The exercise:
Write about being: lost in time.
Thursday holidays are so weird. I felt like I had no idea what day it was for most of the day.
But don't get me wrong - I'm still pretty happy to get the day as a break before deadline day for property taxes.
2 comments:
I hope people are being nice to you today on Property Tax day :) And that they realise that if they're not nice to you, their forms might get mislaid until next week, or the week after :)
Lost in time
Miss Sikh had been a goddess once, and was on sabbatical now. At least, I remembered her telling me that once, in a deep voice that echoed all around me and seemed to try to slip underneath my skin and peel it away from my flesh. Or rather, I thought I remembered it, but I was having trouble with my memories and had twice today already remembered things that were going to happen later on. As in, I could remember them happening and what I was doing while they were happening, but they hadn't actually happened yet. Miss Sikh had noticed.
"Sit down," she said, and Miss Hyde, appearing as though from nowhere, echoed her. I might have tried to resist Miss Sikh's instruction, though I doubted I'd get more than one attempt, but Miss Hyde's words were like implacable laws of nature. I could no more ignore her than i could move birds around again, accumulating timelike energy on them until they burst into flame when the normal world reasserted itself. Justin had been either appalled or impressed or possibly both by how many I'd rearranged without knowing what I was doing. I sat.
"You were lost in time," said Miss Sikh and this wasn't a question, it was a fact dropped like a stone into water. "Only a timeless one could have found you --" Miss Hyde sniffed as though she was getting a cold "-- and we were fortunate enough to have one on hand when we noticed you were missing."
"It didn't feel like I was lost," I said. "It was just that nothing was happening. Literally nothing. I could move things around because they were inert around me."
"We heard about that," said Miss Hyde. She might have sounded disapproving, but I was sure she was trying not to laugh.
"Nonetheless you were lost in time," said Miss Sikh. "How good is your grasp of seven-dimensional geometry? Ideally with a stratified base space and geometric incunabula."
"I have trouble with left and right," I said. That was honest, I have socks that say left and right on them, which would be useful if I ever knew which feet they went on.
"Ah," said Miss Sikh and I felt as though I had somehow disappointed her in a way that would last for centuries.
"You were like a snowflake in a snow globe," said Miss Hyde. "Shaken up and drifting about. You were within a defined space, and you were theoretically findable, but in practical terms we needed someone with a sieve specifically designed for you."
"I got sieved?" That didn't sound healthy.
"Winnowed," said Miss Sikh and smiled. The shadows in the room crept away from that smile and everything seemed shiny and too bright. "The thing is is that you were lost in time and so there is a certain amount of temporal detritus that had adhered to you."
"Is that why I can remember the future?"
"And things that only happened in alternate timelines," said Miss Sikh. "And since you don't have a good grasp of seven dimensional cohomological de-Rham ramified stratified spaces, this may cause you some small discomfort."
"What like?" I had killed an angel once, I figured I could handle a small amount of discomfort.
"You might forget your feet somewhere," said Miss Hyde. "Or accidentally take someone else's head home."
"Ah," I said, lost for words.
Greg - woo, made it to July commenting before July ended! Victory is... sorta almost in sight.
Deadline day wasn't too bad, though it feels like a bit of a distant memory at this point. It's actually quite strange when people call about taxes instead of the fires now.
Massively enjoyed this conversation. Good to have these three back together again, feels like it's been a while.
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