One - Lost in Her Mind

Jordan's mind was lost in the fog. "Where am I?" Her voice seemed to ripple like a wave, inaudible even to herself. "What is happening to me?" She had never felt this way.

"Weiiiiiidannnnn." a voice rippled through the space. "Weiiiidannnn, ittt iss mee, yourr grandfatherr, Martin." The man stepped out of the fog and into Jordan's sight.

Jordan turned to the man recognizing the voice calling out to her. She spoke slowly in disbelief. "Grandpa Martin?" The granddaughter squinted trying to focus her eyes.

Martin walked closer. "Why have you arrived here? How could my beautiful Weidan be here? Already?" He was disturbed at her early arrival to the bridge.

Jordan reached out to hold Martin's hand. "Where am I, Grandpa?" She looked at the fog encased bridge.

"It is...well it is...this is..." Martin did not have the heart to tell her.

"Weidan! Jordan!"  A woman emerged from the fog. "Martin has spoken of you with great pride! You are as beautiful as he had boasted."

"Who are you? I recognize you. I think." Jordan approached the woman.

"I am the caretaker of the bridge, Jordan." The woman smiled.

"Oh, I thought you were someone I knew." Jordan frowned. "I swear I have seen you before."

"That is possible." The woman smiled again. Jordan frowned again. "Martin, you were right. She does have his eyebrows."

Jordan squinted. "Who are you?" Still she was not certain.

"Here, touch my hand and see me as you remember in the photos." The woman held her hand out for Martin's grand daughter.

"Really?" She slowly reached out and as their fingers touched the woman's face moved forward in time making her as old as she was in the photo Jordan had seen. "Is it you? My Grandma M?"

Jordan's eye grew big as she just realized that the people that stood with her on the bridge had passed away years ago. "But you...you are...and you are..."

"Yes, Weidan, we are...dead. But in a very unique way we all live on." Martin began the explanation. "Once a being is born, an electrical signature is created that is not easily extinguished. It makes us who we are."

"So...you are not really dead?" Jordan tried to wrap her brain around the concept. "Or maybe you are a figment of my imagination."

"Yes, and yes." Margie answered simply leaving her grand daughter with more questions. "We have passed on...years now, I suppose."

This time Margie touched her grand daughter's hand. Jordan felt strange as they all watched her revert back into the fifteen year old Jordan. "Is this how you remember her, Martin? Oh my she was a cutie!"

"Grandma? What did you just do?" Jordan stepped back, breaking contact and her body returned to the twenty year old state.

"Jordan, I wanted Martin to see you as you were when you spent time with him before he passed." Margie smiled, "I wanted to see you as you were as well! My how you have grown."

"Okay, no more of that! Whatever that was. Okay?" Jordan rolled her eyes.

"Jordan, we are all who we were and..." Margie stopped what she was saying and prepared to demonstrate what she was unraveling. "I will take you back to one of my fondest memories of me in my Sunday dress and the baby chicks following me as if I were their mother!"

Margie stepped back and her appearance began to change. Her hair thickened, her skin flushed with life, her body now appeared as the four year old girl complete with her full length layered yellow and white Sunday dress. Moments later baby chicks began to pop out from under her dress.

It was adorable. "That is the cutest, most beautiful site I have ever seen!" Jordan laughed, reached down and allowed a chick to walk onto her hand. "Amazing! Grandma M, and this is you when you were a young girl?"

"Yes, it is amazing." Margie spoke slowly. "This is me at age four."

"Margie, tell her." Martin spoke softly. "Tell her what is amazing."

Margie looked at Martin. "Yes, you are right, Martin." She agreed.

"Tell me what? Grandma? Grandpa Martin? Someone needs to tell me what was so amazing!" Jordan looked to the two for answers.

"Martin reach your hand out." Martin did so. "Now Jordan, darling, hand your grandfather the baby chick." Margie nodded as she smiled. "Go on."

Jordan had no idea what was about to happen but did as Margie suggested. Using both hands she allowed the baby chick to step off her hands and onto her grandfather's hand. Though the instant the chick stepped to his hand it disappeared. "Wait! Where did the baby chick go! What just happened?"

Martin smiled and reassured his grand daughter the chick was perfectly fine. He pointed to four year old Margie's dress and the little chick appeared bouncing happily back to Jordan.

She picked up the chick again. "Why did that just happen? Why is it okay in my hands and disappears in your hand, Grandpa?" Jordan needed an answer.

Martin shook his head slowly. "This has never happened before. I have never witnessed someone interact with someone else's past. It had just never happened...before." Martin shrugged.

"That is true, Martin, it has not happened." Margie took an older form of herself and tried a different approach.

"Grandma M, you look gorgeous!" Jordan now looked at Margie as a twenty year old young woman. "This is you at my age, isn't it, Grandma?"

Margie was dressed in the green gingham dress she wore for a very special dinner invitation. "Touch my arm, Jordan. Let's try this." Margie planned to take her back to that special day.

Jordan touched Margie's arm but before they were transported back in time to Margie's old bedroom the grandmother clarified what was the norm. "Now, anyone can see and hear my baby sister and I talk as we did back in 1954 in our bedroom. But no one should be able to communicate with us."

With those words spoken the two were transported back in time to 1954. Twenty year old Margie and her  eleven year old sister shared a chair in front of their dressing mirror. A dejected Bernadette sulked as she gazed at her older beautiful sister.

"What is wrong, Bernie?" Margie laughed and comforted her baby sister.

"You are so beautiful! I will never grow up to be a beautiful as you!" Bernadette walked behind Margie and began to brush her hair.

Jordan walked up to Margie and her younger sister. "You are beautiful, Grandma!" She then looked to Bernadette and held her hand out. The younger sister placed the hair brush in her hand.

"Hello, Jordan." Bernadette smiled.

"You...you know me?" Jordan was surprised. "I do not even know you!"

"We have never met but we are connected." The eleven year old version of her great aunt smiled as she began sifting through the tiny jewelry box for a barrett. "Found it!"

"Bernadette, and all the family know you are here." Margie explained how Bernadette knew her. "Once a person arrives at the bridge the family gathers to greet the person."

"So, I am dead." Jordan looked dejected knowing there was still so much work to be done. "Crap."

"Take a look in the mirror, Jordan." Margie suggested. "You will see the reason you are here."

"My God!" Jordan yelled. There was an open wound from a bullet that split her scalp open and cracked her skull. "He did get me!"

"He did." Margie continued. "You are here, but this is different."

"How is being dead any different, Grandma?" Jordan scoffed. "Dead is dead!"

"That is just my point." As Margie stood the two were back on the bridge. "You can not be dead dead."

"What?" Jordan frowned.

"One should not be able to exist in two spaces." Margie tried to set aside the emotion of seeing her grand daughter for the first time and focused on the events. "You were wounded by that man. Then the medics came to work on your wound. But they could not find a pulse. The two tried to help but could not and they moved on to the other men."

"Save the men who torture and treated the workers like crap! Way to go guys!" Jordan was angry. "How about Fadhlan? Did he die?" She looked to her grandmother.

"He was not injured. And lives free." Margie shook her head. "Seems money can buy freedom."

"Do you know what happened to the workers and my team?" Jordan looked to her grandmother for answers.

"I am not the all seeing woman of the bridge, but there is a way we can see what is still happening." Margie suggested. "But do you really want to see yourself?"

"Yes!" Jordan was emphatic. "I did not live with fear, why should I fear in death?"

"Good point!" Margie agreed. "Okay this will feel a little surreal, but here goes!"

The keeper of the bridge placed her thumbs and forefingers together, looked to her grand daughter then pulled them apart exposing Jordan to the scene she just left. The paratroopers had just left and all that remained were the dead, left for the forest to reclaim.

"They just left me there?" Jordan walked away from the viewing area.

"What a second! Jordan, do you recognize these people?" Margie called the young woman back to the viewing area.

"Oh, yeah. That is Wing and Yue." Jordan smiled they are great at helping people. I just let them all down!"

"Jordan, you have helped thousands! No one can take that away from you." Margie wrapped an arm around the waist of her grand daughter.

"But I have also taken lives, Grandma. I am sure they all had families as well." Jordan felt remorse for her actions.

"We are not here to judge you, darling. We see the difference you and your father are making." Margie then pointed to the viewing area. "Looks like one of your friends has not given up on you!"

Jordan watched Yue work feverishly on her. "Yeah...that is Yue. She's a medical student. Give it up Yue, I am already..."

Something happened to the Unlikely Assassin as she jolted away from her grandmother. "Grandma?" Jordan was confused.

Martin appeared beside Margie and they both simply smiled.