Past Reality

Here comes another day at college, and since the past year I haven’t felt that tomorrow is going to be a “new day, new opportunity”. So I do what I do on regular days, brush my teeth, take a shower, and put on the first pair of blue jeans I find in my closet with a red hoodie. I take a quick look in the mirror and fix my hair and rub a little concealer beneath my eyes to cover up dark circles. I usually don’t get those except the times I have nightmares or disturbing dreams. I rush to my mess and grab the first two bread slices I see on the counter and rapidly apply butter to it and quickly let it pass through my esophagus all the way to my stomach, where the at least the bile is excited to do its job.

It’s five minutes to eight, and I’m already in my class, I look around and see a couple of familiar faces, while I wait for my best friend, Anna. After it’s been almost ten minutes, the whole class is filled with students and Anna can’t be seen anywhere, and I wonder if should have called her to know if she’s at least woken up. She must have been quite drained out after my birthday party last night. Yes, I just turned nineteen.

I snap out of my thoughts when some cold fingers tap my right hand. I look up to see a tall guy with light complexion and dark brown hair, wearing a pair of ripped jeans and white t-shirt with a black leather jacket. I could have sworn I’ve seen him somewhere recently, I just can’t remember where. He snaps his fingers pulling me back from my thoughts, and now I’m just embarrassed as to how creepy I might have looked there for a second. “Yes?” is all I can manage saying right now. With a much confusing face he points to the seat beside me on which I have kept my bag and says, “Is this seat taken?” That’s when I realize that Anna hasn’t still shown up. I shake my head and say, “Actually I have reserved this seat for a friend” He looks around and walks towards the front seats, just then our Economics professor, Mr Stinson arrives in class and orders everyone to get settled. Mr Stinson takes a look at the class and says, “Ah yes! I forgot to introduce a new student to our class.” He stretches out a hand towards the guy to whom I just spoke, “This gentleman here is a transferred student from one of our collaborated universities. His name is Liam Sawyer, he missed his class yesterday and I would appreciate if anyone of you could help him out. So now, Mr Sawyer, please find a seat and let’s get this class started.” Liam looks around and notices that all the seats are occupied. Observing this, Mr Stinson says, “Mr Sawyer, take a seat next to Ms Clare” and points towards me. I immediately take my bag and clear the seat for Liam; he sits beside me and doesn’t even take a glance at me. Just when I look up, I watch Anna slyly enter the class trying not be noticed. As she starts to move towards me and notices that the seat next to me is occupied, she gives me an offended glare and continues to rush to the nearest unoccupied seat. I try to mouth her “sorry” but she winks and smiles anyway.

After the class, we head out and I rush to meet with Anna, and as soon as I am about to say something she cuts me off, “Another bad dream, huh?” I nod briefly. I’m actually surprised at how well she can notice even the slightest makeup on someone’s face, even a stroke of concealer. “Tell me all about it.” She loves listening to nightmares, and later justifies my dreams with theories that she just came up with. I tell her my dream while walking towards my next class. “I was trapped in a well that was more like square shaped one and the walls were the color of mud, and I was looking up and shouting for help, I even kept jumping up but something was holding me down. Then I looked around and I see a guy holding me by my waist while he’s sitting down and he sort of tries to pull me down maybe because he can’t get up. Then I try to release myself from his grasp and I end up knocking him over as I hit him with my right elbow. That was all, I was screaming and that guy was holding me and I felt like I was trapped with no one to help me around” I look at her with some hope, but she’s just looking somewhere in a distance. I wave my hand in front of her face and she looks at me with confusion and says, “Insights don’t work this way Ms Lily Clare” I frown at her; I hate it when I’m addressed by my full name. “Give me some time to ponder over this and then if I sense something I’ll let you know, Lil. Now I got to go, my next class is at the other side of the campus, see ya!” And then she just waved and disappeared among the crowd.

I don’t have class for the next two hours so I begin to head back to my room. I start searching for my phone in my bag when I hear a scream. I look around to see people rushing towards a certain point. I follow them to see that there’s a wide pit that’s around 12 meters deep and people have surrounded it. I hear a familiar scream “HELP!” I push past the people blocking me and look down only to see that Anna is the one stuck in the pit, but she’s not alone. There’s a guy with her, but he isn’t standing up to get out of here.” His name is Ted; he’s hurt in the leg.” A girl from behind me says this to a guy beside her. I shout out to Anna, “Calm down, Anna! I’ll get some help!” I’m practically screaming at the top of my lungs when I notice that the pit is in a square, which is quite odd. I waive the thought out of my head, but I can’t help being astounded by the coincidences of this incident. I hear people screaming and shouting to fetch a rope or ladder, I signal Anna, “I’ll be right back, don’t worry!” I look up horrified and catch a face looking at me amongst the crowd. It’s Liam. He’s looking at me constantly, without even blinking an eye. I start to recollect the dream I had, and now upon thinking about it, this feels like a Déjà vu. It does feel like the guy I punched in my dream was a lot like Liam, but that’s not possible. I haven’t seen him before today. I look up only to find him gone! I look around the crowd and he’s nowhere to be seen.

I take a few steps back from the pit and away from the crowd to have a few moments to breathe. I can feel the floor slipping beneath my feet, and I need a place to sit before I collapse. I turn around to look for a place to sit, when I bump into a strong figure. I almost tumble over but am saved when a pair of hands catch me by my shoulder and I look up to see that it’s Liam. He glares down at me, and I can’t help but notice the black bruise on his cheek. Where did he get that from? I couldn’t have possibly hit him in reality! “Looking for me?” he says with a stiff tone that sends a chill down my spine. I can only manage to raise my eyebrows since I’m on the verge of throwing up. I look back at the crowd and wonder if Anna got some help out of the pit. I see people standing in a queue pulling her from one end of the rope. I feel a sense of relief that she isn’t stuck there.

“So what’s your problem?” I jump as Liam shouts in my ear. “What did I do?” I ask petrified. He’s really intimidating. “This!” he points to his face, where there’s a black mark, “You did this! Don’t you remember? You knocked me over when I was asking for help! And then within seconds you just vanished into thin air. You are the reason I had to spend the rest of my very first day in the clinic tending to this” he points to his bruise. I don’t remember this happening. I get myself out of his grasps, “I have never seen you before today. How could I have ever hurt you?” He looks confused, “I fell into the same pit yesterday and you were right beside me! And when I asked for your help, you started calling out for help, but then you just suddenly disappeared! I mean what was that all about? I thought I had seen a ghost!” I can’t feel my legs anymore, I’ve frozen. “I’m sorry” is all I can manage to say before I frantically run towards my room.

I have ran for just three minutes and I already feel like I’m going to faint. I unlock the door and practically jump on my bed and cover myself with a blanket. I don’t know what happened. My head starts to throb as all these thoughts form a spiral with no conclusion. I can feel myself sinking into the past few moments and I feel my eyes getting heavier with recollecting every experience of it.

I feel suffocated, I try look but all I can see is water around me. I look up to see that the surface of water is far beyond my reach, I look down to see the surface at an endless distance. I feel a hand grabbing my left ankle and pulling me down. I look down to see a girl of around my age, panicked and tensed, stretching her other hand out to me as though asking me for help to save her. I feel like I’m drowning, not because I don’t know how to swim, but due to weight that’s been pulling me down. I stretch my hand out for her to hold, so that she can let go of my ankle. I’m suddenly breathless and it feels like my heart is beating out of my chest. I try to remain conscious and continue to try and grab that girl’s hand, and try to flex my legs to move in the upward direction, but I feel weak, drowsy and dizzy at the same time.

I wake up to a harsh knock on my door. I’m sweating heavily now. I wipe my face with my blanket and gain control of myself. I try to stand up only to realize that I’m trembling from head to toe. I breathe in-and-out several times to appear like a normal person. I rush to open the door. It’s Anna! There’s a bruise on one side of her head which has been covered up with a Band-Aid and she’s looking at me quite furiously. “You left me there all by myself! I was searching for you when they helped me out, but that new guy told me you left” I try to explain to her what happened when I’m interrupted by a sudden scream from a distance, “HOW COULD YOU LEAVE ME TO DROWN?! HOW COULD YOU JUST DISAPPEAR LIKE THAT?!” I’m shocked to see the same girl who I just saw in my dreams! She’s accompanied with four more girls who look at me like I’m a criminal, and the worst part is that I feel like one now. “What is she saying? What did you do?” Anna looks at me confused and terrified, I mirror her expression unable to utter a word. I watch perplexed as the four girls take “the girl in my dreams” down the corridor and disappear along the alley.

“I swear I can explain all this!” I say with a breaking voice, “I didn’t do anything to her; it was a dream and it’s all here in reality. I wanted to help her but then you knocked and I woke up, I don’t know how to make you believe I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t have any control” I didn’t know what I was saying or if whatever I said made any sense at all, but Anna just looked at me like I was insane, which I don’t blame her for thinking that about me. She looks at me possibly regaining her calm and composure, and handing me an envelope. I look at her confused, and she says, “This is a letter from your father, your mother posted it here and it was supposed to arrive yesterday but it got delayed.” I flip the envelope over and tear it by the edge. I pull out a letter that looks quite old. I carefully open it, trying not to tear it. I wonder why my dad would leave a letter for me. It’s been 10 years since he left for his mission and then months later that space shuttle came back to Earth in pieces. How come I haven’t received any letters all this time and why now? I think of calling my mom first, but stop at the thought because I know she must be busy with her work. I begin to read the letter:

“Dear Lily,

Happy 19^th Birthday, Lil. You must be of your own by now in college and making us proud. I want you to know that your mom and I love you very much. I’m sorry that I’m leaving you alone but please understand that I do realize how risky this mission is and I know that I might not be back for your next birthdays. If you’re reading this letter then I suppose you might have started having a weird couple of days.

I think that your mother and I owe you an explanation. But before I begin to tell you, I want to you to understand that we never wanted you to go through all this trouble and if we’d known the consequences we would have never gone forth with it.

Your mother and I were assigned to the same space mission twenty-one years ago. We got to know each other and eventually got close. We got married after a year. Both of us had got an offer to carry out a space mission together with three of our colleagues. We decided to accept it. We left Earth around two months later and after three months our landing back to Earth was predetermined.

We were orbiting right above the LIGO region and we were set to descend for Earth through that spot. Just know that at that time there wasn’t a theory about LIGO and none of us were aware as to what would happen if we went through this region. Two of our colleagues were responsible for controlling the descend, so your mom and I decided to take some time off to relax and went back to our utility area. We got close after some time.

After we landed on Earth, a month later, your mother found out she was pregnant with you. We were overjoyed! When you were born, that day was the happiest day of our lives! Within a few years of your birth we noticed certain abnormal incidences that occurred with doing something you don’t remember doing. We at first didn’t understand, but then a few of our colleagues started their research on the same region that is now known as LIGO.

To sum it up in a nutshell, you were conceived within the effects of gravitational waves and hence possess the ability to travel in time, mainly to the past, when you least notice it. When we came to know about this, we would make sure that we had woken you up between every hour, which resulted in you having disturbed sleep all your life. We only did this to protect you and to make sure you never caused any harm to anyone, even though it would have been unintentional. We never knew how to say this to you since you were too young to understand, and I made your mom promise me that she would never ruin your childhood by telling you that you weren’t like other kids. We tried to do our best.

I wrote this letter because I promised your mother that I would be the one to tell you this since I was the one who kept it from you. This letter was meant to be sent when we were no longer physically around to take care of you. So now if you’re reading this, it means that I’m no longer around to tell you this in person.

Don’t blame your mother for not telling you this earlier, she has loved you unconditionally and she never wanted you to go through this.

I know it’s a lot to process and then bear with the mistake your parents made. I really hope you understand that it wasn’t intentional. If I could go back in time I would change everything, you know what, I would even change my decision to go forth with that last space mission I agreed to!

I love you, Lil.

Dad.”

That’s it. That’s what my Dad left for me. The last thing I get from my dad is almost a shock to my very core. I just want to believe that this moment is at least not a dream, or in my case, a “past reality”.