El: The Time Traveler, Copyright © 2014 NK Layne
Cover Design by NK Layne
Cover Photographs
Girl: liam-stock.deviantart.com, hide
Woods: venomxbaby.deviantart.com, dark woods stock 1
Cockwork: fractalangel-stock.deviantart.com, Constellation of Time-stock
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EL: THE TIME TRAVELER
I rolled back my neck in a feeble attempt to take it all in, but the shimmering metallic tower was too tall to perceive. “What are you?”
This -- this was like nothing I ever seen before, and I was more than familiar with these trails. These hikes were like a Xanax for me. After every single panic attack, since high school, I have explored this forest, which has added up to more non-work/school time in the forest than everywhere else. Panic attacks were the way I related to world. And yet, despite all this woodsy exposure, up until that day, my most majestic woodland spotting was a mother helping a newborn deer take its first steps, which was pretty significant for me. But this -- this was something else. Something that kept me tongue tied and stupid.
Standing next to it, I was nothing more than a speck of dust. I was just a girl, my singularity emphasized by nineteen years of timid experiences. I had nothing in my life to prepare myself for something unworldly. Or at least it seemed unworldly with it’s one, majestic aesthetic. Two, sudden appearance. And three, my fantastical impressionability. I mean, I walked down these woods just the other day and there was nothing here but forest.
My black hair wrapped around my neck like a noose. I kept scratching the back of my scalp, nervous tic, as I followed the sun’s beaming rays, pointing towards a metallic door. I was small, frail even, scared and stupid, stupid, stupid. For no rational reason at all I needed to know what was inside.
Pushing the metal door open with my bare hands, I yelped and jerked my hand away. “Fuck!”
The radiating burn centered around my palm and went up my arm. I groaned once and then groaned again. The burn was painful but what hurt even more was the pressing reality. I really hoped that I was dreaming, but that hurt too much to be a dream.
I choked on my breath as I looked up, into the sunny sky. I wanted to run back to my parent's house; I wanted to snuggle in my space where everything was calm and quiet. But, as I remembered what the next day will bring, I felt a contradictory pull towards the tower. For my family, the following day, was a day of mourning.
First, my Aunt died a sudden death, defiling my home.
Then, this out-of-place tower tripped up my woodsy sanctuary.
Without the safety of what I knew, I went with what I wanted to know. I figured that walking right into my panic was a new self-destruction, and that gave me a little joy. El -- myself -- has been such a nuisance lately. The panic attack that brought on this hike was brought on by my first year of college. Like clockwork, it ended without me making one friend. El’s timidity is the thorn of my existence. I figured I could give her some payback and actually learn something. For that brief moment I thought I could handle knowledge.
I said a little prayer, covered my palms with my sleeves, and opened the door.
The inside was a Wonderland of blinking computer monitors and shrilling servers. They emitted a low rumble, yet I could still hear the highest-pitched birds chirp outside.
I pulled the edges of my fringes. “Like being in two dimensions in once.”
I searched for answers by toying with the computers. I clicked clacked the keyboard, pushed buttons, and dragged computer mice but nothing.
“Ughhh, why isn’t anything working?” I shook a computer mouse. “Unfreeze!”
My vigorous shake pushed the mouse out of my hand and onto the ground. When I knelt over to pick it up, I spotted a deep indented hole. To the side of the hole, was a large screw about the size of a grenade.
“What is that?” I asked as my palm rubbed the screw's sharp point.
I shoved the screw into the hole. A second later, an automated computer-voice spoke from above.
"Welcome time traveler to the time machine! Please type the desired time period into the glowing monitor."
A time machine?
Here is the thing, if time machines were real, then what else was real? Maybe a loving God and protective angels, wishful faeries, and lucky unicorns. But with each hopeful goodness there was the soul-crumbling evil. A sadistic Satan, an inescapable Hell, tricky demons, and unfair sin.
I just -- I just felt so full with thoughts that I couldn’t even breathe. My heart was in my throat, my vision was blurring, and my lungs were full with something toxic. I came to the woods that day because I was flipping out over my social incompetence which seemed so insignificant now that I found a time machine. Like, who cares if I never made a friend, who cares about my isolation, who cares about any of my stupid problems, when I’m face-to-face with something that could mean so much more.
It could not mean so much more, but I was so scared, so convinced, I guess I wanted it to mean so much more. But, despite any subconscious longing for the beyond, it was time to use the flight-or-fight instinct so integral in panic attacks.
I flighted to my home.
I slammed the door shut and bent forwards to heave. I never ran that fast before.
It was the word ‘time-machine’ that got me moving.
“Maybe it is a prop. Yeah, maybe it was just a prop for something. A new creative project in the park. Like interactive theater. With a million dollar budget.”
I rubbed the beaded sweat out of my eyelashes.
“Maybe by time machine it means a machine that calculates time. Like a clock. A giant giant unnecessarily giant clock.”
Oh God, my lungs twitched. They actually squirmed. My emotions were like an ember outlining my lung's shape. “I’m sorry.” I apologized just in case, prayed just in case. But the truth was I rejected the paranormal and the implications. I bent a little further down to the floor. I much preferred being left alone.
My panic was overlayed with my name, as it echoed down the hallway.
“El!” My mom pranced towards me.
My mother, was extremely long. She wrapped her arms around me nearly twice with her head still in the air. In this long long grip the embers cooled down and my breath came back.
“El, are you ill? Answer me.”
“No, Mom, it is okay. I feel fine. I was just thinking.”
“You know, you can talk to me about anything.”
I snuggled into my mom’s grip like I knew I could. She was my living sanctuary. My mom was the only person I knew who would wrap their arms around me, nearly twice, in such a hurry.
“What about you Mom, are you okay?” I asked.
My mom shifted her position so she stood up straight. “Just dreading tomorrow.” She gave me an arm.
I grabbed her and raised myself.
“But it’ll be okay. I’m the lucky one.” My mother smiled at me from the corner of her mouth.
“Lucky one?” I raised an eyebrow. Tomorrow was the six month anniversary of my Aunt Lily’s death. She was my mother’s baby sister, dying only at age thirty-two. It didn’t seem lucky at all.
“Well, you know. I have all my sister’s heart issues and more. Plus I’m older--”
I shook my head. The ten year age gap between my Mom and Aunt meant nothing when they were both so far beneath average life expectancies. Age had nothing to do with it. But blind stupid lu
ck? She probably had a point. It wasn’t a rational explanation but there were no rational explanations for this situation. The autopsy gave us nothing.
I couldn’t even imagine what my Mom was feeling. I nudged towards her but she shrunk away.
“Anyway, I have to go finish the laundry. Come to me if you get another attack.”
I sighed. I don’t think you can have true intimate moments with authority figures. They seem to be constantly closing doors in order to maintain status. They think what children need is a guardian but I’m old enough for something more. Some glimpse of humanity.
The next day was the six month anniversary of the day that my Aunt Lily died. To acknowledge the occasion my family had gathered at my Grandmother Marie’s home. We all did our part in helping Grandmother Marie cook and clean, but it was my mother who was the most considerate one.
She was in the kitchen, rubbing grease off the stove, and I was one step behind her, giving it a second rinse. Her scrubs were diligent enough to not need my help but my favorite place in the entire world was being one step behind my mother. This caused my family to mock me for acting more like my mom’s pet dog than daughter, but my mom never participated in this snark. My mom was my inspiration because she was always too busy smiling to be cruel. Her smile didn’t even falter when she tripped over me; I would love to feel so bright. To not have panic attacks or be full of suicidal bloat.
But that day even my mom was more gray. Her dimples and rose complexion paled with every moment she spent in her mother’s home.
I understood. I felt the same empathetic whiplash. Neither my mother nor Grandmother Marie were okay.
I looked over to her. She was in typical Grandmother Marie fashion, chain-smoking Salems in her phlegm-yellow loveseat. Many packs of cigarettes ago it was eggshell-white, but that time was distant now. She was looking out into space, the bags under her eyes puffy and salmon, her pout ruthlessly trembling, and her hands firmly gripping her black dress’ extra flow.
I saw my grandfather approach her with a slow swagger. "Come on, Marie." He offered his arm for support.
Grandmother Marie looked up at his hazel eyes and wrinkled face. When she gripped onto his arm, his lips twitched and a single tear dropped from his eye.
We headed to the cemetery. In the car’s backseat, I reflected on my previous encounter with the alleged time machine. I imagined that the shiny metallic tree contained a way out. That somehow I can harness it to help my family. The strange idea of being able to influence the notion of time, the notion of anything, tied my stomach into knots. It felt perverted like I was body swapping without all party’s consent. I could not envision anything powerful inside of me, just a vacuum of anxiety.
I tried to look for comfort in my mother's face but her nose was dripping into her pout, leaving me feeling worse. When it came to her mourning, she was unable to lift herself or even turn her head. She was like a fly on glue paper.
I thought about divine plans, and I didn’t understand it.
"I love you," I mouthed to myself.
When we reached Aunt Lily's headstone, Grandmother Marie dropped to the ground with nothing more than a croak out of her dry lips. Her husband quickly toppled behind her. He grabbed her fists and nuzzled into her neck while he mumbled their daughter's name. My mother knelt down with them, enveloped them into their arms. Tears streamed down their faces.
I wanted to kiss my mother's cheek and say things were okay but six months after my Aunt’s death and the pain was still razor sharp for my family-- how is that okay? Why did my family suffer; what did they do to deserve this damnation? What was so divine and holy about my Aunt’s sudden death?
I didn’t have the answers to these questions. But I knew one thing. I was the only one who could peel these flies off.
When I entered the time machine, I was sweating. It was May 2014, the time of year I ran around in a new pair of shorts. But this day I wore thick pants and my winter cap to prepare for my journey back to the winter.
I went straight towards the ignition. I twisted the grenade sized screw into the floor’s indentation and the same dialogue as last popped onto the computer monitors.
“Welcome time traveler to the time machine! Please type the desired time period into the glowing monitor."
In the corner of my eye one of the monitors was protruding a neon glow. I approached it quickly with an extra bounce to my step. I wanted to leave this horror show, meet the next one. I typed out my destination while envisioning Aunt Lily’s Snow White beauty. Her hair was so deeply black, lips so plush and ruby-red, her cheeks marked with deep, warm dimples.
If I save her, if she lives, then what does that make me on the scale of human to God?
These past six months, something inside me was screeching odes to mortality. This mourning -- how much of it was for her though? It is true I deeply admired and loved my Aunt, yet her death was filled with so many distractions. I was too filled with empathy for my crumbled Mom and Grandma, too filled with symbolic merit of my mortality, of all our mortalities, to rightfully mourn my Aunt.
I loved her but I didn’t miss her as much as I thought I should have. What did that mean?
Eh. What did it matter? I was convinced on what I had to do. I hit the enter key.
Even though this first trip officially made me a time traveler, I don’t really know what happens when one time travels. I’m sure I would have something really brilliant to say, as an official time traveler, but I couldn’t keep awake throughout it. Time travel brings on heaviness to the eyelids, cloudiness to the mind, warmth to the blood, and ultimately sleep. The time traveler only returns to consciousness when they make it to their destination.
I think that the extreme obscurity of time travel implies something. If traveling through time is hidden from time travelers, then maybe that’s evidence that there is someone really spectacular holding the metaphysical spheres in place. Someone that we can’t meet.
The obscurity didn’t bother me. With my history of rejection, I don’t really want to meet anyone spectacular anyway.
For my first time traveling mission, I dreamt of my woods.
There was a particular deserted hiking path I climbed when anxious. This time it was because my freshmen year of college just ended, and once again I failed at making any friends. I felt social-isolation's chokehold: the college edition. A lot more painful than the high school edition. I no longer had hope that I would ever make a friend.
I thought the college version of me would be stronger and more inept, not increasingly more dysfunctional and stupid. Once again, I didn’t talk to anyone, didn’t even make eye contact. And each failed opportunity was another stone in my gut. Now these stones were bloating inside me. If I could, I would evaporate into the ether, if that meant I would feel lightness. This pregnant heaviness had more than enough times, each passing term increasing its lethality.
I was primarily filled with suicidal thoughts. Or maybe they were homicidal thoughts? My fantasies emphasized killing myself, not dying. Ordinarily these darker compulsions heated my lungs, like a flame’s whiplash. But things changed when it was just the river, acres of moss, and me. This isolation chilled off my breath.
As I entered the deep woods, my dream started to get surreal.
I kept bumping into my own shadow, despite the light’s direction. My shadow was rigid and solid, and jumped ahead of me. It’s hand would point left, but I would side step it, refusing to follow my shadow’s direction. I would then continue to divulge the forest, until I bumped into my shadow again. This happened three times before I gave in and followed the shadow's hand motions. And that's when I saw a thick steel door attached to a long shimmering tower. It was the time machine and it was moving.
The machine was bent, like a vine; it went high and then low, curved and then headed straight again. It was quickly elongating around me.
“Leave us alone.” I grabbed onto myself so hard my nails scratched cuts into m
y arms.
A guttural whisper vibrated out of the machine. “Look at me.”
I tried to follow the order but all I could see was squinting white. The machine reflected too much sun for me to see anything. I stumbled backwards and whimpered. "I can't."
The whisper didn't respond. In its pregnant silence, I heard the overture of crickets announcing evening. I rubbed my eye sockets. Failing to achieve the whisper's orders left me with an irrational dissonance. So I looked back up into the brightness.
Two satyr horns, each the size of my torso, floated above me. Their whisper had a guttural tone, “You're lost little girl?”
My knees buckled. I twisted and tried to run away but I quickly fell right onto my face.
"Please leave us alone." My back concaved with a piercing pain. The horns were digging in.
I woke up to November 22, 2012. Three-hundred and sixty-five days before Aunt Lily's heart attack. Five hundred and seventeen days before I met the time machine.
A warm excitement curdled up my spine. Here I was, back then. Or there I was, back here. I will save my Aunt, and everyone I love will be happy. Unless, my Aunt doesn’t believe my warnings. Then what would happen? No -- I’m her sister’s daughter. I can be convincing. I don’t have to worry about those kind of what-ifs.
I kept moving forward.
The time machine was nearly out of view when I heard a deep vibrating howl ahead of me. It was the hard stop to my progressive pace. I stopped short and gripped my arm with my nails. “Please...”
The howl didn’t stop. I lowered myself to the ground and curled up into a small ball. I shook as I imagined the howling beast pouncing onto my neck, tearing my throat open.
I really didn’t want that to happen. In that moment, I really wanted to live. I had a mission to live for. My family. My family’s health and happiness.
But nothing really happened. My jugular kept in tact.
An icy moisture rolled down my eyebrow to the bridge of my nose. I moved my head upwards and watched snowfall cover my woods.