Inadvertently Entangled: Day 1

Word Count: 6,068

Summary of Events:

Waking up, Pierson finds himself in a very old-fashioned hospital room. He soon comes to realise that somehow he's in 1943, living the experiences of his great uncle, who was hospitalised in Kraków after running away from an SS roadblock and getting into an accident, following which his car was shot up and burned by the Germans, while he was rescued by the Polish resistance and taken to the hospital. Two men whom he presumes are associates of his tell him most of the information, as even though he nearly knows his great uncle's stories by heart, he finds some parts of them hard to remember — but not as hard to remember as what happened to him in the real world that got him into the past. When it comes time for him to be released from the hospital, the men bring him fresh clothes and Pierson suffers a nearly nauseating dizzy spell when he sits up to put them on…

Excerpt of the Day:

“Maybe move a little bit more gingerly next time,” the man with the moustache said, a sympathetic and rather paternal smile on his face.

The man with the moustache helped Pierson remove the long nightshirt he’d been wearing and start dressing in his clothes, except they weren’t his clothes.

Nothing had elastics in it — not even his underwear — and the shirt, pants, and suit jacket were all even more fitted than he usually wore, and he did prefer his suits to be on the more fitted side when he had to wear them.

In fact, his socks were held on with garters which felt beyond weird against his legs, and he was glad the man with the moustache had put them on so he wouldn’t have to bend over and suffer the lurching throes of dizziness again, as he had no idea how to put them on or attach his socks, but he felt absolutely ridiculous, and he wished that elastic had been invented by 1943, as he didn’t know how he was supposed to dress himself if he had to stay in 1943 much longer.

Once his shoes were on — having been tied by the man with the moustache — he was then slowly eased to his feet by the man with the moustache, for which he was grateful, as a second wave of dizziness came over him whose severity he was confident the slow and gradual nature of the action had mitigated.

The slim man then lifted the coat off his arm and he and the man with the moustache manoeuvred it around Pierson, who slid into it easily and comfortably, fastening the familiar buttons himself.

Lifting the pocket flap, he reached into the deep, roomy pocket — even for a man’s coat — expecting his fingers to make contact with his cellphone, but he felt nothing remotely like the slim-but-sturdy case of his phone, or its sleek screen.

A check of his right pocket yielded the same. But this was his coat! He knew this coat inside and out. This was the coat he’d taken from Uncle Ashford’s effects when the family had gone through Uncle Ashford’s stuff after the stuff he’d specifically willed to people had been dispensed. His cellphone and his wallet, for sure, ought to be in the pockets, but neither were present. What had happened to them? Who’d stolen them?
“I’ll go warm the car,” the slim man said.

The man with the moustache nodded and Pierson watched him go. As soon as he’d recognised the coat he’d been confident he’d find what he needed to prove that he wasn’t Uncle Ashford, but those items had been removed, and he felt horribly disheartened.

“Once he’s warmed the car up a few minutes we’ll go out and join him,” the man with the moustache said.

“Right,” Pierson said. How was he supposed to figure out what was going on and get himself back to the present without his cellphone?