Time Changes Things

“Congratulations! You will be dying in five days.” Not the first thing you expect or want to hear before you’ve had coffee. Especially not after being woken up way too early. On a Saturday.

The man who had spoken sent a disgusted, condescending look my way before pushing past me into my home. Even if I wasn’t been busy picking up my jaw from the floor, I wouldn’t have been able to stop. The guy was huge. I stared after him, my knuckles white where they still clenched the doorknob, as he inspected my home.

“Did you hear me?” He didn’t look at me, his eyes moving over the pictures on the wall, but I still couldn’t answer. At least I’d managed to close my mouth. And open it again. And close it. And open it. While I was imitating a fish, my mind was struggling with logical concepts. You know, like calling the police, or considering screaming. No, instead of logical thoughts, I was wondering why the heck there was an attractive man in my home. Threats to my life aside.

I was still staring, eyes bugging out of my head, mind mostly blank, when the strange home-invader’s dark head snapped in my direction.

“Oh, for Eros’ sake!” He growled as he waved a hand in my direction and the door ripped from my grasp, slamming shut. What the actual... Pitch black eyes pinned me in place for a split second before my body flew forward, my slipper-clad feet dragging across the floor. A scream got stuck in my throat and my arms flailed wildly for all of five seconds before my body crashed onto my sofa, face first. My head hit the arm rest and my feet dangled off the other side. Ouch.

“I asked if you heard me, Alice,” He asked. This time he didn’t wait for me to respond before my body flopped itself into a sitting position. When he raised a dark brow, eyes flashing with impatience, my chin jerked in some semblance of a nod. I wasn’t sure I’d manage much else. Not with the way my body seized up and trembled. I had never been that scared in my life. Never had reason to be.

The sadistic satisfaction that lit up his face at the sight of my fear obviously didn’t help.

The man lowered his bulky, black-clad frame into my grandmother’s wingback chair.

“Now, do you know who I am?” The stranger leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. His far too intense gaze focused solely on me. It seemed he took my frown and lip biting for the ignorance that it was because he put me out of my morbidly curious misery: “I am Time.” Wait. What? “And you, my dear Alice,” he gestured at me as if there was any doubt about whom he was speaking to. “You, have been wasting, well... Me. And I’m quite tired of it. Quite tired of giving you the time to live a fulfilling life only to see you squander the gift you’ve been given.”

If it hadn’t been for the boulder of abject fear stuck in my throat, and the repeated you-are-a-rag-doll experience, I would have laughed at the absurdity of what “Time” was saying. But truth be told, I was trying very hard not to pee myself.

“So I’ve made a decision,” he paused, as though for dramatic effect. Not that anyone could be very dramatic whilst sitting on a chair upholstered with fabric covered in cupids and flowers. Fear for one’s life aside.

“I’ve decided to make an example of you, though Eros knows you mortals never learn.” Time looked so overly pleased with himself that, again, I had the absurd idea that I would have laughed if I wasn’t in the company of a complete maniac.

“So, here’s the deal, Alice,” he whispered, leaning towards me and my body rag-dolled forward as well, as if we were conspiring. “I’ll give you five days.” He held up an exceptionally large hand, fingers splayed. “Get your things in order. Say goodbye, get over a fear, go on a date, I don’t care! Do what you need to do. But when your time is up, I’ll be there. Do you understand me?” His voice gained more and more of an edge as he continued to speak, and the bottom dropped out of my world. Why I believed him I had no idea but, I did.

My mind ran wild with a million questions, fears and doubts, all of them refusing to spill past my trembling lips. My vision blurred until the tears spilled from my eyelids and I only realised I was shaking when I lifted my hand to try and wipe them away. A strange look, a pained grimace of sorts flashed over Time’s face so fast I nearly missed it. He didn’t make me answer. He just disappeared in ‘n puff of soft pink smoke.

So when everyone tells you not to waste time, how time is precious and that you will regret it if you do waste it, all of them are just saying it to make themselves feel better about all the time they’ve wasted in their lives. I’m sure of it.

The funny thing is I never really thought I wasted much time. I worked efficiently, managed my time well. I was never late. If anything I was always early. I stopped and looked at cute little birds hopping around. I made aww noises when I saw lovey-dovey old people and smiled when I saw happy kids. I called and visited with friends and family often... enough. All those wholesome, non-time-wasting things.

The cliché people do get right is that time is cruel. Because he really is. He is a cruel, conniving, manipulative bastard who can’t keep his nose out of other people’s lives because he got his feelings hurt.

There were too many things I needed to do and five days would never be enough. Too many people that I needed to see. So I did what I did best. I made a list. Prioritized.

At the top of said list was my mother. We never really got along all that well. Being badgered about my size, my hair or why it was my fault that I didn’t have a boyfriend really didn’t make for a friendly environment. But was that really relevant under the circumstances?

I thought long and hard (all of five minutes) about whether I should call or whether I should go see her. The call won out. Bit more of a mother-buffer.

I sat curled up on the sofa, chewing the back of my pen while I waited for my mother to pick up the phone.

“Hello!” My mother’s voice chirped through the line.

“Mum? Hi, it’s-”

“I can’t talk right now, but please leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Tata!”

Voicemail. Of course.

I wasn’t going to leave a message. She never called back anyway. I decided to wait a while and call again. No harm in trying again, right? No need to jump straight into going to her house, right?

I started sorting my things, labelling who would get what and what had to be donated, while I gathered the courage to call her again. Within an hour every item in the living area had sticky note attached.

It took me another half an hour to gather the courage to press the call button again.

She picked up on the fourth ring.

“Alice! Darling! I saw you called! I’m so sorry, dear! I meant to call you back but you know how busy things get.” She was using her lilting tone. She had male company. I wondered if he was new.

“Hi, Mum. Listen, I-”

“Oh, Alice, I’m sorry, but I can’t chat long. I need to get back to packing. It’s so exciting, darling! Henry’s taking me on a cruise for the week,” my mother squealed. Henry was definitely new. Hold on to the wallet, man.

“Oh, that’s great, Mum, but I need to talk t-”

“We’ll do brunch when I get back, yes? I’ll bring you something nice, I promise. Kisses!”

“Mum! Wait, Mum!” The line went dead. When I got to her house about an hour later (traffic was no joke), she was already gone.

I did my best not to cry my eyes out all the way back home and I’m proud to say I succeeded. Mostly. When I did get home, I cried all over my list of people I needed to say goodbye to. And cried. I cried because, in that moment I knew I had not given them the time they deserved and now I would never get the chance to.

When the well finally ran dry, my head throbbing and my nose blocked, I stared at my ruined list. I’d written it with a hideously pink pen and my tears had smudged the ink so badly that only one name was still legible. Jordan. Well, there’s irony for ya. He was the one aspect of my life that carried the label of time wasted. In the three years we had been friends, I had been in love with him for most of it. And I had been too much of a chicken to admit it. Obviously. Especially after the dreaded words “best friends” were uttered (by him, of course). Despite all this, he would be the only person on my farewell list that would cause my heart to shatter when I said goodbye. My knee-jerk reaction was to avoid a face-to-face interaction at all costs. I could just write a letter, right? Remember, I am a complete and utter chicken. We have established this.

Jordan, of course, blew that plan to hell when he walked through my front door (why did I give him a key again?) with Chinese take-out and a bottle of my favourite wine, our usual Saturday afternoon routine when neither of us had other plans. One tends to forget these habitual events when one is in the middle of a life altering existential crisis.

The bright smile fell from his face when he saw my red eyes staring back at him. He didn’t ask questions. This was one of the numerous reasons I loved him. He just put the food on the coffee table, sat down on the sofa and opened his arms. I dragged myself to the sofa and crawled into comfort of his arms.

What felt like hours passed before I felt okay enough to talk while he just held me patiently, waiting. Finally, I sat back, running a trembling hand over my face. Jordan kept one hand on my arm, stroking softly, the concerned frown on his face making me want to chicken out (big surprise) from telling him. After a deep, shaky breath I started. “Listen, Jordan, I need to talk to you about someth-”

And of course, at that exact moment, the devil called. Of course, I mean his girlfriend. I watched him frown down at the screen before glancing back at me, the internal debate playing out on his face. “It’s alright. Answer.” He wanted to argue, I knew him. I could see it in his face. So I did what cowards do. I smiled, shook my head, and pointed at his phone before grabbing the food and wine and heading for the kitchen. Not long after that, he came in with a remorseful look on his face. Her royal witchness had summoned him. Again, I did what I always did. I smiled and told him to enjoy. Jordan left after leaving a kiss on my cheek.

I told myself it was okay, I still had time. And in the silence of my house I could swear I heard someone whisper “tick-tock, tick-tock” over and over again.

That was pretty much how the rest of the week passed. Jordan and I would make plans, I would scrape and scrounge together the courage to tell him goodbye in some sort of cryptic way and every time something or someone would interrupt. Every. Freaking. Time.

Sunday, the devil-lady (his girlfriend) showed up while we were browsing through a second-hand bookshop. It made me feel a little better that Jordan had looked unimpressed with her interruption.

Sunday evening, we had been making some weird new recipe that he had wanted to try and I was trying to spill my guts. Until he set the dishcloth on fire.

He was out of town all of Monday and call me old fashioned but I’m not telling the guy I’m in love with that I’m dying over the phone.

Tuesday, I actually managed it. I got everything out in one long rant. Even threw in an “I love you”, only to realize he had fallen asleep somewhere along the line. Wednesday evening we were at his mother’s for her birthday. She kept me all to herself to tell me about her sciatica.

Thursday. My last day on earth. When I get to my kitchen Time is waiting for me, jaw clenched, arms crossed. “Well, that was a disaster.” His voice grated on my nerves. I didn’t even have it in me to be scared. I’d been awake all night. I tried calling Jordan twice. Once it went to voicemail and then the she-devil answered and told me to stay away from Jordan. I ended up sending an email.

Time blew out a long breath.

“Here’s the thing, Alice. Your friend, Jordan,” my head whipped around. “He’s been wasting a lot of time these days.” I could literally feel my heart stop beating before it took off at a break neck pace. I was seconds away from attempting to murder Time when he held up a hand. “But because I like you, I’ll make you a deal.” The sadistic smile on his face did not go unnoticed. “You have an hour. You tell the guy you love him, and I’ll give him more time.”

I didn’t even stop to change out of my pajamas. I ran to my car and broke so many traffic laws I lost count. My car screeched to a halt in his driveway, just as he stumbled out of the front door. “Alice! What the hell is wrong with you!” Jordan shouted as we ran toward each other, colliding in his front yard. He grabbed my face.

“What the hell kind of email was that? You can’t just-”

“Jordan-”

“No, Alice! Do you have any idea what you just put-”

“Jordan, please, I need to-”

“You’ve been acting so damn strange all week and now you pull this shit! Are you out of your mind?” His shook me, as if he could shake sense into me. I didn’t have time for this. I grabbed his head, rose up on my toes and slammed my mouth to his, kissing him with every drop of love my soul possessed.

“I love you, Jordan,” my whisper brushed against his lips.

“Alice...” I barely heard him whisper before he kissed me in earnest, crushing me to him. I was losing myself when we were pulled apart, a pained cry ripping from my lips.

“Freaking! Finally!” Time stood a few feet away, doing the a strange little happy dance while Jordan and I were suspended just out of reach of each other.

“I’m gonna get my wings! I’m gonna get my wings!” Time sing-songed over and over again, dancing in the middle of the street.

“What the hell are you talking about? Who are you!!” Jordan thrashed against the force that held us apart.

“Time! What’s going on? You said you’d let him go!” My voice cracked as my gaze swung between the maniac in the street and the man I loved.

“Oh, Precious! Let me explain. I’m not, as previously stated, Time.” Mutherfluffer say what? A slow roll of rage began to build in my gut.

“I am, however, a Cupid-in-training, and you two were my first darts. You were just to darn stubborn to act after the darting took effect. You see, I can’t earn my official Cupid-wings if you two don’t actually end up together and I was getting desperate.” The dead-Cupid-walking shrugged.

“Desperate times call for desperate measures, yes?” He glanced between me and Jordan. Obviously what he saw made him uncomfortable. If Jordan had been half as upset as I had been, Arrow-boy had good reason to be scared.

“Yes, uh, well.” He cleared his throat, looking considerably paler that he had a moment before.

“Good thing you won’t remember my involvement in this at all. Merely the outcome.” He tried for, what I assume, was supposed to be a charming smile. When we were suddenly released from rag-doll status, Jordan stormed toward him. The Cupid-wannabe disappeared with a squeak and a puff of pink smoke.

The rage and frustration lingered for a moment, but then I couldn’t quite remember why I had been feeling that way.

Suddenly, Jordan spun around, the tails of his nightgown whipping around him. He stormed toward me with such a thunderous expression that I almost felt the need to back away. Grabbing my shoulders he pulled me very, very close. “If you ever, and I mean ever, pull a stunt like that again, Alice-” He broke off, forehead resting against mine, jaw clenched.

I reached up and cupped his jaw between my hands, drawing his gaze back to mine.

“I love you, Alice,” He whispered, his voice rough.

Tears blurred my vision as he stared into my eyes. I loved him so much, but...

“What about your girlfriend?” He looked genuinely confused for a moment, until he smiled.

“Oh, you mean the ex that just won’t leave me alone?” He chuckled at my stunned expression.

“Listen to me, Alice. Never say goodbye to me ever again.” He sealed the order with a kiss which lasted until his phone interrupted.

(2997)