The fire in which we burn

Time, time, time,
see what's become of me,
While I looked around,
For my possibilities;
I was so hard to please.

Time again to return to our protagonist. Time at last to see what she and her friend have been doing lo these many months. Or has it been months for them? Has it been minutes or seconds or years? Has it been decades?

Where have they been? What times and places did they see? 

Once they discovered the trick of touching -- when one slips through the manifolds of spacetime, an anchor is always preferable -- they found it much easier to navigate the times in which they found themselves. One would act as lookout while the other stole clothing and food.

They once found themselves in Paris at the turn of the century, fin de siècle. They stole some baguettes and ate them while gazing up at the Eiffel Tower, alternatively wanting and afraid to go near to it. What if they climbed up the tower and then were pulled again through the folds of time? Would they find themselves high up in the air? It had never happened before, but then again, there was always a first time for everything. A first and last time.

They fell asleep in an alleyway and awoke during the Los Angeles riots of 1992. They hid in their alleyway (which had changed from the soft red brick warm from the sun to cold grey bricks spray-painted with phrases like "Fuck da police"). It was the same world, but removed a hundred years and a thousand miles. They waited it out, looking for clothes in a nearby dumpster, and then fell asleep in an abandoned car.

They were like Little Nemo in Slumberland, forever falling asleep to awaken in a new world. They could survive as long as they had each other -- which was, of course, their greatest weakness as well. If one depends on another, you only need to separate them and they fall apart.

I'm getting ahead of myself now. They are due to return at any moment. I've learned over the years to see the signs, to feel the wind (as it were) so I know when they are coming back. When the rubber band of time gives them a little piece of home before it snaps them forward or back again.

But enough about them, right? I bet you are dying to know who I am and how I know all about them.

Well, it's actually a fairly simply answer.

I'm a nobody.

Re: The Last Post

I woke up to find that post, which either came from Future Me, in which case it is possible that two of us can be in the same time, which means we were all wrong about becoming unstuck, or else someone is fucking with me.

In any case, we're still trying to get our feet on the ground again. We have enough money now to rent an apartment, we sticking together on our trips through time, even if that means when we come back to the present (plus or minus a few days or weeks), it takes longer to get back to where we started.

But we don't want to be alone anymore when we become unstuck. Not since the fire.

(I still feel guilty when I look at Bally, even though I know I didn't do it. Haven't done it. Won't do it. Would never do it. But I still feel guilty.)

If the message was from Future Me, then I don't care if the others are lost, we will still try to find them. If the message was from some fucking joker, then when I find you, I will fuck your shit up. I will stomp your face so hard, you'll think it was 1984.

The Future Is An Ocean

It comes in waves. It can drown you, but if you work hard, if you push yourself, you can swim through it. I swear to you, you can do it. You can survive the future.

Sorry to just leave this message and run, but the longer I stay here, the more likely you are to wake up and realize that you can be in two places at once. And that would be quite an awkward meeting, right?

But I just wanted to tell you that: you can survive. Both of you.

The others, however, are already lost.

Hold On Tight

That's how we stay together. When we go to sleep, we hold on tight. So if one of us slips away, the other slips with us.

We figured that out the first night, when I held Bally's hand as she went to sleep and then I felt myself become unstuck. It was only the second time that had happened when I was awake -- and the previous time it was due to the Rawboned Man. This time, it was because I was holding onto Bally and she was becoming unstuck.

I closed my eyes, held her hand, and when I opened it, we were in a wide open grassland. It was still dark and it looked like there weren't any buildings around. It must have been summer, since it was warm, but we still shivered out in the open.

We held each other's hands and went back to sleep. When we woke, we were back in our time or close to it.

So that's how we stay together now. We hold on tight.

The Fire

Bally started to talk. She kept fidgeting, moving the hood over her face so it would cover her burns. "I, um, I was in New York, I think. It was only for a few hours and then I went back to sleep and I woke up back in my time. I called Roland and Mona and they came out to get me. They said you had disappeared a few days ago, but they were sure you would turn up, just like me."

We were sitting on a bench in a park. Mona had been staying at nearby low-rent housing, but she said the room was as small as a coffin, so she didn't want to stay there. She wanted to tell the story in the open air.

"So I was at the house and a few days later, I woke up to a noise. I went downstairs and you were there. I mean, it wasn't you you, but a future you. You looked older and your face had...scars." She couldn't look at me when she was talking, like she was ashamed at herself, even for something I had done. "You were pouring gasoline all over the house. I didn't know what to do. I tried to wake up Roland and Mona, but their beds were empty. They must have become unstuck in the night."

She leaned forward. "Finally, you, the future you, lit a match and...well, set the house on fire. You didn't say anything. You just looked at me with this...grin on your face. And then..." She stopped.

"What?" I said. "What happened? Why didn't you just run, get out of there?"

"Because you were burning," she whispered. "You had set yourself on fire, too, and I wanted to put it out. I tried to put it out, but I couldn't. It hurt so much and then...then I remembered being dragged out of there by a firefighter. I remember the pain of the cold air on my skin and I tried to find you again, but you weren't there."

She stopped talking then. "I'm sorry," I said. "I don't...I don't know why I would do that. What would make me."

"I've been thinking about it," she said. "It was probably one of the Unchanging. The Rover or the Rawboned Man. Or maybe, I mean, I've heard of something recently that can look exactly like other people. Maybe it was that."

"Maybe," I said.

"And now you're back," Bally said. "The present you, not the future you. Now we can look for Roland and Mona, right? Now we can find another place to live and everything will be fine, right?"

"Right," I said. "Right."

The House

I went to the house today. I wanted to see if anyone was there.

It was a burned, blackened husk. The fire didn't even look recent. It must have happened weeks, maybe even days after I became unstuck. They can't be dead though. They can't. I've never seen their future selves, but they just can't be dead.

I met Bally. I was looking at the house, at the shell of the only permanent home I had known for a long time, when I heard her. "I knew you would come back," she said and I turned.

The left side of her face was burned. She awkwardly tried to pull a hood over her face and looked down nervously. "I knew you'd come back here," she said again. "I've been waiting. Ever since I got out of the hospital."

"What happened, Bally?" I asked.

"It's a long story," she said.

And then she told it to me. She told me about the fire and, more importantly, who was responsible: I was.

Shelter

I found a homeless shelter where I got some decent clothes and -- thank God -- shoes. Do you know how hard it is to walk barefoot? I kept on trying to avoid broken glass and dog shit.

I went to sleep last night and wondered if I would wake up back in March, but no luck. I've never become unstuck in the future before -- am I stuck here now? Is this now my present?

Still no word from Roland, Mona, or Bally. I'm even more worried, if that's possible.