It had been sixty four days since what Claire had coined as ‘the event’. She had done as much research as she had time, but nothing had changed. No breakthroughs or even a lead. She had been focused primarily on the what - what had happened? She turned it over and over in her mind for the last two months trying to come up with a better answer, as far as she could tell it couldn’t be done. The laws of physics and nature prevented this kind of event. Yet, it had happened. She instinctively knew that this couldn’t happen, but it bothered her that she didn’t know why. Why couldn’t we visit the future like that? What actually stopped that from happening?
Still, that wouldn’t explain how she got there or how it happened in the first place - never mind why. She would need to talk to Mrs. White after class today. First - breakfast. She got dressed and sat at the table with a bowl of cereal. She doubted her teacher would have anything of value to say. But, Claire liked to be thorough.
“Off to work sweety, have fun at school.” Her dad kissed the back of her head as he left. He managed money or investments or insurance or something equally interesting at a firm downtown. Her mom busied herself around the house straightening a chair here or cleaning a countertop.
“Love, love” she said as she too left for work. She worked in the courthouse as a paralegal. Claire could see herself doing something like that when she got older. She sipped the last remnants of breakfast, brushed her teeth and left for school.
As she walked the zigzag path to school, she mentally toyed with the idea that time flowed like a river. We sit in a boat, floating down the ebbs and currents unaware of the water underneath. Perhaps, we could paddle upstream, with the proper tools. She needed more information.
She passed her gran’s church. Of course, she would say to not question the things you don’t understand and be happy with the things you do. Claire’s face lit up in a flash - she had forgotten to do her History paper. She grumbled. She had been up all night, ironically, reading about sleep cycles. She picked up the pace, rushing to school in an attempt to have a little extra time to slap a quick paper together. It would be rushed and messy and would likely net her an almost failing grade, but it would all average out to a C at least. Probably.
She touched the tips of her fingers as she crossed the threshold of the school, up the stairs, down the hall and into her history class. Mrs. Sondag had the energy and spirit of a puppy. She ran marathons in the summer, usually winning, so naturally she had the you can do anything you set your mind to attitude. She even decorated the whole room in motivational posters to emphasize her philosophy. Claire put pen to paper and let her stream of consciousness flow across the page.
“And good morning everyone.” she wiggled or maybe vibrated like a hummingbird looking for food. She had a very lithe frame topped with what Claire considered a boy haircut. Her hair didn’t even reach her eyebrows.
“We are reading a bit of poetry this morning in preparation for our lesson on Samuel Moses, the founder of our fine city.” The desks formed a circle around her, allowing everyone a front row seat. She handed a stack of papers to a spot on the circle, allowing it to travel around her as the students took a sheet from the stack.
“Samuel Moses. Does the name ring to anyone in a familiar way?”
“He was a witch right?” one student asked. They did not raise their hands in her class. Mrs. Sondag had made a point of saying that this way promoted better, more natural discussion.
“No - not a witch. He, and his family, believed in spirits of the land - very tribal almost shamanistic beliefs, despite being from Pennsylvania. They wanted to find a better life for themselves so they moved way out here in 1815, founding New Temple with our first building - the Fraternal Order of Ecclesiastic Study, which has since then been remodeled into the church up on the hill not too far from here.” she paused, allowing the words to sink in.
“This poem is an excerpt from Samuel Moses’s personal journal, which was discovered during a renovation project at that same church in 1952. Who would like to volunteer to read?” The eyes of every student suddenly found interesting things along the walls, floor, ceiling, anywhere but in her gaze.
“Claire, would you please?” Claire had a feeling she would be randomly selected. She looked it over, scanning if there were any words she didn’t know or anything tricky about the piece. It looked simple enough and it barely filled the page.
Genius is never enough.
It colors thought,
sees beauty where others see none,
yet walks alone.
Education is greater.
It opens the mind to vastness,
shows us how small we are.
Each truth learned births ten unknowns.
Persistence is greater still.
It grinds, it sweats, it endures.
While all else fades,
persistence moves the world.
Persistence is always enough.
She did her best as a dramatic reader, elongating her entire speech pattern and trying to enunciate on the beats of the sentences. She liked the notion that continuously trying would be enough to get anywhere. They were similar, her and Sam, she thought.
“Thank you Claire. So. What is he trying to say?” She milled around the circle, letting the silence grow.
“Never give up.” one student ventured.
“Don’t think you’re all that, like just because you’re smart, you should still keep trying to get better.”
“Yeah - like don’t think you’re better than someone, because there’s always a higher level you can go.” Mrs. Sondag nodded her head at each student.
“Yes, all good thoughts. He was a big proponent of education, something that wasn’t common in those days. Yet, he still valued good old fashioned hard work. So, let’s dive in.” She hopped to her desk to obtain the next instruments of her lesson. They discussed how the Moses family led several families out here, and how they worked together for over twenty years. As bickering and infighting started to bubble into violence something had to be done.
“The downtown shootout of 1845 marked the end of Moses's influence over the city. Three families were involved - the Moses’s, the Luna’s and the Wolfe’s. Several were killed, including Samuel Moses, many were injured including several townsfolk. After that - the public outcry pushed the feuding families out of town.” Mrs. Sondag seemed more morose than Claire would expect for such a dry topic.
Class continued with some pictures of the shootout and of Samuel Moses himself - who looked like the preacher from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. He had a gaunt face with small set in eyes that looked a little too close together. He posed with his chin tilted up slightly that gave the impression he looked down on you.
The bell rang, freeing the others but sentencing Claire to her English class, where undoubtedly this poem would serve as a crossover between the classes. Claire dropped her scribbled paper into the inbox on her teacher’s desk before marching sullenly to her English class with Mr. Hart.
The teachers did that a lot, cross-pollinated their lessons, where one teacher would take something from another class. Only this would be with Mr. Hart, the least interesting person in the school - possibly the city. True to form, Mr. Hart arrived just as the bell rang, adjusted his glasses and began copying from his tome of notes onto the chalkboard.
“Two hundred years ago, our city founders built the first buildings in this town. The well. The courthouse. The church. Among others. Today we start with Samuel Moses’s biography - written by his eldest son.” His monotone raspy voice seemed to go on forever.
“We will then finish the year with another biography - that of Laura Wolfe the leader of one of the families of the Downtown Shootout.” The power of his voice often overwhelmed students causing them to drift slowly to sleep. Claire had finally slowed down enough to be caught up with the rest of the class, which didn’t help her time crunched schedule. Claire endured the entire class, eagerly awaiting lunch. She wanted to hear what the Math Nerds thought of her time dilemma.
She felt herself trying to fall asleep - but managed to survive his constant droning until he performed the tell tell sign of putting his notes into his briefcase seconds before the bell rang. He rarely took questions in his class, or really gave much of an opportunity for students to do much in class. Most used it like a study hall.
Claire eagerly left class, taking her packed lunch out of her locker, and finding her usual spot in the lunch room. She wiped the already clean table and chair before taking her place. The table sat in the corner with no one behind her. The cacophony of students and the smell of cheap industrial food soon filled the other tables around her.
Aubrey, the only other girl Math Nerd, sat down with her tray of food. She didn’t talk a lot, but Claire found her fascinating. Tough. That girl did not put up with anything. She had curly black hair that probably used to be brown or blonde, her lip had a single stud in it while her right ear had four. If she had an opinion she would tell you, if you tried to stop her, she would stop you. Claire loved that they were friends. They greeted each other, but were interrupted by the two boys sitting noisily on the other side of the table.
“What up nerds?” Spencer asked the table as he and Anthony sat. Anthony’s most obvious feature had to be the mess of bright red hair that always looked like a tangled mess. The braces, freckles and unfortunate acne all made him the poster child of the Nerds.
“Hey-” Anthony tried to clear the squeak from his voice, “I’m trying to get some studying in tonight if anyone’s game. Dr. K is going to be brutal tomorrow.” They all had the same math teacher, they called him Dr. K because his real name barely fit on the chalkboard and no one could pronounce it. They ate and mostly the boys talked. Claire tried to find an acceptable time to interject with her change in topic. She waited, gauging the length of their pauses.
“I have a topic of interest.” Claire semi-blurted out. She checked that she had the conversation before continuing, “Let us assume time travel is possible. What would that look like? Math wise I mean.” The group considered it for a moment. Philosophy and hypotheticals were their bread and butter for conversations next to math, of course.
“I don’t think we could treat our world like a function of time any more.” Aubrey said, her voice always felt a little too deep and nasally than what Claire would expect. She took the silence as a request for further explanation, “like, right now we can be seen as a function of time. But if people start jumping around - yeah wait, Claire - can everyone time travel or just like one person?”
“Just one.”
“Ok, so still though - if this person starts jumping around then we’ll have an overlapping function - which we can’t have.”
“Not if it’s in a higher dimension - like a corkscrew.” Anthony added softly. He had a thing for Aubrey and everyone at the table knew it.
“What about like in Back To The Future? The guy goes back and tries to bang his mom,” Spencer smiled as Anthony laughed, “but it’s a problem right? He almost stops existing the closer to her pants he gets. How would you manage that?”
“I’m not sure that it makes sense the way it plays out in the movie though.” Anthony held a fork brandishing it as he spoke, “he slowly starts to disappear, wouldn’t he just pop” he popped his lips, “and disappear.
“No, no, no” Spencer argued, “if he - what’s his name? Marty? If Marty went back in time to bank his mom, the new future hasn’t been written yet. There is still a chance he won’t bang her, but as that probability gets higher - the future becomes more set, making him disappear more and more.”
“A vector field.” Aubrey tried to bring it back to the question at hand, “like all points in time happen at once - but then if Marty goes back-”
“To bang his mom.”
“Yes - to bang his mom - he just moved to a different part of the field and depending on his choices he might move into a different time line- but the past and future all still happen. That will take care of the looping issue.”
“Oh like when he goes back - err to the present I guess and sees the terrorist dudes shoot the doctor and he watches himself drive into the past.”
“To bang his mom.” Spencer added again.
They argued about the movie the entire lunch period, having long forgotten the question. Claire tried to pick out any useful thoughts - but nothing seemed to really match up with her experience. Aubrey’s theory wouldn’t explain why Claire had been unable to get hurt.
Lunch ended too soon and Claire wished she could go home already. She felt tired from the constant lack of sleep. They group wandered into their last class with the dreaded Dr. K.
“Hello every-one ’ah” Dr. K’s long bushy beard, his beady eyes set deep in the beard’s brambles and his potbelly appearance all gave one the impression of Santa Clause. He immigrated from Greece a few years ago and spoke with a thick bobbling accent that made some of his statements sound like questions. He had given them several difficult assignments, but in general was a very nice and gentle person.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“We’re-ah doing the review-ah for the little quiz tomorr'ah.” He bobbed his head as he spoke, “still study, no?” he added.
He gave a problem, worked it on the board, then gave another for the class to work on. Over and over back and forth. Claire tried to hold on, but felt like she had been barely holding on all day. The bobbing sing-song voice started to make her eyes droop. She rested her head against her arm as she slouched. She wanted to stay awake. She loved Dr. K and Math, but it also felt so good to blink for just an extra second. Then two seconds.
She could still hear his voice, but it sounded farther and farther away. The familiar tingly feeling of sleep started to take root as she caught a glimpse of the other feeling. She felt ethereal like her body could expand and fill the room. This was it. She focused, trying to capture every sense around her. Smack. Her head hit the desk with a very audible sound. She snapped upright, opening her eyes wide.
“Up late a-studying for maths I think. But sleep is a-good too, so don’t stay up too much even if it’s a-for maths.” He looked at Claire, trying to judge if he could continue.
“Yeah, sorry.” Claire tried to avoid the heads turned her way. She had managed to do it. How? She hadn’t been doing anything - she hadn’t even been trying to do it. It just … happened. Maybe that was a clue. The bell rang, interrupting Dr. K’s lecture, and freeing her at long last.
“You good?” Spencer asked, but also smiled, making his intentions ambiguous.
“Yeah, I just didn’t sleep much last night.” Claire admitted.
“Need someone to walk you home?”
“No - thanks though.” She had to get to the physics room before Mrs. White left.
It didn’t take long to find the room and explain the nature of her question - what exactly prevented us from manipulating time back and forth? Mrs. White listened to Claire explain the concept of the problem, while intentionally leaving out her actual experience. She mentioned Aubrey’s theory of a vector field, and the corkscrew, which were the only two usable notions in the whole conversation.
“No, it’s really not possible,” Mrs. White shook her head, standing to get a book out of the shelf in her room. Short and round she reminded Claire of a fairy godmother. She avoided the step stool near the shelf, electing for her tip toes to pull a book out.
“It makes for good movies, but here in the real world, the arrow of time always points forward. We could never prove it, of course, but lots of famous equations wouldn’t work otherwise. Here. see.” Claire looked over the complex formulas, reading the line she pointed to. The arrow of time is identified with the direction of increase of entropy.
“What does entropy mean?” Claire asked.
“In a word. Chaos. But to your question, it has to do with the reduction of entropy, that is to say, asserting order from chaos.” She huffed back to her chair, leaving the book on her desk facing Claire, “but not any order - you would have to assert the order.” Claire struggled to understand, and couldn’t help but to be annoyed with herself.
“Think of it like this, if you smash a vase into a million pieces - that’s entropy. How would you replace all the energy that transferred into the environment? And how would you get it back where it came from? What about the potential energy lost from falling out of your hands?” She paused to gauge if any of it connected with the young student
“Something would have to generate energy from nothing.” Claire posited.
“Exactly!” Mrs. White grasped her own hands, squeezing them excitedly while smiling and bounding back slightly in her chair. She looked like she might be her mother’s age - or a little older. Her collar length silver hair framed the large crucifix she wore on her neck.
“What if it did happen though, what would it take?”
“Honestly, it would take what is called the Prime Mover. Entropy - or even the rules of thermodynamics - only apply to closed systems, if there is something outside that system - that something can manipulate the system in other ways. In the vase example, you could be the Prime Mover, you could reassemble the pieces and put it back on the desk.”
“What about just going forward then? If going backward isn’t possible?”
“Ah, that’s just how The Time Machine worked. The H.G Wells book I mean.” She looked at Claire, but had thought on her face.
“Yeah - probably you could go forward like that. I mean at least in concept - though you would likely still need a great force bigger than ourselves.” She instinctively looked up.
“Like God you mean?” She had a knee jerk reaction to using the ill defined concept to explain the unexplained. She also couldn’t help but feel a little mistrust in the supposed scientist.
“Well my dear, I used to live in a convent, so for me it is the most natural thing in the world to turn to Him when things don’t make sense.”
“Hmmm.” Claire felt her face frown. That was not the answer she wanted. She needed to keep an open mind, but turning to religion hardly answered anything. She thanked the teacher and left school, having wasted precious library time for this. The halls had already emptied minutes ago, as Claire made her way straight to the public library. She had a few books on the mechanisms of dreams reserved, but the librarian there had mentioned she would have some others to broaden her horizons today.
She walked slowly to the library, thinking against her will about the concept of the Prime Mover. She hated that that would actually make sense. It almost had to be. Nothing natural could do this. She shook her head, she didn’t want to accept it just yet.
Entering the main chamber through the wide double doors felt like stepping into a fantasy. She loved it here. The shelves went all the way to the base of the glass dome, with a scaffold halfway to access the upper shelves. It differed from a standard library layout in one regard. Since the building formed a circle, the shelves not along the wall were arranged radiating from the center like the arms of a bursting star. Those required a ladder to access the upper shelves.
The moment she sat in the familiar chairs, she dumped her bag out, procuring her journal - titling the first blank page Day 64 and underlining it. She regarded the filled pages of notes of various books she had read, or different things she had tried in an attempt to recreate the experience. She briefly recorded the highlights of her math conversation, attempting to draw the corkscrew. Seeing the English paper graded with a C- and a history essay she forgot to turn in, she returned her eyes to the front desk, spotting the librarian.
“Hello, Ms. Luna.” Claire beamed over the counter between them speaking in a sing-song kind of voice. The librarian kept her long sandy blonde hair in a messy bun, most of her face hid behind big plastic glasses bigger even than Claire’s, and wore a long flowing white dress. The head librarian always turned out to be a valuable resource, taking the time to help Claire with whatever her most recent conquest turned out to be. The last few weeks, it had been all about dreams.
“Hello, Ms. Montblanc,” she returned in the same sing-song voice mimicking Claire's greeting, “I have something for you.” She produced a stack of books. Claire loved her like a sister, albeit an older one, and she felt confident that Ms. Luna loved her the same way. They understood each other in ways that others didn’t.
“There are a couple of metaphysical books - one is about lucid dreaming - that’s dreaming, but knowing you are dreaming. The ones you reserved about the mechanics of sleeping are here, there’s one about Freud I thought you might find interesting as well as one on the CIA and MK Ultra. Oh and one more,” She showed the books to Claire briefly before picking the last one up against her chest,
“Now don’t groan, but given your wide collection of things you have been reading recently - I thought you might as well try this one too.” She set down a hard back book with a young woman clad in gleaming armor. The words The Story of Jean d’Arc gleamed in gold letters under the woman.
“Who’s that?”
“That’s her real name - err French I guess, that’s Joan of Arc - a very famous story about a woman who heard the call of God and led the French in several successful battles against the uh, probably English. There is some mystery around what exactly happened, so take what you read with a grain of salt I suppose.”
Claire thanked her, heaving the stack onto the table near her favorite chair. She saw the homework she forgot to turn in again, but quickly ignored it. She started with the CIA book, which seemed the most interesting. She quickly learned that most of it was useless, like the sleep mechanics books turned out to be, though one interesting portion stood out. Using various psychoactive drugs and other mind altering techniques, subjects attempted to complete a host of paranormal experiments including mind control, mind reading, and astral projection.
She had to look up astral projection in the glossary, which said, an intentional out of body experience, also called a soul journey. Subjects attempted to identify images in a closed room. Similar to remote viewing.
The project claimed it had failed every step of the way, though isn’t that exactly what the CIA would say? She put the book in the return pile, picking up the lucid dreaming book. The clock ticked closer towards her last minutes in the library so she sped-read as much as she could.
She had expected the book to be pointless, and most of it didn’t disappoint. Lots of put it out into the universe and listen for its reply. The one kernel that resonated almost annoyed her, self guided meditation is the vessel for your unconscious to explore the cosmos, but you must be receptive to its invitation. You must allow for the universe to flow through you. Surrender to it. This sounded like Mrs. White in another mask.
Sighing, she took the book about the French girl, replaced the rest on the return cart, and made her way home. She couldn’t shake the feeling that everything around her conspired to give the same answer. Perhaps it stood out more because she had started to look for it, but the idea of giving into whatever higher power kept coming up. She flipped through the Joan of Arc book quickly on her walk home. Peasant blah blah blah heard the voice of god, led some armies, oh - burned at the stake for witchcraft. She decided not to follow in her footsteps.
She walked past the church, keeping her eyes fixed on the image of Mary that seemed to follow her as she passed. The church’s red bricks reached to the sky, naturally drawing the eye up to the heavens. She couldn’t explain it, and didn’t have the time to do it - but she detoured inside the red front door. One, two, three, she taped her fingers.
Inside looked just as she remembered it. Long pews lined the room, facing the front where the pulpit stood in front of a large crucified Jesus. Her steps echoed softly in the otherwise silent room. She hadn’t noticed it before, but the fact that this hadn’t always been this church could be seen in subtle ways. Some fittings didn’t fit quite right, the bricks behind Jesus were of a slightly different color and formed an oval shape like something had sat there for a long time.
She walked to the front row, taking a seat on the frankly not comfortable bench. She waited. She didn’t know for what, but she waited. The crucifix had always creeped her out, and she hoped that wouldn’t offend any God that might be watching; on this occasion he looked slightly different. Checkered light spilled into the room onto his body from a skylight above. The stained glass resembled a six pointed star, but one with sharper points and intersecting lines. It looked vaguely dangerous, like a cactus.
She sat quietly, looking at the patterned multi-colored light falling across His body; the mix of the kaleidoscope like colors and the horror of his murder didn’t sit well with her, but she looked on. She felt sorry for Him.
“I am listening.” she whispered, “Gran says we only need faith the size of a mustard seed. I think I can do that.” She closed her eyes, trying to feel the power of the place that so many others felt. What else could she say?
“ I just - I want to understand.” She waited in the perfect silence for several moments before giving up. Not giving up - accepting. There was a power here that she couldn’t quite place. The smell and faint echoing, she had to admit, did make it feel like a special place - just not anything that reached down into her and spoke.
Crossing herself and bowing slightly, she turned and left. Joan of Arc had to have patience - not all of her God’s words reached her when she asked. Sometimes they were delivered when they were needed. She would practice the meditation she had read about in the lucid dreaming book, but perhaps also leave some mental space just in case God wanted to speak to her.
She rounded the corner, taking a moment to appreciate the large oak in her front yard. She was late. She took a breath, opened the door and quickly touched her finger tips together for comfort.
“You’re late.” Her mom called from the table the moment she walked in. It looked like she had just sat dinner on the table.
“Sorry, I got distracted talking with one of my teachers.” She sat at the table, sitting the book next to her.
“Oh, anything good?” her dad asked, sitting next to her, pointing at the book.
“It’s about Joan of Arc - she was a teenager who talked to God and was burned as a witch.”
“Sainted too.” Her dad added, eating his chicken and broccoli.
“Sainted? Like, by the church?” Claire asked, surprised. He nodded.
“The same church that burned her as a witch?” She tried to clarify, she knew he knew a lot of religious history - more than just christianity, she didn’t ask him about it that often.
“The very same. After the burning of course. They forgave her of her witch transgressions and sainted her posthumously.” He ate and nodded, acknowledging his own anecdote. Seeing her scrunched face he added, “it means after her death.” That stuck with her. After everything, including never asking to be one of God’s instruments, they burned her, then forgave her of her transgressions, and then sainted her. Unbelievable.
“That's kinda messed up.” Claire picked as little food as she felt she could get away with.
“The church has a dark history, but those were dark days.” her mother added.
“I guess. Um, I have a lot of homework to do, so… thanks for dinner.” It sounded awkward even to her ears, but she didn’t care. She hurried to her room to practice the self guided meditation the book had suggested. She found it difficult to empty her mind so completely, she couldn’t stop the errant thoughts from coming and going through her mind like a busy intersection.
She breathed slowly, working to bring the intersection to a still single thought. She had decided on the subconscious imagery of flying – a classic representation of wanting freedom, but in this case, Claire wanted to focus on the weightless feeling she had experienced – before the gut-wrenching nausea that is.
She imagined herself laying in an endless sea floating above the city, allowing the sensation to expand from within, allowing the universe to take her or not. She wanted to feel like she drifted on the back of a river, allowing it to take her wherever it went. Let go of control. Her mind unfocused briefly to Joan of Arc kneeling, praying to her God. She kept trying to focus on her breathing, but the image kept coming back, like once you hear the sound of a fan you can’t stop hearing it. So, Claire went with it – imagining her kneeling, praying and being lifted into the aethereal weightlessness of the sky.
She would later find it difficult to record exactly how she managed to get to this state. She couldn’t focus too much or she would stay awake. She couldn’t just let it happen, or she would actually fall asleep. There exists a subtle sliver of time right before the mind releases consciousness and allows the body to fall asleep. That precious second where the body is asleep, but the mind is still preparing to rest. In that brief window, she felt it happen. It felt small at first, not recognizable as the sudden gut wrenching she had experienced before, the dissolving feeling. The very first moment of a trust fall, too far to turn back, but not yet certain if they will catch you.
The feeling grew stronger as everything slowly soaked into the fabric woven around her. The hush of her breath diffused into the dark. The darkness began to bend, like silk in the water. Colors she had no names for pulsed faintly in the folds. The sense of her body completely gone, replaced by a strange geometry of awareness - points and lines that felt like her, expanding and contracting like lungs.
The strong pull of gravity lessened as her body became weightless, losing any sense of form or shape. The boundaries between thought and motion blurred; to think was to move, to desire was to drift. A sense of tremendous stillness filled her, as if the universe itself were holding its breath.
She reached - or rather willed - herself forward, if such a concept existed here. The world faded to a faint red, cycling the digits of her clock into small square ribbons. The space around her filled with a rippling she hadn’t noticed last time.
She took a step, reaching out to touch the ripples in the air as gravity and every ounce of her body crashed together. Her stomach found its place after rudely wriggling itself into position, just as the rest of her body had done. She looked briefly into the familiar face of the mirror, but it cocked its head in surprise.
Claire’s feet searched for the ground, but her entire body found it first. She saw her room, her bed, her desk. Everything looked right. Everything except the copy of her sitting, mouth agape, watching her groan on the floor. She meant to say something as the gurgling feeling quickly overtook her and she vomited on the floor as soon as she could.
