Precipice

He returned to the apartment one evening and saw Ms White has fallen asleep on top of a pile of quizzes. She had confessed to her that many piles of assessments had been misplaced over the course of her career, but those ones had defeated her. Before he headed to the shower after his evening run, Barry paused one second, looked at his fairy godmother, Ms White, her mouth open in her sleep against the couch cushion, sometimes she snored, sometimes she was drooling, sometimes she was looking angelic. He found her absolutely beautiful no matter the circumstances. There was a flawlessness about her, through her goofiness, her self-deprecating humor, her bitter bits of scattered and disorderly wits. There was a grace he had gotten addicted to, something tranquil, nurturing.

The cat never failed to cuddle against her, in the little spot behind her legs or being the little spoon against the warmth of her belly or even nose to nose and, on that one occasion, Barry sat up and engaged in a staring contest with the pet, kneeling by the couch. His name was Terence, and he was deaf and almost blind on one eye but Barry could swear he followed his movements when Ms White wasn’t watching. Little bastard was just acting like he was handicapped so get some lifts and some treats.

He spoke to the animal, that one night, whispering, “I understand you”, he said, shaking his head in rendition, “I’m going to tell you a secret, and you, little sweet creature, will not, I repeat, will not, tell anyone, okay?” The cat looked at him with eyes full of contempt and seen-it-all boredom, so Barry went on “I wish I could live my whole life like this, like, stay here, like this, with you motherfucker” he hesitated, “forever”

He started slow bolting inside the apartment, cautiously, some little jumps of supernatural time scramble at a time, minding the walls and the furniture. Ms White had created an ample area in the middle, retreating the couch, dinner table, the armchair and everything she could at the maximum but, after living there for a while, Barry had a muscle memory of where everything was placed, and could smoothly join one spot with the other without knocking anything over. Ms White was either doing something on her computer, like, writing some reports that would put anyone to sleep, or peeling some carrots or stirring a salad bowl and pretending she didn’t care or find this amazing but, some other times, she simply dropped everything she was doing and sipped on her herbal tea and watched without masking her wonder.

“What does it feel like?” she asked him shyly, not convinced she was allowed to even ask the question

“Bolting?”

So he described to her, that although his ability dealt with time, it felt more like space for him. Visually, everything discontinued going forward, some strains of color testifying of the sudden immobility of the objects around him, as if echoes had a form the eye could see, smearing over a dissolving canvas, drying out and evaporating upwards into the clouds, sooner or later melting within the freeze. Sounds dropped at the bottom of his ears, trampled by silence. a wind blew like a hurricane for a second before stopping entirely. How throwing his hand forward or hunching his shoulders created this reverberation into time? He didn’t know. Everything flashed. He moved underwater, he moved through goo and yet, at the same time, each of his moves felt like crystal cutting an icy layer of air. All the seconds on a human clock became minutes and Barry had learned how to count them in the back of his mind.

“I have a bolting hand and a receiving hand” he said, “ the bolting hand is creating movement, and the receiving hand recycles it”

“Do you know who Sally Ride is?” Ms White asked

“That’s an awesome name”

“She is a female astronaut, but whatever, she was a tortured soul. One time she said she wished that she received as a gift an extra six hours per day that no one knew about, outside of the normal twenty-four, to be herself”

“I don’t think anyone can stop time for more than three or four minutes” Barry retorted. He knew he had heard the name Sally Ride before, somewhere, but he couldn’t place it. Extra time to be herself.

“But with four more minutes adding to four more minutes, you can turn in homework on time”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Yes” she waved him off, “tell me about the… the sprint” she lowered her eyes as if she’d said a bad word.

“The sprint?”

“I don’t know how you call it, I saw it once, on TV”

“If you saw it then my career would be over, Ms White” he laughed politely at how ridiculous that statement was

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“No, they slowed it down, the footage, of course, it was zoomy, and grainy, but we could see that the Bolt, I mean… you, were going in a straight line. We could see a human silhouette”. The sprint.

He scratched his nose, “I doubt that they slowed it down enough but yes, that’s the best part” he smiled excitingly “I honestly don’t know how to describe it, it’s kind of like a you-had-to-be-there situation”

“Oh please, come on, don’t be like that, Barry, regal me with your tales” she begged, tugging at his sleeve “try”

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, “I guess it feels like… falling. But in a nice way, like falling in a dream, you know? When you know you’re dreaming, and you’re falling from a cliff. All is quiet, the body is boosted forward by the bolt, and a blue color is covering everything, but at the same time, you can see everything ten thousand times better. Every little detail of the landscape around you. It gives a buzz, because your brain cannot process all this seeing and absorbing so quickly without losing its usual lens through which it sees clearly”

He opened his eyes, looked up at the ceiling, focusing, “I see my hands go back and forth on the sides of my body and the bolts are leaking from under my fingers, you know? Like when you dive into the pool and there is a screen of air around you?” She nodded, innocently absorbed by his narration and Barry felt a surge of pride overcome him. He paused to let it in, went on, “Wearing the right shoes, if I push a bit more on my toes or, for instance, wearing the right goggles, if I squint my eyes, the acceleration is immense, hm” he cleared his throat, “like, when I crashed against your shelves in the hallway, it was just a very small example.”

“Get out of town”

“It was nothing, Ms White!” he exclaimed, giggling, “if I continue running, and faster, just one crunch faster, I start to hear sounds inside my brain of things that haven’t happened yet”

“W what”

“Breaking the sound barrier is one thing but if you approach the speed of light, some crazy things start taking place. I’d never do it though” he looked down, serious, solemn, “it’s a rule I have” Predictably, Eugenie White was speechless and dazed, staring at him from behind her pillow. “Messing with the relativity laws would open an entirely new door”

“Of things that… haven’t h—” She was still one wagon or more behind, processing, her eyes dreamy and a little wet “that’s why many of you keep your identities a secret, otherwise, you’d become lab rats”

He nodded, “and what would that power do in the wrong hands? I haven’t even told my Team about this. I don’t want anyone to know”

She sniffled and shook her head, blinking away the pathos, and opted for a joke, “so you mean you could have just sprinted like a madman and reversed time to avoid going into that room where the gunfire was”

“Sure” he feigned displeasure, but was grateful that she stirred them away from the drama of his revelations about his extraordinary gift, “sure, good point, Ms White, I’ll think about it next time I get shot at”

She remained silent for a long long time, her eyes slowly shifting away from his face to look at nothing. They both replayed Barry’s words in their minds at the same time, separately, he who knew what he meant with them, she with her interpretation and her imagination, “one day, maybe you will explore the dark side of your power” she said at last

“Like in Star Wars”

“No, like in, the hidden part, the part of the iceberg that’s in the water”

“Not everything has to do with Titanic, Ms White”

She ignored him, “I want to see it”, she rubbed her palms one against the other.

“You can’t see it, that’s the whole point”

She tilted her head, squeezed her pillow, “I think I can. One day, you will show me. Promise me”

“It’s impossible”

“Barryy”

“I don’t like to promise”

“Swear to me”

“It’s literally the same thing, Ms White”

“Say to me that you will consider it”

He erupted in laughter, groaned a protest “alright! Fuck! One day I shall show you” He glanced at her with pity, though, the mere mortal that she was, as she wouldn’t ever be in the position to see a bolt. He wished he could carry her inside of it as if they were riding a tandem bike, take her into the whirlpool, guide her hand through the deceleration of time, slide her fingers into the fabric of space.

“It’s magical” she said

“It exists on Earth so… not magical”

Ms White shrugged, got up from the sofa, started gathering the different color pens she had scattered on the coffee table, grabbed her pencil case, “magic things are things science has not yet explained” she said without a fuss

“What’s something magical to you"

She stopped her collecting, stood up straight in the empty area of the living room that was now devoted to mini-bolting, “the oriental octave” It was her turn to explain, and she looked like such a teacher when she did, separating from the nurse persona Barry had become more accustomed to. The oriental octave was the array of black keys on a piano, she summarized, “for some reason, it makes people more emotional when they listen to it”

“Like with micro-tonality”

She shook her finger at him, impressed, while her other hand was carrying all the pens, “maybe, Barry, I had never thought about that. That or vibrations, hertz, I don’t know, I’m not a scientist”

“Why is it called oriental?”

“Funny, you can hear those notes and pitches in traditional Arabia music but, less known, you can also observe them in old Viking songs” On one hand, you have those vibes that makes an audience mellow, nostalgic, feeling spiritual and, on the other end, those were musical scales that could be utilized for longing for war, for igniting ferocity in people “Nothing as fascinating as you being able to time-travel, though”

He almost threw the cushion she had abandoned at her, “I didn’t say I could time-travel!”

She had anticipated his move so she almost ducked, a cheeky smile on her face, “but I’m glad to hear that time is real”

“You didn’t think time was real?” She opened her eyes as big as pizza pans and said nothing, “and what Viking songs are you talking about”

She winked, grabbed one last pen, “I’ll play you some while I make some soup”