What Is Going On

 

2024-07-04 “What Is Going On” by Jenn

WHAT IS GOING ON—“Why are my bloomers so… tiny?” Emma held up a pair of black lace panties and shook her head.

Jenn and Merrit had just arrived at the motel in Omaha when they felt their eyes pulled to a young woman approaching them. Jenn had felt herself go numb and tingly at the same time, and apparently Merritt felt it two.

Emma Knox was another Time Traveler. She told Jenn she was born outside Vicksburg, Mississippi to a poor sharecropping family in 1861. She was 19 in 1880 when she hopped a train, fell asleep, and woke up in the passenger seat of a semi-truck in 2024. Jenn and Merritt knew that they had to help her.

“Sweatie, they are called panties now.”

“Backpack… panties…” Emma looked at her belongings spread out on the bed in the hotel room she was sharing with Jenn. “Why ain’t I got a single camisole? I packed them. And no skirts… no petticoats…”

Jenn looked at all the things spread out. “Okay, poor girls in 2024 probably would wear jeans and shorts, like you have. Not skirts very often. What I know of old-south history, sharecroppers were as poor as you could get, so it looks like what you packed got… changed into a 2024 equivalent.”

“Poor as dirt, to tell you the truth,” Emma held up a Halmart t-shirt. “This is fancy, though.”

Jenn had noticed that most of her things were from Halmart or Bullseye department stores; the store brands. Generics for shampoo and toothpaste. Bargain makeup.”

“T-shirts are really versatile.”

“Guess I can wear ‘em instead of a camisole?”

Jenn had already noticed, but had not mentioned to Emma, that she had no bras. The forces behind the time traveling seemed to have, indeed, turned her camisoles into t-shirts. She was a petite, young girl, and Jenn figured she’d manage without one for a couple days.

“Yes, you can.” 

Jenn had already explained indoor plumbing. Emma was fingering the lipstick, so Jenn braced herself.

Emma looked at it strangely. “Well, I know what this is, but I shouldn’t.”

“What? Jenn was confused.

“Lip color. But I never seen anything like this. I just sorta know…”

“You just sort of know?” Jenn decided that things were going to be very, very complicated with Emma.