The Time Traveler’s Fail-Safe

He wouldn't have noticed her, but for her hair. Her hair had a very distinct smell, like lemons and strawberries and cheese and a lot of everything that could smell as nice. He looked up, and found her staring at him very intently, and at the desk he was in the process of so convincingly destroying.

“Erm, dear, what in fuck’s name are you doing? And why does it have to involve murdering my antique mahogany desk? You know we love that desk, don't you?” she asked him, very patiently.

“We do? No, I mean, of course we do. But don't worry about the desk, antiques are a thing of the past now.” he mumbled, and continued writing on the desk with what looked a lot like her purple permanent marker. She was very slightly glad he didn't use the fluorescent green, but that wasn't quite helping the desk, not with the purple epsilons scribbled across the aged mahogany.

She decided she would wait for him to finish - the desk was quite beyond saving anyhow, and she was sure she didn't love the desk as much as she thought she did - she struck a match against the hard granite wall, and as the flame flickers, slowly brings it to the cigarette dangling between her lips.

He noticed another smell interfering with all the lemons and the strawberries and the camembert, so he held his breath until the longing should pass. He had promised himself he wouldn't smoke for eight months, and at eight weeks, he was still going strong. “Are we nearly done yet?” she asked, crushing the last few drags into an ashtray. “I hope so, though I have a feeling that e might not be as close to c-squared as I would have liked.” he was mumbling again, but she couldn't hold back the temptation, “Good god, what do we do?” “I suppose we'll just have to ask Einstein.”

She smiled at him, a soft smile twisted at one end, the kind he liked to keep looking at, and want to stop completely and utterly ruining the desk, maybe. He had convinced himself that this smile was utterly and completely his own, and he was right. She gave this smile to no one else but him.

“And we could get you another desk, yes, what period is this? Looks like late Victorian, though I wouldn't trust myself. Wish you could come along and pick one out. Although hauling it through time and space is going to be an absolute bitch, especially those parts with space.” he might have been talking to that desk, but she knew he was saying he would be gone again, and that he should be back in time for dinner if he knew what's good for him, and he could bring another absolutely horrid desk with him if he felt like the trouble. He's never had any taste for fine furniture.

A moment later, and he wasn't there. Technically, he wasn't quite then either, but that's the thing about time-travel, you can never belong. Not to time, nor space. You just find a person to hold onto you in the present, so that you can always find your way back. The time-traveler's fail-safe smiled softly.

By:

Sarthak Prakash

That Parallels Never Do

She was smoking a cigarette furtively; and only because she was more than occasionally glancing around she seemed to be waiting for someone, but in actuality, she was waiting for something instead; and only because waiting is awfully boring to be done all alone, is why nothing but a few hurried drags would even barely relieve her of the dullness.

He was smoking a loosely-wrapped joint, rolled in haste, falling apart along the seam. He might have been waiting, he might have been not; there was not anyone and there was not anything that required his immediate concern; none and nothing, but those few shreds of mildly influenced tobacco simpering and smouldering such between his fingertips.

She looked around, yet again, and she caught his eye - he had been hoping she might, and he was glad she did. He smiled meekly, not wanting to outrightly suggest the possibilities frolicking behind his eyes, and she smiled back, faintly aware that his smile held far more promise than he might have wanted to reveal.

He flicks the stub in a manner he thought was unusually nonchalant; and he finds that she was staring at him with so much more than just casual interest. She smiled, and he gladly reciprocated with a faint nod of his head, hoping whatever and whosoever she might have been waiting for such, may just take about forever.

She was reasonably assured that they had previously once chanced upon each other, she can’t remember when.

He suddenly realised that they might just have shared a very similar encounter before, he can’t remember where.

She usually would never find herself at such amusing odds, and never before so curiously excited either. They might have only smiled at each other, but she was suddenly bursting with many other memories, mirthful and melancholic in equal measures.

Where, she so wonders, had they met before, if at all, and would they meet again, to share more than just these smiles of promise?

He generally refused to involve himself in any sense of unfamiliarity, and they may have never before even smiled at each other, and so he was gradually working his way through twenty years of faces, trying to find a reference, expecting recollection.

When, he thought of, did they meet before, if at all, and would they meet again, to glance at with more than just twinkling eyes?

The bus screeched to a halt, she climbed in, and something makes him follow. He found a seat near the far-end, and somehow, she couldn’t find another but right next to him. They smiled, she was about to ask him when, but he did instead.

The bus gently rolled into the stop, he climbed in because he was sure she would, and she already had. He looked for two empty seats, sat down, and finds himself beside her. They smiled, and he might have asked about where, but she did.

The buses sped off, in an opposite direction each. She was talking to him, heading for one end in this city of uncharted possibilities, and he was talking to her, heading in a direction quite another, along only a route decidedly parallel.

By:

Sarthak Prakash