Lifespan of Starlight

by Kalkipsakis, Thalia

  Why wait until tomorrow morning to meet up with Kessa again?

  In a dreamy fog I close my eyes and let my mind sink. It’s the best feeling, even though it’s only a dream, and I get this brilliant sense of control over everything, like the way it feels the first time you ride a bike without training wheels. The world has become layered with possibility.

  Dream-skipping to the next morning at school is as simple as anything. But even so I get a floating kind of lift as I see that I’ve done it …

  … when suddenly I’m sucked back up to the surface. A wave of reality washes over me as I open my eyes for real.

  It’s night. I’m breathing hard and I’m hot all over.

  A gasp and I sit up, peering in the dim light at my pale legs. Light engulfs my mind and air hits my lungs. I’m naked and on top of the bedclothes. They’re not scrunched at the bottom like I’ve kicked them off; they’re flat beneath my body. But I don’t need those clues; already I understand what happened because of the way it feels. It’s as if every cell in my body was sleeping and has suddenly zapped to life.

  My heart is beating at a million miles a minute as if making up for lost time.

  In some ways, it is.

  * * *

  I feel an urgent need to tell someone; to share what I’ve just done. I reach out for Mum without thinking, then pull back and bite my knuckle. My eyes focus on her outline. One arm is draped across her face, the way she always sleeps. Her cheeks have filled out these past weeks, but her skin still seems pale.

  How can I tell her what just happened? I wouldn’t know what to say, not without freaking her out.

  It’s only now that I’ve done it that I realise how natural this is. I’ve been time travelling in my dreams all my life. In a dream, you just think about moving ahead, and that’s where you go.

  I consider calling Mason, but what would I say? I just time skipped for the first time in my life?

  My mind’s moved to Alistair when I realise that as amazing as that was, I still haven’t managed to do it on purpose. I’m closer now than I ever have been before, but …

  Can I do it again?

  It’s 1.34am, but that doesn’t stop me. I’ve never felt more awake as I pull on a pair of jeans, wrap myself in a coat and leave a note for Mum.

  Outside it’s crisp and quiet, one of those perfect still spring nights. Cars pass here and there but otherwise I’m on my own. The chip is still in its envelope beside my bed. I’d set off an alarm if I brought it with me to Footscray Park, but I’ve brought my compad. It’s a while since I last used the crossing bot, but it still works.

  I slip through my usual gap but turn the opposite way, tracking down the edge of the path until I’m not far from the canal. Being here makes me think about the woman in the cave. She did a split second skip in front of me, I’m sure she did. Maybe the blankets hadn’t had time to collapse as she disappeared because her jump was so short, barely a fraction of a second.

  You can hear sounds of life down here, near the water. Birds, hidden in nests, I imagine. A possum, perhaps. I’m not sure where the noise is coming from but it doesn’t make me nervous. We’re not so different, them and me. None of us is chipped.

  I’ve done this before, heading out to the park at night, but everything feels new as I find a clearing and settle in, back straight and legs crossed. The coat does a decent job of keeping me dry against the dew.

  Eyes closed, I draw in the fresh night air. With the calmest certainty I know that I’m close to the place where now is all that exists.

  It’s so easy to let go. No need to push, no need even to breathe. All is quiet as I sink into infinity.

  In silence I float forwards with my mind, blindly patting at the walls of time, not sure where to go or even who I am.

  Until I feel the pull of return.

  And I remember.

  In a rush I’m back, bursting through the surface of now, light filling my mind. The earth is firm and my body suddenly heavy as I reconnect with the world.

  Air fills my lungs as I’m smacked with the high of my first heartbeat, the first rush of blood. Every cell is buzzing, each moment fresher and newer than I’ve ever known.

  My skin tingles. I’m flushed hot and naked, sitting on a pile of clothes and smiling up to the night sky. I did it – on purpose this time.

  * * *

  The next day, I call Mason.

  ‘MY FIRST TIME was a complete fluke,’ I tell Mason. We’re in a cafe courtyard near his house, sipping at coffee from icy glasses.

  Mason nods, catching a drip of coffee down the side of his glass with his tongue.

  ‘The truth is,’ I keep going, ‘I first jumped in my sleep. In a dream, actually. I wasn’t trying to, it just happened. I never even imagined it was possible before then.’

  I need to do this. This is my chance of starting again, this time with the truth. Rebooting, I guess.

  ‘I don’t know how it works and especially how to control the point I return,’ I explain. ‘So that’s why I can’t answer the stuff you ask me. I really have no idea. I’m not the groundbreaking time traveller you think I am.’ Maybe he’ll never know the whole of it, but at least I can tell him this much.

  ‘Scout …’ Mason’s head tilts as his eyes soften. ‘You don’t need to be ashamed. Why didn’t I think of that? Finding your way into the sinkhole really is a lot like dreaming, hey?’

  I lean closer, my forearms on the table. That’s exactly how it felt in the tunnel last night, moving through the timeless realm of the subconscious.

  ‘Do you know what this means?’ Mason pushes the glass to one side and matches my pose. ‘If it happened by accident then it means I’m right, it really is a natural process. I mean … it makes sense, doesn’t it? A bird doesn’t need to understand aerodynamics in order to fly.’ He pulls away and arches his back. ‘This is good news. For all we know time skipping has been available all along and we just didn’t recognise –’

  He’s speaking so fast that a guy from the next table frowns our way. Mason breaks off midsentence and we dive for our drinks, sucking at the straws and stealing a sideways glance at the guy. It’s not long before he gets busy with his glass of tea again.

  ‘But you understand now?’ I ask when the coast is clear. Are we okay?

  He pulls away from the coffee and swallows. ‘Well, I understand why you couldn’t answer all my questions.’ His focus drops to the frosty glass in front of him and for a few seconds he doesn’t speak. ‘It doesn’t explain why you won’t jump with me, though.’ The words come cautiously, almost bruised.

  ‘I know.’ I take my time, choosing the right words. ‘It’s just … I’ve never been able to control my return. I have no idea how to train myself the way you have, and I guess I was scared.

  What’s stopping me from jumping ahead a zillion years? Ending up alone again?’

  Now that I’ve been time skipping for real, I doubt that could happen. It’s hard enough pushing forwards as far as a minute. But still, I find it a scary thought. What if one of us skipped ahead hundreds of years by accident? Or forgot how to return altogether?

  ‘Scout.’ His forehead is tight, eyes fixed on me. ‘It’s okay. I can help you. I’m getting better at it every day. If you learn how to control it, you won’t have to worry about jumping too far.’ One eyebrow lifts and stays there, and I find my shoulders relaxing.

  For a while we’re quiet, slurping the dregs of the coffees through our straws. Mason leans back and nudges my leg under the table with his knee. ‘I won’t ask you to jump with me until you’re ready, okay?’

  And I can’t help grinning because he seems so sure again.

  We spend the rest of the
afternoon talking about the interval timers in our brain. According to Relative Time Theory, that’s where we create our own time, so the first step is using it to measure our own sense of time.

  ‘You don’t have to time skip in between,’ says Mason. ‘Begin by working out the time from inside your own mind.’

  ‘Okay,’ I say, trying to sound confident.

  ‘The first thing I tried is using my interval timer to wake myself up,’ Mason says. ‘What time does your alarm go off each morning?’

  ‘Six thirty,’ I say, thinking of Mum.

  ‘Okay, so disable the timekeeper on your comscreen and tell yourself when to wake up. I bet you’ve already trained your interval timer, you just don’t realise. And once you have the hang of that, try waking up at midnight, or one thirty or whatever. Yeah? You’ll be amazed how quickly you get the hang of it.’

  ‘So I just tell myself to wake up at six thirty?’

  ‘Pretty much. Don’t overthink it, okay? You’re the one who taught me that.’ Again, I feel his knee under the table. His mouth kinks up at one side and forms the cutest of dimples. ‘Once you start using your interval timer, you’ll learn how to use it when you time skip, yeah?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say, adding silently, I hope so.

  * * *

  I can’t disable the alarm. What if I sleep in and Mum’s late for work? So instead I tell myself to wake at twenty past six. That way, she’ll have no issue if I take a while to get the hang of it.

  On the first morning I wake up at 6.28. Too easy. It’s as if my brain was so used to the alarm that it knew exactly when to wake me up. It’s not 6.20 but it’s a good start. The following morning I wake up at 6.04. I’m getting the hang of this, sort of.

  On the third morning I wake up just after five then spend the next hour and a half trying to get back to sleep. So of course when Mum’s alarm sounds, I’m dead to the world. Fail.

  On the fourth morning I wake every couple of hours, but somehow it gives me a sense of time passing and finally I wake up at 6.19. Nice. Except now I’m way tired and the next morning I sleep right through until the alarm.

  Maybe my interval timer works better when I’m skipping through time. I’ve been practising skipping whenever I’m in our room alone. It’s getting easier; each time makes me more confident I can do it again.

  It’s still so dark, so quiet, so nothing in the tunnel, but it doesn’t send me cold the way it used to. Maybe because I know how to move through it now, only a few seconds for the first few tries, but now I can do closer to a minute a few times a day. By the time Mum comes home I’ve usually skipped forwards maybe four or five minutes in total. It’s doing my head in a bit. Because when you think about it, I must be five minutes younger on those days than if I hadn’t skipped.

  It’s crossed my mind that maybe I’m in no hurry to jump forwards a long way, because if Mason skips when I don’t we’ll end up that much closer in age. If he jumped ahead, say, two years, and I didn’t skip at all, I’d be sixteen when he returned, the same age he is now. I’m two years younger than him at the moment, but maybe I won’t always be. Weird.

  * * *

  My compad beeps late on Saturday morning. Sorry to bother. It’s Kessa. Want to meet up sometime? Maybe head to the park?

  It’s like she’s apologising for the invitation. If only she knew. I message straight back and we agree to meet later that day. We choose a park near the school, new territory for us both, maybe as a nod to our waiting future, even though it’s still a couple of months until orientation day. And, as Kessa points out, getting there today is a dress rehearsal for when we’re going every day.

  We find a bench seat near the top of a rise, looking over a playground and a skate park. From here you can see the bits of land that used to be part of the park but are now high-rise flats.

  The park is busy with citizens getting on with their lives. A maintenance truck trundles around, clearing away fallen branches. As Kessa and I chat, a couple of kids sneak over from the skate park and start teasing the safety sensors of the truck, standing so close that it triggers a change of path. I guess they must have done it before because they’re really good at dodging and we get this sort of truck dance performance as it traces slow, wide circles to avoid the kids.

  After a while the truck sounds a security warning, and the kids bolt with hoots of laughter. Kess steals a glance my way as the kids run off, pausing mid-sentence to check my reaction. It’s almost as if she’s asking for permission to find it funny. Of course, I’m doing the same thing, so we end up sharing a chuckle that gets bigger as we let go.

  We finally calm the giggles and she picks up the conversation again. She’s telling me about her twin, Malena, who only made it into a tech school. She’s hoping for a transportation apprenticeship.

  ‘She wants to travel, see a bit of the country.’ Kessa sighs. ‘So I guess it makes sense …’

  Transportation workers only make D-grade rations at best. Maybe it’s because they’re twins, but it seems sort of harsh to have their lives mapped out so differently already. Kessa’s set to make at least B-grade if she plays her cards right.

  ‘So how is she about you making it into Karoly High?’ I ask cautiously.

  ‘Yeah. She’s okay. Pretty good, I think. I mean, she would have sat the test if she thought she had a chance, but we all have to do what we can, don’t we? Use the skills that we have to contribute.’

  It’s straight out of a textbook or a political speech. I’m not sure what to say.

  ‘So you’ll take the emergency stream if they want you to?’ I ask.

  ‘Yeah. If I’m better suited to that. Definitely if there are more jobs.’

  ‘But don’t you want to make your own decisions about your life?’

  ‘Yeah, sure, I guess. But I’ll take their advice if they give it.’ She tilts her head towards me, a slight crease in her forehead. ‘We’re pretty lucky to make it into such a good school, don’t you think? So we owe something back for the opportunity.’

  She’s textbook talking again. Her confidence in the system strikes me. Such unquestioning trust.

  ‘So, what about you, Scout?’ Kessa asks. ‘Which junior school do you go to? I never understood why you didn’t come to Footscray Primary.’

  ‘Yeah …’ I lift one arm and flick at some invisible insect. Brushing the idea away. ‘I go to a school near Mum’s work. It was easier that way.’

  ‘Of course.’ She nods meaningfully, trying to show that she understands. Although, of course, she doesn’t. ‘Cos she’s … is she … is it just you both?’

  She must have been dying to ask that question for years. ‘Yeah, Dad’s …’ I pause. ‘He’s not with us anymore.’

  It’s sort of true.

  Kessa places a hand on my shoulder while I guide the conversation back to her. Changing the subject fast.

  I can’t tell her the whole truth, at least definitely not until I get to know her better. And even then, I’m not sure it would be fair to dump her with that sort of thing. Once I tell her, she won’t have the choice not to know.

  For the rest of the afternoon I steer away from certain topics by asking Kessa more questions about herself. Safe stuff. I’ll have to be careful if we’re going to hang out together. All she has to do is add up a few key facts, and my whole world could fall apart.

  * * *

  ‘Ready?’

  ‘Just one minute, yeah?’ I’m sitting next to the whiteboard in Mason’s garage, legs tucked to one side. A light blue blanket lies ready in front of me.

  Mason must be kneeling rather than sitting cross-legged like he usually does. His head and shoulders are visible. The comscreen is on the cof
fee table in front of us, the stopwatch running. We won’t have anyone to hit start like we did when Mason was the only one jumping, so we’re using the two-minute mark as zero.

  The digits spin up to 1.45 and keep racing.

  ‘Okay. Let’s do this,’ from Mason. The stopwatch reaches 02.00, and I hear a faint breath beside me.

  My eyes close, shoulders relax and I exhale. Let myself sink. It’s different with someone else here, harder to let go of my connection to the world around me.

  Especially since that someone is Mason.

  It takes longer than usual to still my thoughts and allow my sense of time to slow, but soon I find myself deep inside timelessness, a familiar place that’s also foreign. My senses are mute as I drift forwards.

  It’s a safe amount of time, one minute. I pull up to the surface and gasp with the rush of it: the weight of my body against the floor, the truth of my own heartbeat. After being shut down in the tunnel, each sense is deliciously alive.

  I turn to find Mason watching me. Our eyes meet but I don’t say anything because it’s hard to find words while I’m still being hit with here and now. He’s breathing hard too, his face open and amazed.

  ‘You saw me come back?’ I realise it’s the first time he’s seen it. Still breathless. I have to find my brain somewhere in this flood of sensations. I reach forwards for the blanket.

  His eyes follow as I pull it awkwardly around my shoulders, then drop once in a nod.

  With two soft corners held to my chest, I shuffle around so that I’m facing him and lift a hand to rest on the whiteboard. ‘Amazing, hey?’

  ‘Better than amazing.’ There’s a pause as he keeps watching me but then he blinks as if making a decision. He shuffles in a quarter turn and places a hand, firm and warm, on top of mine.