Story - Travel Light...

 She could feel a pulling in her chest as her eyes followed the laser light along it's path. It was made visible by the smoke rolling out from behind the backdrops. Something in her longed to fly along that line of light and come out anywhere but at the noise filled auditorium, sitting next to the date from hell. He had asked her if she liked music. 

When she'd said "yes" he'd hung up before she said she loved the symphony and Celtic music, and that she could take both Jazz and Country in small quantities. So he had picked her up, looked at her little black dress strangely, shrugged and drove downtown to the amphitheater. 

 She should have taken a taxi home immediately when she saw more leather and chains in the lobby than she'd ever seen before. But she was on a date. So, finding a set of green earplugs in her purse, she stuck it out, purse clutched in her hand to keep it from being stepped on by the enthusiastic fans all around her. 

 It was supposed to be fun. But the longer she followed the lights with her eyes the more she began to think that she was stoned from the weed being smoked all around her, she swore she was being pulled out of her chair by her chest. 

Distracting herself from the noise of the hard rock concert, she allowed herself to relax and let the mysterious tug take her. She couldn't figure out how she'd ended up backstage. But the odd pulling in her chest was gone. 

Convinced that she was totally stoned, she stumbled into a stagehand standing behind the backdrop. He herded her out the back door quickly, mumbling something about 'came from nowhere'. 

 The silence outside was such a relief. Purse already in hand, she decided not to go back. He wasn't worth it. 

 It took her an entire week before she figured out what had happened. And even then she had trouble believing it. Somehow she had ridden the laser light to its end. 

A little bit of searching turned up the term Temporal Bi-Location, pen size Laser Pointers, and not much else. 

So she began to experiment. 

Trial and error proved to be a bit dangerous as she couldn't remember what she'd tried and not tried. But keeping exact records in a small spiral notebook gave her enough information to be able to determine that while any of the visible wavelengths worked, when she really focused on the feeling in her chest she could get the most distance out of the red Laser pointer. 

Day after day she practiced, gaining distance until she could ride the laser light one hundred miles, even though it's label stated that it could only be seen for ten miles. 

 But no matter how often she practiced she couldn't seem to go further than a hundred miles, and at that she usually ended up stumbling when she landed. Sometimes dropping as much as 4-5 feet. Some of this was due to terrain differences but she finally realized that it was mostly due to the curvature of the earth. 

She began experimenting. Could she interrupt the flight in the middle? Once she could do that, she tried going straight up for a few feet and then changing directions by re-aiming the pointer while falling. She learned to travel great distances by this stair-step method. 

She was exposed to the weather every time she was stepping down and re-aiming the pointer. So she learned to check the weather, check the elevation and always have zippers on her pockets. 

She knew that when she sped along a beam of light, she was not visible. She figured it was because she was moving too fast. 

Not having the equipment she couldn't test whether she was traveling at the speed of light or not. But her travel felt instantaneous, unless she was in a course correction. She learned to cross the mountains, and oceans, jungles and deserts. She had 3 old fashioned compasses on lanyards and four pocket sized laser pointers. 

 So with her passport, a pocketful of currency, and courage she learned to Travel Light... 

Gayle 

Author's note - I don't know whether it works this way or not.

But I'm hopeful. I just bought my own laser pointer thingy.        ; )