Lifespan of Starlight (13 page)

That was it, in real life. My time moving at different speeds.

I’m still on a high when I come home, singing along to the Indie Top 10 as I whip
up Mum’s favourite veg and lentil soup. She’s really happy too, talking about a breakthrough
with one of her clients, and for a moment I’m tempted to drop a hint about her birthday.
I feel like knowing that you have something good coming makes the waiting more fun,
but the right moment doesn’t come and I don’t push it. The evening’s so good that
I just let it be.

I’m not sure that I’ll sleep or even that I want to let the day go, but I drift off
easily and find myself dreaming of meeting up with Kessa on the first day of school.
It’s one of those dreams
where you sort of know that you’re dreaming but you ignore
the fact because you don’t want to break the magic of it.

After we meet up the dream jolts ahead to the end of the first day. As we’re both
saying ‘See ya tomorrow’, I get this
maybe
sort of feeling, like a whiff of possibility
…
maybe, I can.
And even though I know at the back of my mind that I still can’t
jump ahead in time, in my dreaming mind I decide to try.

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.

‘M
Y 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.