Thursday, October 30, 2025: Lynn Bronstein's "Safety Exit"

 

Lynne Bronstein is the author of Nasty Girls (Four Feathers Press) and four

other books of poetry. She has been published in magazines ranging from Playgirl

to Chiron Review, from Lummox to anthologies in England, Ireland, Israel,

Canada, and India. Her short fiction has appeared in magazines and anthologies

and has been read on National Public Radio. She also writes a column on Facebook

and Substack called Show Biz Cats.

Safety Exit

You’re not going to believe this story. I am telling you that right now. I have

been living it and I still can’t believe it. When we dream, our dreams seem real, so

anything that happens that is not possible in real life seems like a kind of

breakthrough. I have experienced this breakthrough and yet I pinch myself and I

am indeed in the real world. I can’t offer any scientific explanation for why it is

happening to me. Maybe there is something about computer screens, a special aura,

or maybe there is an ability within some of us, a latent magic that goes untapped

until the moment is right for it to emerge.

All I can tell you is that if I stare for a minute or so at my laptop screen or at

my phone screen and at the same time, I think of a place I want to be-I am there. I

am suddenly transported to that place, as if I dematerialized and reassembled my

atoms like those transporters in science fiction, but faster than that. I don’t even

notice any passage of time. I think something like “I want to be at the shopping

center” and I am there, no car, no bus, no bike, no walking, no fuss. And I have not

as yet detected any bad after-effects. I don’t even get motion sickness, like I used

to as a child when I traveled in fast-moving vehicles.

The first time this happened to me, I was sitting at my desk. It was a cloudy,

cool, dull, gloomy afternoon. I had finished writing an article and I was tanked,

emotionally and mentally. I was ready to take a nap but I didn’t want to fall asleep

in the middle of the afternoon. I was depressed. I began looking at web pages that

advertised hotel getaways. Prices were way up, even for the bargain hotels. I felt

more depressed. One waits and waits for the time to be able to take off and enjoy

oneself with travel and then, what happens? Pandemics. Money problems.

Obligations to others. Bad weather. Bad world politics. Bad everything.

My eyes drifted to the column at the right side of Facebook, where they list

“contacts.” I think these are just names of people whose posts I see more

frequently than others. I saw the name Samantha Sassoon and it made me smile.

Samantha Sassoon was a rock and roll chick whose house was full of hippie

and music bric-a-brac, and whose circle of friends included many of the greats of

the music world. I had been to some of her parties and I always thought of her in

cheerful terms. Of all the people I knew, she, at this time, seemed like someone I

would like to be hanging out with. But I had no idea what her schedule was like.

She might be out of town. She might be working on some writing of her own. She

might be taking a nap. I looked at my computer screen and I thought: I would like

to be with her at her house right now and I wish there was a party.

I was aware that I was still sitting at a desk but suddenly it was not my desk.

Where I had a plastic container full of pens, there was now a vase filled with fresh

flowers. Where I had some old envelopes, there was an Elvis Bobble-Head doll.

Samantha was sitting directly to my right, with her rainbow varicolored hair,

dressed in a long gauzy gown, looking half whatever her age was.

At my left sat a younger woman with very long dark hair and a dark blue

velvet dress.

“My hair feels so much better now that I’ve trimmed it a little,” said

Samantha.

”I am so not into cutting mine,” said the dark-haired woman. “I know it

keeps getting longer and ought to be unmanageable but I feel it makes me look

Younger.”

I realized I was sitting in the middle of their conversation and I was not, as

yet, a part of it. Was I invisible? I turned to Samantha first.

“I’m sorry if I seem to have suddenly appeared here,” I said, feeling silly

about my explanation. “I really did just suddenly find myself here. I don’t know

why I’m here, I just am.”

Where was I sitting anyway? At Samantha’s desk but why were there

three chairs?

“But we don’t mind,” said the dark-haired woman. “We’re just discussing

hairdressers. We’re taking a break from the party. It’s getting too noisy. I’m Rachel,

by the way. I’ve known Samantha since high school.”

“Did you get any of the food?” Samantha asked me. “I made a quiche but

I think it might be all gone by now.”

They seemed so relaxed and friendly. I kept wondering why and how this

was happening. I had been at my own apartment, at my own desk, and lost in my

own funk, and now I was at a party, sitting on a slightly broken chair that had been

hastily drawn up to Samantha’s desk so I could sit there. I was a guest at the party

as if I had come in my car or come with another guest. No one realized there was a

hole in the universe and I had transported myself through it.

I went to the living room and found a mob of guests there and out in the

back yard. There was indeed a table groaning with food, salads, bread, casseroles,

desserts, wine. An unofficial bartender was mixing up cocktails. Music was

playing on a sound system, people were talking, smoking, laughing. A man I didn’t

know but who behaved as if I should have known him, offered to give me a

massage. I accepted and submitted to his rather rough version of deep tissue work.

After that, I had a drink. I needed it. Samantha was making the rounds, hugging

people and seeing that they were all well-fed; her friend Rachel came over and

hugged me for no reason. It was all good fun but finally it got to be too much for

me. I took out my phone, thinking of calling an Uber to get me back home.

But no Uber got me home. Suddenly, I was back in my apartment and in

my room.

The thought was the vehicle. It was like Dorothy clicking her heels three

times and saying “There’s no place like home.” Had I always had the power also.

to go to Oz and return home?

I continued to try out my transport chops. I transported myself to an

appointment with an editor, went to a shopping center, visited a museum, saw a

movie at a theater that was miles from where I live, and managed to evaporate

from a community meeting I found too boring.

I didn’t know how long this gift would last. I was aware that whatever

forces beyond my understanding had given this power to me, I might lose it at any

time. I might be held accountable for misusing it. So, I tried to not over-use it. I

was having fun with the ability to bypass traffic and bad weather. I was able to

have fun and get things done efficiently. And curiously, no one seemed to notice

how I turned up for events or how I left. Nobody during this time asked me to give

them a lift and I was glad because how would I explain how “the lift” worked? It

was my secret and I supposed I was able to keep transporting as long as I kept the

secret.

Then, last week, I found I really needed this power.

My city has been invaded by forces we never asked for. Men with

uniforms and helmets and masks, who demand to see identification but don’t really

care. They are harassing Mexicans and other immigrants from Spanish-speaking

countries. They are going after people who look like they may be Spanish-

speaking. Everyone has been afraid. In some areas, people are afraid to go outside.

In my neighborhood, they have not made deep inroads yet but there is a

little food truck I like to stop at once in a while. It is operated by Salvadoreans. I

like to buy food items like rolled up “taquitos” with lots of guacamole,

“enchiladas” which are not like the Mexican ones but rather more like tostadas,

piled high with lettuce, chiles, shredded chicken, and salsa. Of course, they also

sell the Salvadorean specialty, pupusas, little dough hot pockets but better than any

hot pockets you could buy in the freezer section. I like to order these items by

speaking what little Spanish I know: “Yo quero un orden numero veinte y uno,”

Where the truck is parked at the curb of the street, the proprietors have

also set up a little café of sorts, with a couple of tables. People are always sitting

there and eating, entire families, young couples in love, eating and laughing and

listening to recorded Latin music.

I stopped by the truck, thinking I would buy one of the little Salvadorean

pastries called quesadillas, round thick little pound cakes studded with sesame

Seeds.

I saw several of the sinister men, wearing helmets, and with their faces

masked, approaching. My heart beat faster. No, no, please don’t do this. Please

don’t let me see this.

The men began to pull people out of their seats. They grabbed the man who

was taking the orders.

I took out my phone. People had been posting on social media some

instructions for what to do if you saw these agents going after their prey. I scrolled

and scrolled, looking frantically for the phone number that had been given out. I

remembered that I had been told I should stand in front of the people being herded

away, to be a shield because I was not the agents’ target. But part of me wanted to

get away as soon as possible. I was scared. They might still grab me, even if I

wasn’t the prey they wanted.

I saw two little girls who were crying. Two little brown-skinned girls, who

seemed to be about four and seven years old respectively.

Had their parents just been nabbed? I went closer to them. I took their

hands. “No llores,” I told them. “Por favor, no llores.”

I looked at my phone and thought: there’s no place like home.

The agents moved toward us. There’s no place like home. There’s no place

like home. Click my heels together three times.

And we were home. The two little girls and me. We were back in my

Apartment.

They were still crying but I told them as best I could, in my mangled

Spanglish, that they were now safe. I could not help them find their parents yet but

I would try to. Now that I had time, I began looking online for organizations that

would help these girls. They needed to be taken care of and kept safe, while

authorities searched for their parents.

After hours of searching, I realized that the places described as centers for

sheltering immigrant children were horrible places that I could not send these girls

to live in. I vowed to keep them with me for as long as I could.

The little girls are still with me, as I continue to look for organizations and

individuals who might be able to help us.

Ana is five years old and Lupita is three. They sleep on either side of me in

my bed. They cry a lot and I comfort them. I feed them and I have bought some

toys for them. I am worried that people will find out I am hiding them. At the same

time, I know I will be adding to their numbers and I will soon need a way to

transport them to a larger, safer place.

Such places may exist yet in this world. Good people exist and try to help.

I realize now that using my transport power just to go to parties and

shopping was a trivial use of that power. That was not why I was chosen to receive

this gift. It has been given to me to make me into a new kind of coyote. I use the

power to rescue people. There are many people in a big city who need rescuing.

Whether it is from a fire, or a building caving in, or from depraved criminals who

prey on children, or from false agents of the law who are not really representing

the law as we knew it, these people need help from me because I have this power.

And might there not be a way to teach others how to have the power?

I have my mission now. I am not thinking any more about parties (although

I might teach Samantha and her party-goers how to do this). If you don’t see me

much, it is because I am sheltering myself when I am not transporting to danger

zones and helping people to a safety exit, an invisible hole in the air, a secret tunnel

to a better place.

   I am just trusting that the power will last me for as long as it is needed

.Click. I am home. I am safe. Take my hand. Look at the screen on my phone.

Know that we are traveling. We are safe. There is no place like home.