The Cellar

[Laraqua]

He accepts the ticket and she steps onto a train whose lights are dimmed. The conductor keeps his flashlight on the floor as he takes her to her seat. The darkened train reminds her so much of that place. Has she really escaped? Is she really free? The train blows its whistle and then begins moving forward. One second becomes another and soon that station is but a dimmed shape in her past. She made it. She's really free....

[Mr. Handy]

Kate sighs with relief as she sits down, looking around to see if a newspaper is available so she can see what the current date is and what is currently happening, so she can find out how much time she's missed.

[Laraqua]

January 6, 1942 (Tuesday)

U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave the State of the Union Address to Congress. "In fulfilling my duty to report upon the State of the Union, I am proud to say to you that the spirit of the American people was never higher than it is today—the Union was never more closely knit together—this country was never more deeply determined to face the solemn tasks before it", the president began. "The response of the American people has been instantaneous, and it will be sustained until our security is assured ... We have not been stunned. We have not been terrified or confused. This very reassembling of the Seventy-seventh Congress today is proof of that; for the mood of quiet, grim resolution which here prevails bodes ill for those who conspired and collaborated to murder world peace. That mood is stronger than any mere desire for revenge. It expresses the will of the American people to make very certain that the world will never so suffer again."

Japanese troops landed at Brunei Bay in British Borneo.

Australia declared war on Bulgaria.

Died: Henri de Baillet-Latour, 65, Belgian aristocrat and the third president of the International Olympic Committee.

[Mr. Handy]

Kate is stunned. She has lost more than a year. She realizes that she will have to feign amnesia to explain her absence, or rather to avoid explaining it. She doesn't feel any older, except for the weariness from her ordeal. She is relieved that America has entered the war against Germany, and while it is disturbing that Japan is also now at war with Britain, she knows that America is more than a match for them. For the first time, she can see how victory, not just an end to the war, can be achieved. Nobody can match America for production. She continues to read the articles in detail while she waits for the train to reach her destination.

[Laraqua]

And so Kate continues on ... to regain her old life, to explain lost time, and potentially to locate sufficient dynamite to blow that old train station up. an act that will be declared an act of sabotage, doubtless by German spies. Thankfully morale doesn't crash after the building's cessation but it does seem to flounder sometimes. Is it just the nature of the slog of war or is it that the ritual had been holding something back? Still, the war effort continues, people put their effort in, and eventually the war will be won.

THE END.