Spell 'Time'
Spell
‘Time’
Timothy
Saunders, age 9, Rank 3 Duo-star sat in his learning circle amongst a
perfectly spaced grid of other students, his gaze fixed on the
teacher at the head of the classroom. Between Ms. Tempo and her
students stretched a curved wall of glass, across which spread
countless graphs, symbols, timers and lists. Around each student
circled a floor-to-ceiling tube of similar material with similar,
though less numerous graphics flashing all around its sides. Through
layer upon layer of words and graphs, Timothy Saunders peered,
fixedly watching his teacher as he nervously waited to be called on.
Chewing
on one lip and shifting restlessly in his seat, Timothy struggled to
keep his eyes open. He had not slept well last night and now, during
a test for his best subject, he struggled to stay awake. No
compromise! He must
achieve this grade, or he would never be promoted. It was all that
mattered now – getting promoted to Rank 3 Tri-star before he
finally clawed his way into Rank 4.
Because
Timothy Saunders was a bright kid.
But
he was so tired. With a start, Timothy’s eyes flew open and his
head jerked up so hard it almost hit the glass wall behind him.
Leaning forward, Timothy scrambled some graphs on his tubular screen
and set to work unscrambling them again. This would keep him awake
long enough . . . hopefully.
“Mr.
Saunders,” Ms. Tempo’s voice echoed around the interior of his
circle, “Spell ‘epiphany’ as in ‘an etymological epiphany’.”
“Yes
ma’am,” Timothy said, falling into auto-pilot as he quickly typed
his answer: Epiphany.
and sent it in.
“Thank
you, Mr. Saunders,” Ms. Tempo’s voice complied, before switching
out to quiz another student. Leaning back with a sigh of relief,
Timothy watched the slow progression of Ms. Tempo’s quizzing as it
moved around the classroom. In the far right corner, Cade Richards
struggled over a word as Ms. Tempo had him do it, and five others,
again and again until he could spell them perfectly.
Meanwhile,
Timothy relaxed, his sleepy eyes wandering listlessly over his review
lists, phonetic guides and personal prompt notes. Ms. Tempo wouldn’t
get to him for another five minutes at least. He had time to take it
easy. A small yawn and Timothy slumped even lower in his chair. Still
five minutes . . . plenty of time . . . no need to worry . . . plenty
of time . . .
~
~ ~
“Timothy
Saunders.”
With
a gasp, Timothy’s eyes flew open and he snapped erect like a
soldier.
‘Yes
ma’am’ he mouthed and frowned.
‘Yes
ma’am!’ he mouthed again and his eyes widened. Both hands flew to
his ears. He snapped his right hand – nothing. He snapped his left.
Still nothing.
Had
he gone deaf? But the thought was swept away when he realized his
surroundings.
White.
Endless white with not a shadow or brighter whiteness to change the
eternal landscape. Slowly, Timothy looked around him for any sign of
the classroom he should be in. Then he looked down.
And
fell out of his chair. Not that there was a chair – but that’s
why he fell. Between his legs not a hint of metal could be seen, and
underneath him was nothing more than an atmosphere of solid
whiteness.
Scrambling
to his feet on the white floor that was no more solid or vapor than
his white ‘chair’ had been, Timothy looked around for an
explanation in the whiteness.
Finding
none, he looked for a way out of the whiteness. Everything was the
same, so what good would it do to walk in any direction? If he went
back, he might be leaving behind the way out, but that was the same
risk with going forward. Because he could not see, he could not be
certain.
Then
again . . . he had plenty of time. Timothy wondered, as he thought
this, why he thought it. What reason had he to assume plenty of time?
What reason had he to assume on time at all? But, wait, what was time
again? It was as if all he had known before was simply melted into a
base of indefinite and undefined white, while all he had been was
encompassed by the ring of a single, unexplainable, ticking thought.
He
had plenty of time.
Or
was it the thought that was ticking? Walking forward through the
whiteness, Timothy heard with the inner ear of his mind, a steady
beat thrumming. It sounded so strange – like a clock, but softer
like a heartbeat, and still deeper like the tides of the sea. It
hummed through him, timing his steps, breaths, heart . . . and
thoughts.
Thumm,
thumm, thumm, thumm. Like a whisper without a tone, it was not a
voice, yet sang more deeply and melodiously than any voice on earth.
It
must be coming from somewhere, Timothy thought. Or, if not, it most
mean something. There had to be a purpose – a way further out, up,
through or within. He just needed to find it. Keep walking – there
was plenty of time.
As
he thought these things, Timothy descried ahead the outline of a
door. Though his thoughts quickened double, his pace did not, and as
he drew nearer, it slowed until he had come to a full stop some few
feet from the door. Taller than him by very little, and made of some
shiny metallic substance that seemed ghosted by the whiteness around,
this door stood alone and unsupported in the center of a white field.
Something in Timothy’s mind recalled that he had heard about such
doors before, but the thought was lost when he read the door’s
nameplate.
This
is what confused him: without a doubt, the word on the door said
‘time’ but when Timothy looked again, that was not how it was
spelled. Surely, perhaps it meant
‘time’? For the letters on the door were simply ‘W-N-T’ and
everyone knows that ‘W-N-T’ sounds nothing like ‘time’. Yet
no matter how many times Timothy tried to read the letters the way
they looked, he found himself mouthing ‘time’. After a while, he
gave up the puzzle, and decided to just open the door.
He
had no need to. The very thought, dispersing from his mind into the
whiteness, and the door was open, he was through, it had closed, and
he forgot that there had ever been a door.
This
was not due to a poor memory, but to the sight before him which drove
all other thoughts from his mind.
It
was a wall, but a wall that was like a giant sheet of paper, or an
enormous computer screen. Off to both sides it stretched until the
length of it vanished in its own distance. Likewise, the wall
ascended until that too had disappeared into a white cloud of
unreachable length.
The
page itself was not so spectacular, however, as what was written on
it. Stepping forward, Timothy took in with wide, astonished eyes the
endless repetition of a single word. It looked something like this:
when
when when when when when when when when when when when when when when
when when
when when when when when when when when when when
when when when when when when when
when when when when when
when when when when when when when when when when when when
when when when when when when when when when when when when when when
when when
when
when when when when when when when when when when when
when when when when when when
Though,
remember, there was much more of it than that. An eternity of ‘when’
spread further than eye could see. And Timothy wondered what it
meant. He wondered where it was going. He wondered if it changed.
The
thought brought him to a break in the wall of ‘whens’. There, he
saw on one half the ever-whens, and on the other a stretch of endless
‘thens’. Between these ranked a thin line of ‘nows’. And it
all looked something like this:
then
then then then then then then then then now when when when when when
when when when when
then
then then then then then then then then now when when when when when
when when when when
then
then then then then then then then then now when when when when when
when when when when
then
then then then then then then then then now when when when when when
when when when when
then
then then then then then then then then now when when when when when
when when when when
And,
what was more, the ‘nows’ were constantly eating the ‘whens’,
then always being followed by the ‘thens’. However, it wasn’t
as if the ‘whens’ simply vanished and the ‘nows’ appeared. As
Timothy watched, he perceived a more subtle transition. When a ‘when’
was about to become a ‘now’, the last letter of it, and the first
letter of the one before (these being ‘n’ and ‘w’) would
suddenly have an ‘o’ appear between them, and their two ‘he’s
would fall away. Like a needle knitting words, by drawing them
together and pulling them apart, the ‘whens’ stitched themselves
into ‘nows’. The ‘nows’ also became ‘thens’ in a very
similar fashion.
And
always, they changed to the beat of the ticking in Timothy’s mind.
Beat after beat echoing into the whiteness as ‘when’ was ‘now’
and ‘now’ was ‘then’ and the lines moved slowly but surely
on, knitting their words and falling apart to knit them up again.
Then
Timothy began to wonder another thing: if the ‘whens’ changed,
and the ‘nows’ changed, did the ‘thens’ change too? The
thought had no sooner crossed his consciousness before he was whisked
away to the head of the line of ‘thens’.
And
here, at last, he saw something familiar. Names. An endlessly
ascending list of names, each with its own line of ‘thens’ ‘nows’
and ‘whens’. Just above his head, spread one name: Alex Crawford.
And above that: Simon Buchanan. And above that: Candice Saunders.
Timothy’s mind took a moment to translate that one into what it
really meant. Candice Saunders . . . Grandma Saunders? But –
Timothy shook his head as a distant recollection returned to him.
Grandma was dead. She’d been dead for more than a year now. What
could the letters mean if . . .
As
if targeted by a faint blue spot-light, Candice Saunders’ entire
line lit up. Then it vanished. Timothy stumbled back, and wondered
why. The thought brought him back to the lines of ‘whens’.
There,
just in front of him, the page of ‘whens’ marched into eternity.
Looking left, Timothy espied in the distance the approaching line of
‘nows’. Closer and closer they came until they were almost right
in front of him. Then, a line lit up, and it vanished, while the
others continued marching on. As they went, more and more lit up and
vanished, until they had all reached a certain point which no line
seemed able to progress beyond. Timothy realized – though not of
his own mind, but as if another had whispered it to him – that this
point must be old age. He wanted to go back to the names.
And
he was there. Just in front of him, and at eye level, a new name
appeared: Eliza Lindhart. Timothy watched expectantly as the ‘nows’
and ‘thens’ marched on. But before Eliza’s time had gone far,
her line lit up, and she vanished. A sense of fathomless sorrow
struck Timothy at the sight. She could have been no more than a child
– probably still a baby! Maybe . . . maybe not even born.
Then
he saw another name he recognized: Randall Saunders. Dad. And just
above that, Sara Saunders. Mom. Timothy smiled, and nearly thought to
take a look at their lines of ‘nows’.
But
he had no time. Suddenly, the blue light appeared over both of them,
and their names were erased from the list.
‘No!’
Timothy mouthed, leaping forward. Mom, Dad – they couldn’t be
dead! They weren’t old enough yet. It wasn’t . . .
Rachel
Saunders appeared. And then she vanished. The face of Timothy’s
sweet little sister arose in his mind for a split second before it
was drowned by another silent, mental scream.
What
was happening? The names began crowding thick and fast.
Frank
Gauthard: highlighted – gone. Will Gauthard: highlighted – gone.
Valerie Tompson: highlighted – gone. Daniel Offenhard: highlighted
– gone.
One
by one by one every person Timothy had ever known appeared before his
eyes to vanish a split-second later. It was like being crushing by an
endless waterfall of empty whiteness. Emptiness – loss, people
breaking away and vanishing forever. Name after name after name after
name.
And
all to the dying heartbeat.
Then
Timothy saw a thing which turned his blood colder than all before:
Timothy
Saunders.
Highlighted.
~
~ ~
“Mr.
Saunders!”
Up
Timothy jerked, blinking owlishly and struggling to make sense of his
surroundings.
At
last, he recognized the graph spread before him, the classroom beyond
that, and Ms. Tempo glaring at him from the head of the room. A sigh
of relief nearly sent him back to sleep as his entire form relaxed.
Only a dream!
“Mr.
Saunders,” Ms. Tempo said, “Since you are apparently incapable of
spelling ‘oligarchy’, why don’t you try spelling ‘time’?”
Timothy’s
eyes widened as his entire dream flashed through his mind in a
moment. But wait – had it been a dream? What if that was reality
and this a mere puppet-show of it? Did people enter this from that
when they were born, or after they had already died? Then again, what
if it was simply a picture of life with all but the words and names
stripped away?
“Mr.
Saunders.”
“Yes
ma’am,” Timothy said, coming back to the now. No, wait, that was
the present . . .
“Spell
‘time’.”
Timothy
blinked and mouthed the word. He frowned, then mouthed it again. With
a short shake of his head, Timothy, age 9, Rank 3 Duo-star bent
forward and typed out his answer:
When
Now Then
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3 people are talking about this
:O :O :O :O :O Did you write the story based around the picture, or did you make that? :O
ReplyDeleteALSO I LOVE THIS STORY SO MUCH!!!! I honestly think it is one of your best!!
I made the picture! XD And thanks for asking, 'cause now I can brag.
DeleteIt was hard, but so much fun! :O :D
THAT IS SO COOL!!!!
Delete