The Busy Bee Cafe -- A Visitor

     Another lazy day at the Busy Bee. Shortly after Harry's unfortunate incident involving his roundabout visit to 1943 and back, and after the Bee was restored to "real time," another incident followed which found Laslo, Denise, and a few diners looking curiously out the long front window of the cafe. They saw not the familiar 18th Street and the bicycle shop across it and the Kansas City downtown skyline beyond, but an expansive clearing of tall, wild grass and beyond that, a dense cluster of oak and locust amid some low, sparse shrubbery. There were no streets or buildings in sight.

    "Another time shift?" Laslo had set his coffee cup down on the counter, and Denise came over to stand by him. They both peered curiously out the window. A scattering of diners seated at tables by the window glanced up but then returned to their food and conversation without much interest.

    "Kind of seems that way."  Denise looked down at Laslo's coffee mug and absently filled it from the pot she had been carrying in one hand. 

Then she said, "Hmm.  Look at that!" 

    Laslo nodded. A man, naked except for a loin cloth, was now standing outside the window, looking in at them intently, leaning close to the glass as he tried to defeat the reflection of the bright sky behind him. He was light skinned, but tanned, with piercing blue eyes and long, yellow hair that touched his shoulders. On his face was a look of curiosity without a trace of fear. 

    Denise looked away from the window and addressed Laslo. "Uhm . . . where are we, do you think?"

    "Look."  Laslo raised his arm and pointed at the window, above and to the right of the blonde haired man.

    "Are those Native Americans?" Denise asked.

    "I think so." The smaller figures in the distance had emerged from the oak grove, carrying spears as they ran toward them. They were about 50 yards away, but getting closer by the second. The blonde man turned and saw the spear carriers and then turned back toward the window. This time his face showed fear.  He pushed on the large glass pane experimentally.

    Denise looked at Laslo, who got up from the stool and took two steps toward the cafe's entrance, stopped and turned to Denise and raised his eyebrows. Denise's brow was furrowed with hesitant caution, but she nodded. Laslo strode across the dining room and pushed the front door open and leaned out just enough to motion to the blonde man. The gesture, universal, was welcome, and the blonde man shuffled quickly to the door, pausing only briefly before stepping inside. Laslo pulled the door shut and as luck would have it--as luck always seemed to have it around here--the warning bell, the big red metal bell on the wall above the ice machine, began its long, ten-second clanging.

    During that time, the customers who sat at the two tables by the window turned and regarded the blonde man for a few seconds before returning to their meals and their conversation. Laslo and the newcomer stood and looked at each other, and Denise looked from the two men to the scene outside the window, which had changed back to 18th street just as a rusty 2027 Volkwagen Jetta coughed and sputtered its way past the diner. She relaxed, as had Laslo, knowing that the spear wielding pair outside had, by now, been dead and buried for centuries. It was hard to tell with no historical references, and Denise didn't think they had ever shifted this far back. 

    Still standing by the front door, Laslo and the visitor looked at each other carefully.  Laslo smiled. "Well, who are you?"  

    The blonde haired, half-naked man who stood barefooted on the black and white tiles of the floor of the Busy Bee Cafe looked from Laslo to the scene outside the window, the puzzled look on his face changing from perplexity to acceptance as he looked back. Whatever the events in this man's life that had led him to this moment, his superb adaptive qualities had served him well so far. Now, he became calmer as he surveyed the scene outside and then turned to take in the inside of the cafe and the man and the woman who stood watching him. The man was big. Capable. The woman was beautiful and looked capable as well. He looked at her red hair and smiled. He then said to Laslo, forming the sounds carefully, "Wall hoo arr yu."