Reality is Bending

"Shimmering in the sunlight, bright, rainbow pony beads sprinkled the grass when I came back from my break. I would have thought it beautiful if I had not heard the sorrowful cries coming from ten feet away. Those cries and the way Julian tried to fix it, that's when I knew that day was going to be Hell."

"That's when you knew?" the detective asked, "I would have thought the gerbil would have been the sign."

"It was a hamster," I corrected.

"Hamster?"

"Yes, we had a class hamster."

"The police report said it was in pieces when they got there."

"Yes, it was so sad. The children loved that hamster," I agreed.

"Okay, but the beads on the grass, that was your first sign?"

"Well, it happened before the hamster, and it was more about little Amy's cries than the beads.

Amy cried while Julian tried to calm her down. The teacher who was giving me my break was trying to talk to both of them, but she didn’t really know them, not like I did.

I thanked the teacher and said that I could handle it.

I talked to Julian, and he admitted that he broke Amy's bracelet. He knew it was wrong and offered to fix it."

"Wait a minute. You're telling me that a broken bracelet was the first sign that seven people, including yourself, were going to go missing?" the detective's voice was beginning to rise.

"Maybe not the bracelet, but the way Julian chose to fix it.

He held his arms up and moved his hands in waves, like he was paddling the air. The air changed around us. We could breathe but it felt heavy, like a current pushing us backwards and there was no way of fighting it.

The beads and the string floated to Amy, spinning around her arm, until the string became one piece, and then the beads glided onto the string. The final step was the string making a complete circle around Amy's wrist. Then the bracelet was whole again."

"You're exaggerating."

"No," I admitted.

"Amy wasn't scared?"

"She’s four years old. She still believes in magic. All of my students do. They handled it well."

"Weren't you scared?"

"I was scared for Julian and the children. A skill like that could be dangerous. I needed Julian to understand that not everything can be put back together."

"But what about the fact that he could do it at all? Didn't that terrify you?"

I sighed. I felt like I've lived ten lifetimes while teaching. How could I explain that reality didn't feel real anymore?

"I've taught for about twenty years and the better you get at teaching, the more challenges they send in your direction. I was given Julian because he had challenging behaviors, and I was good at handling behaviors. More so, I never gave up on a child.

No child ever seems the same as the others from years before and with all of the craziness in the world, so many subtle changes while people struggle to survive and feel safe. What I’ve known before as facts continue to change...it did not surprise me that I would eventually get a child who could control time."

"Control time?" the detective asked, "He made things float."

"When I asked him what he did, he said that he made it go backwards. He broke the bracelet backwards which put it back together."

The detective stared off for a moment, piecing together the facts silently.

"And the hamster?" the detective urged.

"The hamster was when things got worse," I continued, "Julian liked the hamster, but when it bit his finger, Julian waved his hands again, in an angry paddle outwards. The hamster split apart."

"Oh God."

"For me, the ‘Oh God’ moment came when Julian began to sob. He let out a wail of regret that I can't stop hearing."

"Did he try to fix it?"

"Yes, but it was dead. Even when he managed to put its body back together, it was still dead. I don't think he understood what I meant about not being able to fix some things until that moment. And his cries became worse," I began to sob, remembering it like it was yesterday, "The more he cried and tried to fix it, the heavier the air became and the more time felt altered and the space around us became a blur."

"Where did you go when you and the six children in your classroom disappeared?" the detective asked.

"That's the funny thing, we didn't disappear. We've been there the whole time, in some sort of strange bubble of time."

"That's impossible," the detective challenged, “What did you do with them?”

"If I had anything to do with our disappearance, don’t you think someone would have seen us walk in. But instead, we showed up right back in the classroom, not passing a single person," I pointed out.

“So then, tell me, how did you finally get back?”

"I treated the moment like any other time that a student had a meltdown. I worked with him to calm him down. We did breathing exercises and I tried to make him realize that I knew it was an accident. I told him that I would help him learn how to not hurt any animal or person from now on. I know it took him a little over a day to get us back, but he was extremely upset. Sometimes, four-year-olds feel emotions strongly."

"A day?"

"Yes?"

"Cute," the detective said, "That's one thing I can't take your word for. That fact you can't manipulate."

"Huh?" confusion overtook me. I already felt like I had just woken up from a weird dream and now I had no clear picture of what was happening anymore. I was about to ask what was going on, but what appeared to be the detective's boss came into the room. She asked me to relax in the break room while they talked.

The detective made a fuss, talking about getting to the bottom of things and my insane story.

"Have you seen the children?" she asked.

"No," the detective responded, "I was told they went straight to the hospital. Seemed normal for a kidnapping case."

"I did not kidnap anyone," I responded.

"I agree," stated the chief, "Please relax. It might be best if a doctor sees you too."

"I feel fine," I admitted, "Terribly hungry, but fine for the most part."

"Still, please hang around for a bit,’ she motioned to a police officer outside the door, “Officer Fuentes will take you to the break room and find you something to eat."

The chief gave the detective some photos of the children and said, "These were taken today."

The detective stepped back, "That's impossible."

I glanced at the photos as she showed them, and I remembered the police taking them before the children went for their physicals. I didn't put up a fuss because I'm not sure what that bubble might have done to the children. If they were as hungry as I was, they would definitely need at the very least some food.

“Hello Ms. Norma, it’s so great to see you again,” the police officer said. He had kind eyes and seemed familiar.

"They told you my name?" I asked.

"No, I remember you," he commented. He looked like he was about twenty years old. Kind of young to be any of my students' parents.

"You remember me from where?" I asked.

He chuckled, "Your classroom. I'm Eli Fuentes. I remember you being so patient with me. Letting me practice every siren noise and understanding how much I needed to run around at top speed. Your classroom held a lot of good memories.

And now, I finally got big enough to be a police officer, like I wanted."

"Eli?" I stumbled on the thought, "But you were in my classroom four years ago. There's no way you can be an adult already."

"Not four years ago, Ms. Norma. Sixteen years ago. You've been missing for..."

No…No…It was a day. Two days at the most.

How?

But I knew how. Just like I told the detective. The world is changing and reality is bending. It's not as reliable as it once was.

"You've been missing for thirteen years.”