March 26, 1963
Randall must think this is romantic. Francie catches sight of him, breathlessly rushing toward her through the well-dressed crowds in the concourse. She’s standing near the windows at her gate in Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, ticket to New York City in hand, gussied up in uncomfortable hose and pumps and a pencil-skirted traveling suit from Goodwill, and she’s surprised to see him. She didn’t know that her boyfriend would be showing up here.
August 17, 2027
Denise’s glass is mid-air, in the midst of a toast, when Francie has the stroke. A prism of light, glancing off the raised glass, shocks Francie’s eye, and she loses sight. For a moment, she can see nothing at all. She drops her own glass, but she only knows that she’s dropped it because the sound of it breaking is deafening. She doesn’t feel it slip from her fingers. In fact, she soon realizes she doesn’t feel anything at all on her right side.
October 6, 2018
Denise should win this thing, if Francie doesn’t do something to blow it.
Francie is now 74 and ‘spry’ by the standards of annoying younger people. She has long, wiry, gray hair and a tendency to move her hips in ways that a wise woman wouldn’t move aging joints.
June 25, 1973
Before she opens her eyes, Francie takes stock. Her mind isn’t blitzed by a hangover, so this can’t be the day after yesterday. She smells fresh-baked pecan rolls, which means she’s at her Mom’s house. She has to pee desperately, and her belly is heavy and huge. It feels like something is moving inside her. She realizes that she’s very pregnant, more pregnant than she’s ever been. This must be 1973 then. Her son will be born on July 14, 1973.
Imagine waking up every day on a random, non-sequential morning, sometime during your own very long lifetime. That’s the life of Francie Phipps.
On any given day, there are things in her past she doesn’t know yet, and things in her future she knows already. Those around her think they see her move through life as they do, from one day to the next, but Francie is truly unmoored from time.
I hope you’ll enjoy following her singularly strange life story in this serial fantasy fiction tale.
If you’re new to this serial, you might want to start by reading chapter one: https://bluefernpress.com/francie-phipps-chapter-one/