Chapter 7

Twila Mae, now pregnant with VeNietta, one wintry evening at home heard a rapping sound on the back porch door. Somewhat alarmed to hear it at this late hour, she rose from the living room recliner and stared out the main windows and then approached the French doors leading out to the back yard.

It was a young woman wearing a white dress, barefoot, shivering. Her bronze hair and tanned skin looked so out of place in this environment.

“My God!” she exclaimed, recognizing herself from nearly twenty years earlier. She fumbled to open the door to let herself into the house. “Twila Mae!?” She then felt her fetus leap inside of her; apparently, Baby VeNietta was as surprised by the visitor as she was.

The young version of herself stood frozen for a moment. “You are me? Where am I? What’s happening to me? Please.”

“We have to talk, Twila Mae,” the older version explained. “Come in, dear, and let’s get you warmed up.”

“Are the Eric Jays here?”

“Eric Jay? Oh, Eric Jay will be back later this evening from his classes. You are in our time now, it appears. When did you see him last?”

“Just a short time ago. Two of him, now I believe. In the field...” the young Twila Mae said, looking around. It was an admission of the oddest truth. She tossed a knowing glance at her older self. “Do you remember that?”

“Yes, a little bit now. Yes,” the older Twila Mae confessed. “The strange time dilation seemed to have messed with my memory somewhat.”

“Exactly my feeling, too!”

“Probably affecting all of our memories right now. Eric Jay said much the same after...” She decided not to mention VeNietta just yet. “Then again, the whole course of events is unreal ... what we have been doing, that is.” She patted her pregnant tummy again, reminding herself that she was carrying her son’s child, her daughter and grandchild, as well. “It’s all more like taking part in a wild dream.”

The younger version simply nodded at this point, still shaking from the frigid outside air. “I am so cold.”

The older version of herself handed her a soft blue blanket. When the young Twila Mae wrapped it around her white dress rather gratefully, the older one could only smile with dear admiration. She pictured her younger self as a young virgin standing there dressed in white and blue, barefoot, bronze hair and tanned skin, adoring this beautiful, spry young maiden who only a short time ago was touched by a divine, mysterious hand in the vortex. It was this same girl, herself, who agreed to conceive her own son from outside of her own space-time in order to give birth to him.

Indeed, college freshmen and nineteen-year-old honor student Twila Mae Smith had been a virgin until that incredible outdoor moment in 1992. At the time, she had hoped to save her sexual innocence and her bountiful fruit for Dr. John Tallin, the dashing scientist whom she had encountered during her freshmen year. He had met with her about a special extra credit project only weeks before the profound sexual encounter with the doppelgangers.

Still sensing the semen of her son(s) inside of her uterus, young Twila Mae sat down on the living room sofa beside her. “What year is it now?” she asked.

“It is 2011. More than nineteen years have passed.”

“I see.” But the semen was still fresh and quite alive, less than an hour old, according to her reality in 1992.

Silence lasted for several moments.

The older Twila Mae interrupted the disturbing quiet by noting, “Do you remember Dr. John Tallin?”

The young girl paused, closing her eyes as if searching the deepest depths of her mind and soul. “Not well, but I do remember Dr. Tallin when he visited with me following the end of my college class, and just before spring term had ended. Spring 1992. He told me that I was a final selection for a special grant project. I think that I had signed up for it to earn some additional money. But all the rest is fuzzy, so hazy to me right now.”