Time and Again
Genre: Fiction, Short Story
Word Count: 585
Warning: Mention of abuse, self-harm, and death.
Prompt: "Someone comes into your life unexpectedly, and vanishes unexpectedly in a few days. When you look back, you realize it was someone you had known earlier, but with a different face."
Thought today would be just another day. Another day where you barely managed to wake up on time. Another day where you forgot to kiss your partner goodbye, so settled for a text message instead. Another day where you chose to skip your lunch to make up for the piled work like every other employed twenty-nine-year-old. Another day where you wait for the clock to strike at 7 o’clock and rush back home. Another day where you drive through the rush hour and put up with the annoying RJ on your stereo. Just a day like any other day. You couldn’t have possibly seen it coming. As far as you know, you are a careful driver.
Time either goes fast or slow. You experienced it all at once. Everything happened so quickly that by the time you finally grasped what just happened, you felt time took the pace of a snail. It might sound preposterous, but you could sense everything and nothing. You could hear the shrieking screams and shattering glasses. Even at this unfortunate moment, you could hear that RJ blabbering on your surprisingly intact stereo. But you couldn’t feel the air around you rise in temperature. You couldn’t feel any limb that possibly could get you out of the car, couldn’t feel the blood rush out of you. You could only feel nothingness.
The first time you felt this way you were nine. The wanderer in you couldn’t stay still, and you find yourself in the clutches of the big bad wolf. You try to keep quiet as his hands wandered around your body just like you wandered away from home. Praying for time to pass by quickly so that you can go back home, but as he tightens his hold around you, you begin to feel numb, you begin to lose your sense of reality. Amidst the numbness, all you can remember is the silhouette of a frail old woman as she opens the door.
The second time this sensation, or rather, the lack of sensation hits you as you lie naked in your bathtub, doubting if it’s the cold water causing this sensation or the angry red droplets that ooze from the gash. Nevertheless, you decide this is the moment where you supposedly have your whole life flash before your eyes and you recall that scared nine-year-old girl, the bullied twelve-year-old, the abandoned seventeen-year-old, and the crestfallen nineteen-year-old that you are now. With this new-found peace, you decide it's time to depart, but not before a dwarfed figure comes closer and mutters in a childlike but seemingly familiar voice, “It’s not time yet. I won’t allow it.”
The third time’s the charm, they say. Fate was on your side every time; would things reverse now? You can’t let that happen. Not when your partner is waiting for you at home with a tub of cookie dough ice cream and Netflix, a personal definition of 'Netflix and chill'. You finally finished your first project as the leader. With too many things you have done, and too many left to do. This time you don’t want to give up, but as fatigue pulls your eyelids closer you catch the sight of the shadowed man approach you. The third time is also a charm because you know he’ll save you. You know he won’t allow you to die. You smile as you succumb to your heavy eyelids as you hear him say, “I’m sorry I was late. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you this time.”
