Crack of Doom

The full-bodied Chilean red wine glitters in the moonlight. The red grape juice catches a few sparks of light emanating from the flames in the open fireplace. The liquid inside the crystal glass dances in my mind's eye. My Cuban cigar rests firmly in my hand now, its smoke meandering up toward the heavy oak logs. The cool jazz music that I have grown so accustomed to soothes my senses. A saxophone here, a piano there, a muffled trumpet or a soft skin tom-tom in the midst of sensual solitude: all of it makes this night one to remember.

I am about to travel again, just like I did last year. I am about to take the leap for the twelfth time. Twelve lives, twelve eras, twelve summers, twelve lovers, twelve sacrifices.

I don't belong here, but I must admit that the wine, the cigars, the jazz, the sex, the Armani suits, the VIPs, the jet-set, it all becomes me and I am going to miss it after I leave. This has been my favorite time in Earth's history. I have never been so rich, so online, so Casanova, so drunk, so sexy. Then again, I also missed all the other spouses I had flirted with, as well. I married them, made love to them and left them behind. My Egyptian Queen, who killed herself with a snake bite, she was my rose of doom. My French mistress, a regal one to everyone else, she lost her head. My warrior lady, fighting for the rights of strangers, she was burned at the stake. The hookers in Whitechapel, I killed them all back in 1889, but only because I had to. My Neanderthal spouse in the cave wept when I left her. I could not explain why I had to leave and she couldn't understand me when I apologized to her, either. I had appeared as mysteriously as I disappeared. Her rugged beauty made it difficult for me to leave, anyway. But I have always been a stranger here and I will always be.

I wait here again in my leather chair, here in my solitary mansion, pretending to be the CEO of a conglomerate oil trading company. Nobody will miss me when I leave, because nobody will know that I have been here. I was just here for the purpose of studying humanity, searching for one woman alone. One woman has disappeared, slipped through our fingers, one woman I was supposed to mate with in order to create the ultimate being. I have been assigned to mate with the only female who was half alien and half human. But she has refused, stealing a time ship in order to infiltrate our political system. We have followed the clues, hoping to catch her, hoping that Cleopatra or Marie Antoinette would be her in disguise. We even killed a few presidents just to find out where she was hiding.

But hold on. I see my reality shift, the sky crumbling, the fireplace opening, my superior officers coming back to summon me. The door to my reality opens and I am forced to stand up just to hear where I am heading next. The Renaissance? Elizabethan England again?

But then I see her, the half alien and half human lady. She smiles as she steps off her time ship, claiming that a revolution has erupted on our planet and that all my associates and partners in crime have been murdered. She claims I have to die.

So I run, stealing the time ship, hoping to find a crack in history where I can hide.

THE END

Bio: Charles E.J. Moulton's historical work "Catherine - the Faithful Queen Dowager" was recently published by the Academic Journal SOCRATES. To date he has sold 36 pieces to paying markets and has hundreds of stories available online. He is an author, baritone, teacher, painter and chorus director.

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