The Cry Room

A short story

I had hoped that with the wind howling through the church’s many cracks, the rain pelting the roof, and the relentless thunderclaps, Father Gilmore wouldn’t hear Eliana’s crying. I purposefully sat in the back, but that didn’t help. The church’s walls, designed to amplify speech so the priest could preach without electronics, boosted her wails. 

When Father Gilmore mouthed “cry room” to me, I flushed. I wasn’t the only one to notice—everyone had! I scooped up Eliana and hurried to the room on the left side of the nave, where Eliana and I could observe the mass without disturbing the other worshipers. 

The cry room measured three by six paces, which I know because I did a lot of pacing. A triple-pane window and thick walls completely contained the children’s cries. Through the window, I spied congregants’ furtive glances, though they were probably looks of contempt rather than auditory annoyance. I’m sure that if the congregation still heard Eliana's sonics, Father Gilmore would have let me know.

Loudspeakers piped the mass into the room, filling it with lush song and prayer. 

After thirty minutes, Eliana stopped crying. The service was half over, but I was already exhausted from non-stop walking with a sixteen-pound wriggling body in my arms. 

The cry room had a curtain for the window and a cot. I closed the curtain and lay on the cot with Eliana next to me, the liturgy lulling me to sleep.

I must have fallen into a deep slumber because when I opened the curtain, the nave was empty and dark. I guess the father had forgotten about me, which was understandable, given how busy he was greeting parishioners after mass. 

I picked up Eliana and stepped to the door but found it locked. After five minutes of pulling and twisting the handle, I gave up and pounded on the door. After another five minutes, I concluded that somebody had closed the entire church without checking the cry room, and I’d be stuck here until Monday morning.

With a baby. And no food. 

I fished my phone out of my bag to call Dmitri, my ex-husband. He was likely still in bed with his new girlfriend, but his daughter needed rescuing, and helping us was the least he could do.

The phone displayed a full battery, but I didn't have a signal. I did what anyone would have done without phone reception in these circumstances. I double-fist punched the door, kicked it, and screamed.

Eliana screamed with me. 

I pounded until my hands hurt so much that I had to stop. I plopped onto the cot and thought about my next move.

Something on the side of the room opposite the window caught my eye. With Eliana in her front-facing carrier, I ran my hand along the wall and found it: a subtle door-sized depression. An exit. There wasn’t a handle or anything, but the size was such that it could only be a door. 

I banged on the space, but nothing happened. 

I pressed my shoulder against the left side, hoping it would swing open. When the door didn’t budge, I pressed against the other side as hard as possible, and when it opened, I tumbled through, almost tripping over my feet. I landed on a hard bench against the far wall. I was okay, and Eliana was still asleep, a miracle.

“Who’s that?” came a woman’s voice. 

A kerosine lantern illuminated the room, casting a warm glow on the woman’s face. She was in her young twenties and held a baby in her arms. 

She had black ear-length hair parted in the middle and wore a brown and dark-yellow, paisley patterned skirt that reminded me of the curtains in my grandmother’s apartment. The dress resembled a bell and was half as wide as she was tall. Her rusty-gold bodice appeared uncomfortably tight. 

She was out of place. It wasn’t just her clothes, but her baby’s outfit, too, a white lace dress with a pink bonnet on top, like a costume one might put a poodle in. Her greased hair reflected the lantern light. Thick, white makeup covered her face. “Come closer,” she said. 

She gulped. “Who are you? You’re all...wrong. Your clothes, your hair. And your baby, how is it attached to your body?” She pointed to my Integra Baby Carrier. 

“I was going to say the same about you. My name is Ashley Wells. I was locked in the cry room with Eliana and found this door to—where are we?”

“I’m Rebecca. The little one is Margaret. She’s four months old. “We’re in the cry room at Saint Jerome’s Church. It’s nice to meet you Ashley, but there’s something wrong with you, more than one thing out of sorts.”

I shook my head. “No, no, no, you can’t be in Saint Jerome’s. I’m in Saint Jerome’s cry room, or was, and it looks nothing like this.” I swept my eyes around the dimly lit space, which must have been no larger than six by four feet. The room smelled of fresh pine wood. I opened the wooden shutters covering the window on the room’s far side, revealing a nave, which was simultaneously brand new and old-fashioned. Sconces with candles adorned the walls. “This isn’t Saint Jerome’s,” I said.

“It sure is. The church was finished last month, so if you’re from out-of-town as you appear to be, you may not have heard of it.”

“I’ve lived in New Haven, Connecticut for my entire adult life and have been a member of Saint Jerome’s since I was a kid.”

Margaret cooed. 

Rebecca stroked her head. 

Maybe there are two Saint Jeromes? 

“Our church was built in 1850. What about yours?” I asked.

“Like I said, this year, 1850.”

My legs wobbled, and my knees nearly buckled. I grabbed a hardwood chair, steadied myself, and took deep breaths. In the room’s dim light, I studied the woman’s face. She didn’t seem crazy, though I doubt I could tell insane and sane people apart just by their looks. “Say that again.”

“Saint Jerome is brand new. It was completed this past May, 1850.”

“That can't be.”

“What can't be?” Rebecca narrowed her eyes. 

I was in Saint Jerome, but a version that existed in the past.

“I don’t know how to say this, but I live in the year 2023.” I covered my face with my hands. “But I’m not in 2023 anymore.”

The woman’s laugh echoed off the small room’s walls. “What kind of fool do you take me for? Did Father George send you here to trick me? He loves his practical jokes as much as he loves his whiskey. Sometimes he loves them together.”

I slipped my phone out of my pocket and showed Rebecca a video Dmitri had taken of me buckling Eliana in our red Chrysler Pacifica. 

She nearly dropped the phone. “What is—?”

Wanting to prove without a doubt that I was from the future—though I could barely believe it myself—I showed her a video I’d taken at Logan Airport of planes landing and taking off. 

“You’re not a—” She shook her head. “No, I don’t believe in witches. You’re saying you live one hundred and seventy-three years from now?”

“Yes. Like you, I was exiled to the cry room when Eliana began making noise during mass. I fell asleep, and when I woke, I found a door that opened to your cry room, which seems to exist in the past.”

“The same thing happened to me. Margaret and I fell asleep during the service. When we woke, it was quiet. Mass was over. I’m grateful that the lamp still had kerosene because otherwise I’d be in pitch black, and while I don’t believe in witches, I don’t like to be alone in a dark room because my imagination conjures all manner of monsters. I must have tried for an hour until I was exhausted, but couldn’t open the door. How do we get out of here?”

“Can you hold the lantern for me? Maybe there’s another door on the wall like there was that brought me into your cry room.”

“And if there is, where will it bring us? To your year?”

“I guess so. Any place is better than being trapped in this room. We’ll need water, food, and clean diapers soon, and who knows how long it will take for somebody to find us if they ever can.”

Rebecca held the lamp while I patted the wall. After a minute, I found the edge of the door that would bring us back to my time. As for getting out of my cry room once we were back in 2023, I’d figure that out. One problem at a time. Maybe I could get a signal by holding my phone against the cry room's window. Or the two of us screaming together would attract more attention than just me alone—there’d be even more volume if our babies joined in. 

At least we’d be back in 2023, which would be a relief. I didn’t relish spending the rest of my life in the pre-flush toilet era. 

I held my breath and pushed the door open. We walked through with our babies.

“Where are we?” Rebecca asked.

“I have no idea,” I replied as I processed. An expanse of beige canvas that I estimated was about ten feet in circumference shrouded us like a circus tent. A pole in the center supported the tent, and sitting on the dirt floor was a young woman, her legs crossed, wearing clothes made from sheepskin and a beaded headband. She rocked an infant in her arms. 

Tepid moonlight illuminated the space inside. 

She spoke in a language I could not understand. 

The woman held her baby tighter and spoke again, her words gibberish. 

But I knew what had happened, and Rebecca did, too.

“Not where, but when are we? The door from your cry room didn’t open into my present, but instead brought us further into the past. I don’t know how far we’ve traveled back in time, but I think if we’re still in New Haven—if we’re traveling in time but not space—whatever year this is is well before the American revolution. Sixteen hundreds? Fourteen hundreds? It could be earlier. We don’t have enough data points to figure out how far back each jump takes us.”

“Or why we’re here. Everything has a reason.”

“Let’s see if we can find out.”

I opened Google Translate on my phone and selected Detect Language, vaguely recalling and hoping I had downloaded Google’s entire one-hundred-thirty-three language database, which included rare and extinct tongues. I sat beside the woman, pressed the Conversation button, and said, “My name is Ashley. This is Rebecca, and our babies are Eliana and Margaret.”

“I am Kisusq.” Translating from Mohegan-Pequot. Kisusq means sun. Google Translate spoke in a crisp, female voice.

“Where are we?”

“In the forest near the river in the cry tent.”

“What is the cry tent?”

“This is where they send mothers whose babies make noise during the Land Ceremony. Yázhí.” Google Translate stuttered for a moment before translating. “My baby was too loud, so the Elder sent us here.”

“We’re in a cry room,” Rebecca said. “Different place, not a church, but a cry room nonetheless. What does it mean? Why cry rooms?”

“Where are you from?” Kisusq asked.

I noticed the tent had no opening, flap, or place where the moonlight broke through a seam. “Can you get out of here?” 

“No. I am stuck. I think the ceremony is over, but I cannot exit. I even tried cutting an opening with my knife, but I couldn't break through. I’m sorry, wherever you are from, you can’t return because there is no way out.”

Using my phone’s flashlight to augment the moonlight, I walked the tent’s circumference. When I was almost back at my starting point, I touched a seam for an invisible flap—the exit. As I placed my hand on the flap, Rebecca grabbed my wrist.

“Wait!” Google translated Rebecca’s speech into Pequot. “We’re going to travel further back into time, aren’t we? If this is pre-America, then when will we be when we step out of this cry room? We may travel so far into the past that there is no civilization. We have babies. How will they survive? How will we?”

“Travel, the past? What do you mean?” Kisasq asked.

“Tell her. She deserves to know,” Rebecca said.

“Do you see how very different our clothes are from yours? This thing in my hand with the lights and symbols?” I passed her my Pixel while I fished my house keys out of my pocket. “These are keys.” I had no idea if Google translated keys into the right word because I didn’t know if the Pequot had a word for key. “We come from many years from now, from a time that has not yet happened.” 

I studied her face for any trace of understanding, and when Kisasq said, “From many snowfalls to snowfalls,” I knew she comprehended enough. I told her about the rest of our day. 

“Yes. Rebecca and I were both in cry rooms in our church. Same church, different snows. As you are in this cry tent, which I suspect is in the same location.” 

Kisasq squeezed my hand. “We seek answers. But more importantly, we must find a safe place for our babies. What choice do we have but to go through the door because if we stay, we die.” 

What choice? I thought. But even if there’s a civilization at the next time-jump, I doubt Google Translate will know their language. Wherever we end up, we’ll be lost. And unless Rebecca and I learn Pequot in the next twenty-four hours or Kisasq becomes fluent in English before my phone’s battery runs out, we’ll no longer be able to communicate with her. Maybe the next jump will have answers, or more likely, we’ll be worse off. 

“Kisasq is right. We must,” I said. So, I pushed the tent flap aside and stepped into a barren, open expanse, where a deep red light bathed us. A large, red sun filled a quarter of the sky. I squinted as sunspots floated across the sun’s surface. 

The tent was gone. 

I shivered. So did Rebecca and Kisasq. 

The ground we were standing on was made of glass, but solid black, like obsidian. 

In front of us stood a chalk-white, two-story building, square with a jet-black dome on top. An array of six black and white antennas fashioned from ice of varying heights poked out from the dome. Light glowed from inside one of the building’s windows. 

We’ve traveled to the future. 

Cradling our babies, Rebecca, Kisasq, and I approached the building, the black beneath us singing like wind chimes. We walked neither warily nor excitedly, for what choice did we have but to go to this building, the only shelter I could see? 

Our three babies wailed, the deafening cry of a storm funneling through tight-spaced mountain peaks. I was surprised they’d been quiet so far, but now sounded like—pardon me Father Gilmore wherever you are—holy hell. I cranked my phone’s volume to the maximum, but the crying made it impossible for us to use the translator. That was okay. We didn’t need to communicate. We just needed to get to the house where the answers would be waiting, whether we liked the answers or not.

The building’s door disappeared as we approached it. We looked at each other, nodded, and stepped inside. 

A man with gray hair and a gray beard, dressed in denim overalls, a silvery-metallic t-shirt, gold-colored slippers, and no socks, sat on a glass chair facing the door. He held a blue disc in his hand.

There was no other furniture. 

“Welcome. I am Methuselah.” His accent was unfamiliar. Maybe a combination of Spanish and Swedish, though I couldn’t place it. 

Rebecca raised her eyebrows. 

“No, Rebecca. Not that Methuselah. It’s the name I’ve taken because it suits me, but I am far older than anyone in your literature.”

He squeezed the blue disc. Three glass chairs materialized. “Please sit. We haven’t much time.”

Pouppous cried, inciting wails of fury in Eliana and Margaret. 

“Pouppous cries loudly. I am sorry,” Kisasq shouted over our three infants' voices. “The babies are hungry, thirsty, scared, and tired. We are, too.”

Methuselah nodded. “Their cries are beautiful.”

“Nobody likes to hear a baby cry,” Rebecca said. 

“Perhaps, but it’s what I desire more than anything before I die. Did you see the sun? Tomorrow, Earth’s sun will explode into the universe’s most amazing and deadly phenomenon, a supernova, vaporizing the entire solar system. I am the last human on Earth and have been alone for a million years.”

“How, why?”

“It’s my purpose to bear witness to the end. The rest of humanity evacuated long ago to other worlds and galaxies, spreading across the universe in a magnificent diaspora. They took their babies, of course, including my children. I have not heard a voice other than my own for those million years, but your children’s melodies are what I longed for most. They are the beginning of life, music to a man who is at the end of his. Can you understand that?”

How did we—?”

“When a star is on the cusp of detonation, powerful forces brew inside, an immense and turbulent energy swirl, so much energy that it can tear through time. The day before the star explodes—and only that day—time travel is possible by harnessing and directing the energy.”

He raised the blue disc. 

“How far in the future are we?” 

“Over nine billion years.” 

Eliana, Pouppous, and Margaret cried louder. 

“The time machine is an imperfect, complex, and convoluted instrument, as you’ve no doubt noticed. This far from the past, I couldn’t determine if any given person would be a baby or adult, so I chose a cry room to make it as likely as possible that I’d bring a baby forward, selecting three cry rooms to increase those odds. I hope you forgive me for bringing you here, but I am an old man with a dying wish.”

The sun pulsed, the Earth trembled, and our chairs wobbled to the point of almost falling over. 

For several moments, the only sound in the room was Methuselah’s teardrops striking the floor, a pitter-pat like rain against a window. “The end is here. Thank you for making my death joyous. I will send you back to your times now.” Methuselah squeezed the blue disc, and the brightest light I’d ever seen enveloped us. 

---

If you enjoyed The Cry Room, I think you’ll also like my story, The Billboard.

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