Once upon a time there was a boy. Nothing about the boy’s circumstances was remarkable. He was born to a simple family of accountants. He went to pre-school like every other boy his age, studied to get a good job like everybody else. The only thing that set this boy apart from the other boys was that he had all of time in his fingertips. Decades, eons, centuries, all of that was accessible with just a snap of his fingers.
…
When the flash of silver light faded and my eyes adjusted to my surroundings I was taken aback by where we landed. Elam and I were underneath a sea of bright stars, large fragments of rock ranging from the size of a football field to the size of a boulder floating listlessly above us. we were on one of those rocks, a rather large one, cruising gently through the narrow space in between the rocks. It took me a while to register I was standing on a meteorite and that we were in space.
I instinctively grasped my throat but Elam just brushed his hand dismissively.
“But we’re in…”
“I understand,” Elam said. “But this is also the end of time. The laws of physics don’t work anymore when the world is ending.”
He pointed behind me. I turned around to see a massive white ball of pure energy consuming the world with the energy of a thousand nuclear bombs. A bright blue flash surrounded by dying stars and galaxies breaking apart in a flash of multicoloured brilliance.
“Why’d you bring me here?” I asked.
Elam shrugged. “It’s where I come to think.” He sat at the edge of the meteorite, his legs dangling in empty space. The thought of where I was, was starting to make me dizzy. “I think you might need it too.”
I scoffed. “I don’t have to think. I was just sad because of the breakup. I’m fine now.”
Elam looked unconvinced. For some reason that pissed me off. “You’re not ready.” Hearing those words was the nail in the coffin.
“Forget about me being ready,” I said. “Let’s talk about you. You have all the answers, don’t you? Tell me about this experiment. Tell me why Aaron’s so obsessed about it that he made it go on for a hundred years or whatever.”
“In due time…”
“I’m tired of waiting,” I snapped. “You and Lloyd with your stupid vague answers. I’m sick and tired of this experiment…”
Elam stood up, his face calm. “You didn’t seem sick and tired when you were with Lloyd.”
I crossed my arms and chuckled. “What are you, jealous? It was fun.” Plus, I didn’t have to think about anything, but I didn’t tell him that.
Elam rolled his eyes. “Jealous? Of that man-child? Lloyd never grew past being a teenager. I can’t blame him for that but it seems you haven’t either.”
“What do you know?” I growled, stepping over to him.
“Well, I know plenty because it was me that allowed those 100 years to happen,” Elam said, his calm veneer slowly peeling away. “I know because I’ve known more than a hundred April Anji’s.”
I didn’t have a good rebuttal to that. He walked over to me, staring straight at me with those grey eyes of his.
“I want you to answer a simple question for me,” Elam said. “Is Harper your friend?”
I rolled my eyes. “Of course it is…”
“Yet you don’t respect her,” Elam said, turning away from me and showing me his back.
“What do you mean I don’t?” I said defensively. “Of course I do.”
“Then why toss her aside in favour of your secrets? You of all people should know how much she hates them?”
“I mean she’s not that close of a friend…” I said, it was my voice that was saying those words but I could feel, ever so slightly, my body rejecting that statement.
Elam sighed. With a snap of his fingers everything went white.
…
Time, however, is like a tree. There was the tree he was from, the tree he was familiar with and the seeds of other trees he planted whenever he travelled in time. He called those trees: timelines and he could only return to those timelines if a version of him was still alive when he left the timeline to return to his own tree.
…
In a brief moment I saw Momoko with lightning flashing from her mouth as Harper and I stood atop a building, holding each other close.
“You’re not that close huh?” Elam said, both of us watching from the other end of the roof.
In another flash I was looking through the window of the Butter’s residence as Harper and I worked on the vaccine, Harper placing a cup of coffee at my side.
“Not that close huh?”
I crossed my arms. “Stop it.”
Another flash and we stood behind Harper descending down the creaky staircase of the janitor’s closet holding a ton of equipment for all of us.
“Not that close.”
“SHUT UP!” I cried.
Before we disappeared in a flash of light, I saw Harper cast a glance at us. We returned to the school of asteroids swimming through a sea of stars.
“You’re not close friends huh?”
I shoved Elam aside, turning away from his piercing grey eyes. “Shut up. You’re right, we’re friends. But what does that have to do with Thanatos? What does this have to do with me being part of an experiment I didn’t consent to?”
Elam turned around, his hands behind his back. “What do you want, April?”
I rolled my eyes. “To get out of here.”
He turned his head to the side. “What do you really want?”
I frowned. “To be a doctor. Where are you going with this?”
Elam turned looking ahead at the shining brilliance that consumed the world. “Do you remember your mother?”
“Why would I want to remember her?” I growled. “She and whoever the hell put his dick in her abandoned me?”
I didn’t realise it at the time but my body was like a spring full of tension, I felt so flustered for what felt like no good reason.
“Do you remember your time in the orphanage?”
I frowned. “Vague snippets of being alone. But I’m out of there. I don’t need to remember it. Can we go back to Thanatos now?”
“No,” Elam said cooly. “No, we can’t.”
A silver glow started radiating from his body. This time I know what he wanted to do, where he wanted to take me.
“No,” I said. “No, don’t take me there. No.”
Before those words could even leave my mouth there was a flash of silver light.
…
But this isn’t the story of those trees and the seeds of timelines that it sprouted, no. This is the story of young love. Young, naïve love.
…
I didn’t want to open my eyes. I didn’t want to see where I was, didn’t even want to know where I was. But like everything my senses betrayed me. I heard the sound of a metal bat hitting a baseball and I opened my eyes.
We were behind the fence, hidden underneath the trees and the bushes where, when I was a kid, I thought stretched out forever. I’d learn as an adult that it was only around 5 blocks when it was brushed aside for a city.
In the small play area at the back of the orphanage where weeds stuck out from underneath the bricks and since they were playing baseball and it looked like night was falling, today was a Friday. Everybody was gathered at the centre of the playground, away from all the new and falling apart toys scattered around the playground, some were swinging the bats, some were taking jabs at each other and others watching from the side drinking the juice and soda that the older kids ‘snuck’ in (it was more like the adults let them take it). Everybody played baseball on Fridays. There wasn’t a single kid who didn’t join in except for one.
I saw her across the through the chain link fence, past the children running to and from the centre of the pitch. Little 12-year-old me sitting alone under the shade of the orphanage that towered over her. It looked so small now; the two storeys house some government agency expropriated for the orphanage but back then it was like a castle. From its winding hallways that smelled like the sweaty amalgamation of children aged 0-17, the hallways leading to and from the dormitories, the kitchens and libraries, the nurse’s office to the schools and attics and basements that were locked away. Notice boards with multicoloured announcements and kids running around with agitated nurses taking babies on strollers. It was appropriated from an old mansion from the 1800’s, if Amrita was here, she’d tell me the story of who lived here before me.
But this wasn’t a Friday like most Fridays. This was the Friday when.
“April, get off your fucking ass and come join us.” It was one of the older boys, a loud obnoxious 13-year-old named Caleb who thought he was older than the rest of the middle schoolers and also because he could say the F word. I ignored him even as he tried pulling me up.
It was one of the older boys, Jacob who calmed him down. 15-year-old separated the both of us before we started fighting. Being one of the few older kids in an orphanage, Jacob was mature. He gave me a packet of soda. “You need to get out of the shade, get some sun.”
I muttered a half-ass I’m fine. He seemingly accepted my rejection but before long, a everybody sitting down and everybody playing baseball were yelling “April come on!” and similar words of encouragement. Soon there was a squeaky rusted red hat on my head and holding a baseball bat. The ball hit my head twice but luckily there was a chain guard on the hat and wouldn’t you know it, it was fucking Caleb throwing the ball. GUESS WHO ELSE CAN SAY FUCK DUMBASS!
When it was time for us to go to bed the kids carried me up and started taking me inside the orphanage even though I only hit the ball 2 times and both times, Caterina was the one who caught it.
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“This is my happiest memory here,” I said, as I watched those kids go back inside. I ran my fingers through the chain-link fence, trying to grasp it, trying to hold on to it. “How do you know about it?”
Elam crossed his arms. “100 years, remember.”
“What did you bring me here for?” I asked.
“Why’d you hate the orphanage so much?”
“I didn’t hate it,” I said. “I just…”
“You were fine for 13 years,” Elam said. “But what happened after this?”
“I don’t…”
“April,” Elam said firmly.
I pulled my hands away from the fence. “I found out my parents left me here. They weren’t dead like a lot of the kids. I was just left here and it stung. Every moment here reminded me that I wasn’t…”
Elam turned away from me. “Wanted.”
Why the hell did I feel like crying when he said those words. I tried fighting back the cracks that were forming in my voice but I let out a sad… yeah.
“Did you know Jacob was abandoned?” Elam said.
I frowned. “No, he left before I could even ask.”
“What about Caterina?” Elam asked. “And Jimmy? They were the closest things you had to a friend back then?”
“They didn’t tell me.”
There was a flash of silver and we were back under the sea of stars. In the distance a star exploded into a brilliant supernova. I stole that moment to wipe my eyes before facing Elam.
“Did you know Violetta, your best friend could read minds?” Elam asked, emphasising best friend. “Or that Amrita could sense history?”
I shook my head. “No. I didn’t know. I didn’t even know about Violetta’s dad until…”
“Now,” Elam said. “Or even a hundred now’s. There were experiments where Aaron allowed her to be free.”
“There you go again about Aaron,” I said. “Let’s get back to him, instead of me.”
Elam scoffed. “Don’t you get it, April? It isn’t about Aaron or me. It’s about you.”
“What about me?” I snapped. “I just want to go home back to college and…”
Elam raised his hands almost threateningly. “Do you really want to go back?”
“Yes,” I said. “This whole thing has been stressful. All these feelings and responsibilities people expect out of me. I just want to go back to college and have fun.”
Elam raised an eyebrow. “Fun?”
I chuckled. “Yeah, fun. I’m a 24-year-old college girl. What else do you think I get up to?”
“This,” he snapped his fingers.
…
When he was just 16, the boy met a girl. Her name wasn’t important. He loved that girl, and that girl loved him too. Unfortunately, the girl learned a lesson as she grew up and that was that time changes people and that love wasn’t always enough, she left this boy. The boy was hopelessly heartbroken. He never could let go as easily as she did. Even when she reached the ripe old age of 70 and passed away peacefully, our young boy could never let go of his one ‘true’ love.
…
It was the same day again, over and over.
Wake up, classes, small talk and back home to my apartment to study, sleep and then
Wake up, classes, small talk and back home to my apartment to study, sleep.
There was a bright spot, a few boring hangouts, small talk. My friendships never went past that. The people I knew in my first year either dropped out or realised we were wildly incompatible. Had a few flings here and there but it was the same routine throughout college.
Wake up, classes, small talk and back home to my apartment to study, sleep.
My days were nothing but a grey blob with occasion splashes of colour when I talked to Violetta.
I wasn’t having fun. I wasn’t having anything. Being back in this body I realised I didn’t want to go back to this. I never wanted to go back to this. Why did I ever hold this in high regard?
“It wasn’t always like that,” I said, unconvinced. Staring at the stars in the distance.
“You sure?” Elam asked.
I made circles with my fingers on the grainy surface of the meteor. “I… No. It was the same in high school. When Violetta left, I shut down.”
Elam stood above me. He raised an eyebrow. “Shut down? I don’t think I’ve heard you describe it like this.”
I hugged my knees. I suddenly felt cold. “I don’t know. Sometimes it’s there. I’ve felt this way ever since I found out I was abandoned. It…”
Elam sat next to me. In the distance, a brilliant blue star went supernova erupting in a flower of brilliant colours.
“So, what do you really feel?” Elam asked. “About Harper, about your friends.”
I could feel a tear fall down my cheek. “I miss them. And I want to say I’m sorry to Harper so badly.”
It felt relieving, confessing these feelings. Letting the numbness dissipate for even a second.
“But…”
I wiped my eyes. “But what?”
“If you miss them,” Elam said. “If you love them so much, why did you lie to Harper?”
That made me silent but the feeling was there, squirming through my throat ready to come out but confessing it felt like blasphemy. Confessing it would make it true and I didn’t want it to be true. Especially after everything I had done, I didn’t want it to be true.
“It’s okay.”
Elam got up, shrugging towards the brilliant light in the distance. “Don’t worry, we’re at the end of the world. Nobody is going to hear you.”
I chuckled, my eyes still pointed at my legs dangling over empty space. “It’s because…”
My voice trailed off. Elam still had his eyes on me in anticipation.
I sighed, defeated. “I hate myself.”
…
So, he used his powers. Taking the lesson that love wasn’t enough he did whatever he could to make sure their relationship was perfect and whenever things went wrong, a fight that would lead into a break up, any resistance, any challenge, he would do whatever he could to change it. He did it until they both died together at the age of 70. Unfortunately, the truth of the matter was that the boy could never die. So, in the end, he confessed. He told her everything he did to make sure their lives were perfect. Smug and satisfied at himself at his grandest display of the love he had kept inside himself for centuries.
…
I gathered up space dust from the meteor and tossed it into the nothingness of space. “There. I hate myself. You happy?”
“Why would I ever be happy?” Elam muttered.
“You wanted a confession out of me and you got one so…”
Elam sighed and took a seat next to me. “You like doing this.”
“Doing what?”
Elam leaned back. “Isolating yourself. You think you’re the only one with these problems.”
I scoffed. “I know I’m not but…”
“There you go again,” Elam said. “You hate yourself but you do things alone, not knowing that they’re other people who share the same problems as you. Why? Because you hate yourself and don’t want to be a burden to them. It’s a vicious cycle.”
I sighed. “Again, what does this have to do with anything? I just…”
“Just what?” Elam asked. “There’s nothing for you in the future. You pushed away most of the people in your past. Just what do you want?”
I wanted to say something, yell out something in defiance because this whole conversation was starting to make me uncomfortable, but all that came out was an indignant “I don’t know!”
Elam got up, staring at me. I hated seeing those grey eyes because it felt like I was talking to Violetta.
“I don’t know what I want,” I sighed. “I wanted to be a doctor so I worked hard at that but that feeling, that feeling of being abandoned, it never went away. I wanted my mum to answer one question. I just… I wanted to know why? Just why they would do this? Why couldn’t they just have kept me? Was I not worth keeping? And I carried that feeling, to my death.”
“You carried that feeling elsewhere too,” Elam said.
I sniffed, wiping my eyes. “Where?”
“To your friends.”
He pointed at my friendship bracelet. “You’re the only version of April to have this many beads but I guess the more things change, the more things stay the same. Why are you pushing them away?”
“I don’t know.”
Elam got up. “No. You do. You know very well.”
I followed his eyes to the brown bead on my bracelet, that of Cameron’s.
“I…” my voice trailed off, another confession I didn’t want to make.
“April,” Elam said. “You can’t keep beating around the bush forever.”
I looked down, ashamed. “The person they love, that person isn’t me.”
…
But her expression wasn’t one of doting adoration but one of horror.
“You stole my life away from me,” she cried. “You stole those lessons, those moments all so you could have your perfect life.”
The boy was shocked. “But I made your life perfect! I made it so that you’d never have to suffer a day! I made it so that your life would be amazing!”
Through tear filled eyes she said: “It was only so that you could be happy, can’t you see life can never be perfect? You’re nothing but a thief! Stealing life from others just so you can be happy!”
You’re nothing but a thief. Those words would echo in his heart till the end of time.
…
I looked straight at Elam, my eyes slowly starting to fill up with tears. “I don’t want them to know it isn’t me. I’m scared of the fact that if I go back, if after all of this I return in my body that they’ll realise I’m a fraud, a sham.”
Elam looked out at the stars. “A very advanced case of imposter syndrome as Amrita put it.”
“If… if my mum, if my parents could abandon me just like that,” I said, my voice shaking. “They can abandon me too.”
All Elam had in response to that was a smile. “You’re stupid.”
I had to do a double take, blinking out my tears. “Excuse me.”
“You heard me,” Elam said. “You’re stupid. You have a friend who can read minds and a friend who can sense history, you have their ‘true essence’ on that bracelet of yours and yet you’re scared they’ll abandon you?”
“What do you know asshole?” I said, gathering up meteor dust and throwing it at him. “You don’t know my life.”
Elam didn’t dodge the dust or anything, he just let it settle on his uniform. All he did was sit down and turn my face towards his with a gentle push of his fingers. I stared directly at his grey eyes. his beautiful, piercing grey eyes and it was there, with our noses almost touching that I noticed just how weary he looked. His face may have looked young and handsome but his eyes told me the story of a boy who could access the end of time. Told me just how old the person I was sitting next to was.
“This experiment went on for a hundred years,” Elam said. “It is but an infinitely small fraction of the life of a man who has access to all of time. All of time.”
Turning away, looking at the vast expanse of space slowly erupt in a volley of colours, all over and all around me, I realised just who exactly I was talking to. Seeing his face, I realised just how beautiful this boy was. Not in a romantic way but how it feels to look at a mountain or a forest that has been around longer than you have and in his eyes was the story of all those ages past.
That, and the revelations that came forth from myself made me burst into tears. Both of elation and sadness, of joy and regrets. I was loved. I would never be abandoned but the things, the awful things I did with that love. I don’t know how long I was here but I hoped, I prayed I could apologise to Harper for all the things that I’ve done.
I lied down on the meteorite, hurtling towards the brilliant blue unknown of a new universe, to be atomised and turned into something new as supernovas and galaxies shined brilliantly in the starry skies like firecrackers popping in this universe’s last night of celebration.
Elam joined me and I realised just how good the company of another person was. The universe was ending but my world still had room for someone else. My world didn’t have to die alone.
But still there was something nagging at me.
“So, what’s your story?” I asked Elam.
Elam looked confused. “What do you mean?”
“Why did you do all of this for me?” I asked. “Surely Thanatos cut you a really good paycheque for keeping two of their experiments alive.”
Elam chuckled. “I wouldn’t call them experiments. More like vanity projects. As for why I did what I can to help you… well…”
He turned to face me. “Here’s my story.”
…
She died, resigned, bitter and angry. And when they laid her down to rest the young boy in an old man’s body realised something. He realised he loved her because of her resilience, the positivity she radiated despite life throwing obstacles in her way. In his crusade to make things perfect he never saw the things he loved about her. He just loved a facsimile he had created, his mind filling in the blanks of the traits his heart knew was lacking.
And he realised, he would never be able to let go of this, no matter how hard he tried. The boy may have had time in his fingertips, could access far off and nearby time periods with a snap of his finger, could witness the countless rising and fallings of civilisations yet the boy never understood change. The boy may have had time in his fingertips but wherever he went, whichever body he possessed, this experience would be etched into his soul till the end of all time.
…
I turned to Elam. “Wow.”
Elam smiled. “Yeah.” He looked at his hand resting on his heaving chest. “We’re aliens, Aaron and I. We’re not supposed to exist.”
“Hey,” I said, snapping my fingers. “If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have had all these experiences. Wouldn’t have figured out all my issues.”
“But we’re stealing lives,” Elam said. “Amrita isn’t supposed to be in prison, Harper isn’t supposed to leave Skye behind so early. It’s all very fucked up. All these things, they’re not supposed to happen. People underestimate how much of an impact they have on this world; you know?”
“What’s wrong with that?” I asked. “I mean there’s nothing wrong with helping people.”
Elam chuckled. “Yeah, but what about the other Elam’s? All the time travelling I did, all the lives I’ve affected. We’re not alone in this universe, you know? And… and what about Tiana?”
“Tiana, as in my classmate Tiana?” I asked. “That’s who you loved? She is such a bitch. Come on, Elam.”
Elam’s let out a half-hearted chuckle. “Fine, what about all the Aprils we’ve killed in order to get to this timeline. The hundreds of Aprils whose lives were denied in order to make this…” he pointed at my friendship bead. “A possibility. Should they be denied a chance at life just because we’re happy with how this timeline ended up?”
I realised I didn’t have a good comeback to that. All I had was one question and it has been the question I’ve been asking ever since this whole ordeal began. “Why did they all have to die?”
Elam was silent for a brief moment before he got up. “That you’ll have to ask Aaron.” He offered to pick me up, I grabbed his hand and he pulled me up. “You ready?”
“As I’ll ever be,” I said. “Just give me a moment.”
I looked at the big bang in the distance, at the white light that heralded this universes end, I realised I’ll never have a chance to see this again. It crackled in the distance making a brilliant noise. What sounded like all the instruments of the entire universe playing one final song in celebration and in mourning of what it had created and has to unfortunately end. The sound of stars living and dying, of galaxies fading and being swallowed by black holes, of planets and the people that occupied them.
I turned to Elam. “Do you know what happens next? After everything ends?”
Elam shook his head. “I’ve tried countless times but I can never get to this new universe, no matter what timeline I’m in.”
For some reason, that fact made me smile.
He reached out his hand. “You ready?”
I nodded. In a flash of silver light, we were back in my timeline. Cameron and Samantha stood behind us with a grim expression on their face. In front of me was an oaken door with a name inscribed in gold on an obsidian nameplate.
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER: AARON THANE.
I turned to Elam who just gave me a supportive nod. With a gulp, I knocked on the door.
“Come in,” said Aaron.
I opened the door and stepped into the light.
To be continued…