We spent as much of the day sleeping in the cabin. We woke to raindrops on a piano that chimed a melody accompanied by a violin's breeze and a few bass lines of thunder. Ah, ambient lofi. Anyways where was I?
Right waking up to music… It was my mom's ringtone. It was the evening now. She called us to say that my aunt was feeling better and that we would be making the drive home tomorrow morning.
I looked around to spread the news to Ophelia and Van but to no avail. They both somehow slept through the music and the conversation with my mom.
I got up and decided to go outside and enjoy the evening air. Soon the night sky drew in, the stars appeared and the cicadas cried. Lost in silence I decided to make a fire. Anything to just keep me busy. To keep my mind off of it. After that very sentence I would draw breath and it then knocked the wind out of me.
What started as a breeze that I could ignore was now a gale force wind forcing me down into the depths. A crushing feeling. An echo from my very core. A hollow shell lacking substance and feeling. Lacking concrete to all of it. Anxiety. Well technically 'panic' but whatever.
My heart rate soared but I couldn’t tell I was merely guessing. I had become so accustomed to it’s spikes that I felt no difference whether my bpm was 70 or 108. My windpipe fell inwards and I struggled for breath.
I watched the flames dance before my eyes leaping and clawing towards the evening sky. Its ash and embers floated upwards drifting further away from Earth and its people. Just like me. A distant burnt out idea floating further and further from reality and all that it knows. I grew distant from everything. The world and everything in it seemed to move kilometers away from me and my heart. I felt disconnected.
Ophelia and Van knocked on the cabin door with looks of concern and worry asked, “Are you okay?”
I put on a brave face and said, “Yeah. I’m fine.”
(I hate being a burden. I thought it was better to hide all my problems rather than talk about them. Ugh I’m such a emo kid cliché.)
“Oliver. You’re clearly not. It is in my professional opinion, as someone who pretends to study psychology, that you’re mid way into a panic attack.”
“Oli. You better tell us the truth.”
“Yah. I am. But there’s nothing either of you or even me can do about it. This just kind of happens and I just have to suck it up and survive the night I guess ya’ know?”
“Yah…” they said in agreement.
“But like you guys make it easier. Dealing with this bullshit that is. You guys make it all a lot easier. I mean some nights and days are easier than others but you guys are always there. In little ways. But you’re there."
“Aww Oli…”
“...You’re all mushy.”
“No, I’m not don’t be gross!”
“Okay. Yikes, Oli….”
Ophelia doing what she does best tried to relieve the tension. She suddenly burst into song. (To be honest I don’t know if it was to relieve the tension because this girl also managed to use every single opportunity humanly possible to break out into song. Luckily she at least had a decent if not good singing voice.)
She chose a song that I had introduced them to.
“Do you wanna come over later. To my house. Watch American Beauty in the dark. And I’ll hold your hand till the very end…”
(And soon we all joined in and celebrated in acts that violate copyright laws)
“Thanks guys. You made this trip to this shitty little dirt town a little more bearable.”
“Well Oliver. It’s not every day that you get to time-travel.”
“To be honest I’m still iffy about this whole we time-travelled thing…”
“What do you want Van? Want me to do it right now again?”
“Yah kinda, sorta, maybe.”
“Even though I believe in Oliver. How would we know if we really time-travelled?”
“Uhm good point. Well the fire would disappear and then reappear when we come back. And the night sky would shine brighter without this light pollution coming from the town.”
“True.” Van and I agreed.
I tried to remember the colonel’s advice and think of a time period and of our location. Suddenly the fire was gone and we looked up and the stars glistened brighter than ever before. But just as soon we were back and the fire had appeared and the sky was dull.
I felt extremely light headed but also I had the biggest headache of my life. It didn’t help that Van and Ophelia were kinda shouting, freaking out because of how shocked they were.
“Uhm guys could you calm down a little? It feels as if my head’s gonna explode…”
“Why?”
“Uhm it’s my first time time-travelling. And the last time we time-travelled I fell asleep for hours. The only connection between these symptoms is that time-travel was involved. So clearly this stuff puts a lot of strain on your body. I mean even you guys were asleep for a while after we came back.”
“How can it be your first time time-travelling if you just said ‘the last time we time-travelled’?”
“Well this was the first time that I did the actual travelling. Normally I just kinda get dragged along the space-time continuum. Last time we were uncontrollably were sent back in time to meet the Colonel. Like I said earlier maybe my subconscious took us to where I needed to be. It seems that my subconscious is what connects me to the essence of time.”
“True I guess…”
“To think we were the first non-time-travellers to travel through time. Oli we should do this more before school starts again.”
“You’re right but let’s all just drink away these events…”
And I fell mid sentence, crashing into the soil beside the fire.
I woke up the next day in the car on the same old, dusty road we took to get to the valley.
“Morning Sleeping Beauty…”
“Funny…”
“Come on Oli. Don’t be like that. We at least opted to let you sleep. Your mom wanted to wake you up but we knew you needed to recover and so we carried your fat ass to the car….”
“Thanks I guess? And I’m not fat. I’m thicc. Ugly people are fat.”
“Ugh just go back to sleep Oliver…”
We all kinda just laughed away the tension. And so closed the chapter of the town that seemed to be hidden in the valley and from time.
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