had gotten here had something to do with the third stone.

We quietly wondered to ourselves what had happened on that boat. We saw the captain of the ship with a panicked look on his face and we could tell he was trying his hardest to get the boat to stop. “Even with her mighty engines in reverse, the ocean liner was pulled further and further into the canal.”

The thought came to me that maybe this was all just a dream and I had passed out on the date or something. But I decided not to bet my life on it. So we decided to run, literally for our lives.

As we were running, the thought came to me that maybe the rock had transported us into this unreal dimension. “Marc! The rock did this! It had to have been the rock! What else could have done this?! I mean, I really have no idea what did this, but the idea that the rock did it is better than nothing right?”

“Yeah. Sure. We'll go with that. So now what do we do? Keep running?”

“Well, if it did it once, shouldn't it do it again?”

“Yeah...so where are you going to skip it? There's no water here!”

“The canal.”

“ARE YOU CRAZY?!?! THERE IS A BEHEMOTH OF A BOAT IN THE CANAL THAT IS CHARGING AT YOU LIKE AN ANGRY BULL AND YOU'RE JUST GOING TO WALK RIGHT UP TO IT?! DO YOU KNOW WHAT ANGRY BULLS DO TO PEOPLE?! THEY KILL THEM! THEY KILL THEM DEAD!”

“Yup.”

“Fine. Whatever. I mean, we're going to die one way or another, we might as well be crushed by a giant boat.” We ran back to the canal as fast as we could. When we got to the edge, we realized we only had time to throw it once before we would be crushed by the boat. Every emotion in my body left. I knew what I needed to do and I had one shot to get it right. I no longer felt anxious, or stressed or worried. In fact, I felt almost calm. I realized that this would all be over quickly, whether for bad or for good.

So I threw the rock. Skip...skip...skip...skip...skip...skip...skip...skip...thud. I caught it in my hand. Nothing. I waited, praying every second that something would happen, that everything would turn white and we would be back home again. But nothing happened.

“CRAP! What are we supposed to do now?!”

“You tell me! Girls are smarter than boys!” The boat inched closer and was a short five feet away from us. The noise of metal screeching and people screaming did not make for the best thinking environment doubled with the fact that I was almost certainly about to be crushed. I decided that the best course of action was to try to defy all odds and throw the stone again. But this time I decided to recreate as much as I could about our position when I threw the stone the first time.

“Get over here. Stand right where you were when I threw it before.” he came closer and although neither of us were aware, his shoelace fell on top of my heels when he moved. I took half a second and hoped with all of my heart that it would work this time.

I threw the stone. Skip...skip...skip...skip...skip...skip...skip...skip...thud. I caught the stone with the most grace that I had ever caught anything with before in my life. For about 2 milliseconds I whispered to myself in an almost inaudible tone. “Please. Please. Just let this work.”

White. I was spinning again. And in the midst of the confusion and spinning, I thanked everything I could think of that it had worked.

This time, I came out of my stupor in yet another place that I not only didn't want to be, but had never been before. I was on the top of what appeared to be a skyscraper. It was pitch black and there was no light coming from anywhere except one light that appeared to come out of the roof of the building. This was not the “Top of The Rock” observation deck in New York City though. In fact it wasn't an observation deck at all. It was the top of what seemed like the worlds tallest building which had no railing or security measures at all. I took a deep breath. I vowed to myself that I would remain optimistic until we got out of this mess. I again looked to see if Marc was still there. He was. “Well. That was fun eh?”

“Yes. Let's do it again. I think that was definitely something I would like to do again.” he said sarcastically.

“Okay so now we know how to get out of a situation, so how do we get home?”

“You tell me Einstein. Do I look like I have a clue? Also, did I mention I don't like heights?”

“Okay...” I breathed quietly to myself, ignoring his sarcasm. I surveyed our surroundings. I turned around and took in everything I saw, trying to determine where we were and if there was any immediate danger. I was almost finished completing my 360 degree sweep when of course, I saw the inevitable immediate danger. Marc's eyes saw them just as mine did.

There, standing in front of us were five men. Not only were there five men, but there were five men in black suits with assault riffles. I did the first and only thing that popped into my head.

“Hello.” I said trying to sound friendly.

“You know what we want. So how about you do everyone a favor and give it to us.” The man that spoke appeared to be their leader, standing in front of the rest of them and speaking with a thick Russian accent.

“Actually, I'm not really sure what it is you want...would you mind explaining?”

“Don't play dumb. Just give us the book and we will leave, and probably not kill you!” a few of the men laughed.

“Would you give us a second please?” I decided that I needed to consult with my apparent partner in crime before making an executive decision about whether or not to give them the book we didn't have. I pulled Marc close to me and turned around to make our conversation as inaudible as possible.

“What the heck?! I don't even have a book! Who are these people?! What are we supposed to do?!”

“I know exactly what to do. We kill them. How do we do that? With my mad skills,” he said with confidence, “Long story short, I may or may not have, but definitely did take a few pre-law enforcement classes over the summer. Also, everyone in my family is in the FBI...sorry if I forgot to mention that.” he spoke as if nothing bad was even happening. He then quickly and quietly pointed to a concealed hand gun and a can of pepper spray that was hidden under his sport coat. “Close your eyes and turn around.” he said to me.

I decided it would be best to follow his advice since he seemed to know his stuff in this area of business. I turned around, closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Within a few second I heard a hiss, followed by a few screams. Then I heard five perfectly spaced gun shots. Before I knew it, Marc was hugging me from behind, as if to shield me from what had just happened. In shock, and not believing what had just happened, I turned around, only to be reassured that yes, my date had just killed five people. On our first date. Trying to console myself, I concluded that this was all indeed just a dream and no one had actually just died.

I did a quick sweep of the area just to be sure that there was no one lurking in the shadows that was about to come out and kill us. However, to my surprise, there were no shadows for lurking. In fact, the entire roof of the building was perfectly flat with nothing on it, except the one light coming out of it. For the first time, I looked around off the edge of the building, only to discover, to my horror that there was nothing. Nothing. Anywhere. I looked as hard as I could and there was nothing. It was as if we were floating. I concluded that I needed some help looking because clearly I must just be a little bit tired from our evening of strange events.

“Hey Marc! Look out there,” I said, pointing off into the nothingness. “What do you see?” he turned in all directions, looking intently into the vast and endless space.

“Nothing. There is nothing there. How are we going to get home?!” he asked frustrated.

“I don't know.” A wave of despair swept over both of us. I began to cry harder than I ever remembered crying. It was probably in part due to lack of sleep, and who knew what time it was since both of our watches and phones were either broken or dead.

After probably an hour or an hour and a half (it was really anyones guess) of solid crying, we both fell asleep. We woke up, in what we would have called the morning, but no one really knew. It was still pitch black. We talked about our lives for a long time before finally getting enough courage to try the only thing we could think of . Having decided to try even though there was nothing to throw it into or on, we were going to throw the stone.

We arranged ourselves exactly as we had before. This time, he held my left hand. I looked him directly in the face and kissed him, figuring that at this point, nothing really mattered so who really cared? He stared at me, astonished that this was happening on our first date, but then again, this wasn't exactly an ordinary first date. I prepared myself, and took the deepest, longest, most fulfilling breath I had ever taken in my life. I threw the stone. Skip...skip...skip...skip...skip...skip...skip...skip...skip...skip...skip... It went of into the endless space, never getting smaller as things usually do when they move away from you. It skipped, and skipped, and never made any progress, but continued skipping, on and on forever.

We sat and watched the rock skip. Forever and always. Time didn't exist. Distance didn't exist, and every element of reality we ever knew, was gone. So there we sat, me, Marc and a skyscraper, forever.