El: The Time Traveler Read online

  My father spoke up. “El, why don’t you go outside and find the perfect place for the vegetable garden?”

  I nodded again. Okay, Dad. Anything, Dad. I was filled with desire to do the right thing, follow his orders, and be one with my family. It was the only thing that made sense in that moment. I exited the front door and went out to my yard.

  There were two beach chairs opened up in the sunniest part of our lawn. Laying on one beach chairs was my Aunt Lily in a straw sun hat and a red-striped bikini. In the other beach chair was Kazak, laying out as if he was a human. They both waved at me but said nothing.

  I waved back but mostly ignored them. They were distractions to my mission. I needed to find the perfect place for my family’s vegetable garden. The prospect made my parents so happy, nothing could go wrong. My parents deserved all the happiness.

  On the far-east side of my yard, there was a piece of direct sunshine below a hill. I ran across to it. It seemed like the perfect place for a supple garden, with lots of sun on bright days and lots of runoff on rainy days.

  I knelt down so my knees dug indents into the dirt, and raised my hand. “To the father,” I touched my forehead, “to the son,” I touched my chest, “and to the holy spirit,” I touched both my shoulders. I clasped my hands together.

  “God, can I please talk to You? I want to tell you something.”

  A vine sprung out of the dirt and wrapped around me. It was coated in enlarged thorns and dug into my flesh. I squirted out blood, but I ignored it.

  “I wanted to tell You that I don’t find You funny. I don’t find this planet or my life or my self funny. I want to be left alone. I don’t see how being left alone could possibly be worse than the mess that You created.

  “If it is at all possible that everything dirty on this planet is due to means that You can’t control, then what is even the point? Then aren’t You useless? If You aren’t useless, if You truly have blessed me, then I’m sorry I can’t appreciate it. I’m sorry that You made something inside me that just sees all this evil.

  “And if You don’t exist, then I’m sorry. I’m sorry for myself, for spending so much time thinking about You. I’m sorry for myself, for not being more creative or more intelligent or more enlightened. I’m sorry that I believe in fairy tales, like a stupid child. I’m sorry that I can’t grow up.”

  I smiled a ruby red smile that went from earlobe to earlobe as the vine wrapped around my neck, piercing my jugular. Blood stained the dirt around me as I fell into darkness.

 

  As I came out of the time machine, my neck and back oozed with sweat. I had entered a humid wetland where the only visible life were saplings, popping out of the thick mud.

  A booming whiplash vibrated throughout the sky. I arched my neck towards the noise, abruptly meeting a floating, monstrous face. I laughed. That was exactly what I expected.

  The beast looked down at me with bulging, ebony pupils. Two goat horns protruded out of its forehead, juxtaposing a short, ginger goatee. When it opened its mouth, as if to speak, jaws like a great white shark peeped out, with three sets of canine teeth.

  But when the monster’s piercing black eyes met mine, the joke lost its flare. My ears warmed up with blood-flow. But this time the palpitations had a rhythm that almost sounded like words. Its grin was broadening wider and wider as the dialect that was echoed around me gained volume.

  At first I couldn’t understand the voice. I was aware of its presence but I couldn’t translate the indecipherable shouting.

  I didn’t know if I wanted to run closer to the floating head or run away. I kneeled down, knees making imprints in the mud, and covered my face with my hands. I spread the cracks in between my fingers so I could continue to voyeur.

  The voice echoing around me started to become clear. “Welcome to the Start of Life. Stuffy, yes, but nothing like The End. I can’t even take that level of heat.”

  “Who... who are you?” I asked, like I haven’t prescribed it an identity already, like I didn’t know.

  “Many names. You can call me The Creator. And I will call you Eleanor, The Time Traveler. I been expecting you.”

  I started to collapse, lowered my face into my thighs, drooling along the way. I shook my head, once. Twice. I thought I could take it. I thought my journey gave me some sort of strength to face my biggest fear. But I was still just a timid child, wanting to hide behind my mother’s back, not wanting to talk to anyone other than her.

  I couldn’t do this. The Creator continued some monologue but its words were beyond me. I did what I did best, fell into my own self deprecating thoughts. The volume inside me so much louder than anything on the outside. What does it mean when the biggest, most heroic thing I ever did was being eaten alive? Why did I attach strength to an act of suicide?

  I was scared because this is it; the final judgement. I was scared because it knew me, my privacy violated. I was scared because everything had a start and I wanted it to be meaningless. I wanted to be something other than a pawn of evil.

  “Are you-- are you... evil?” It sounded stupid, childish but I asked, because maybe you can’t judge a book by its cover. Maybe this monster floating above me is a great big angel. Maybe it empathizes with me, wants to protect me, from the suicidal impulses that are screeching.

  “I’m lonely,” said the Creator, “The saplings aren’t exactly conversational. Did you know you are the first sentient being to walk the land -- I float. To bad you are so dull though. That’s probably why you never had friends, huh? Or maybe it’s because of all the darkness that you keep bottled up. You sure showed off how demonic you can be when you met yourself.

  “Eleanor, I know you tried to control Death’s fate, but that didn’t work out very well, did it? See, you can’t beat me. You can’t control the stories I write out for you or your family. In the end, it is my whims who decide who lives or dies. Always.

  “And it is only just starting for you. Eleanor, I have lotsa gifts to give to those who try to fight me.”

  I grabbed both sides of my head. There was so many overlapping words vibrating inside of me that I couldn’t even hear my thoughts anymore.

  I looked up, at my shimmering time machine, and felt the first light of comfort since I entered the Start of All. I ran back to it.

  Inside, I couldn’t hear the shrill of the servers anymore. Only the Creator’s echoing cackle. I leaned downwards and pulled out the grenade-sized screw. The sharp edge dug into my palm and I growled.

  I tightly held the screw to my chest.

  “I control me,” I shouted.

  I ripped at my wrists first, throat second, with the screw’s sharp edge. My blood quickly left me, covering the time machine’s wiry floor. I knelt into my own puddles, letting myself bleed out until I was nothing at all.

  I was just a speck of dust, compared to this majestic, unworldly machine. I was just a girl, my singularity emphasized by nineteen years of timid experiences. Nineteen years of hiding behind my mother, in the back of the classroom, or in the woods, all alone. Nineteen years of biting my tongue, never voicing my concerns, never taking any risks. Nineteen years of silent suffering, mute agony. I had nothing in my life to prepare myself for something unworldly when I was so detached from everything worldly.

  I was El. I was nothing and now I’m even more nothing. This nothingness is different though. It is a overpowering nothing, devouring any sort of guilt I might have had for my mother who has now lost her daughter. I couldn’t even imagine, couldn’t even care, for her pain. It was a nothing that shrunk every ounce of agony on Earth to invisibility. I became an intergalactic nothing inside a speck of dust.

  ###

  About the Author

  timidity

  a quartz door knob is placed behind the molar that the irregular bristles neglected.

  upon twisting it one could enter the mostly seashell with dandelion on the edges tooth.

  inside is a series of g
othic-framed portraits of the back of everyone’s head that she bit her tongue to.

  Nk Layne sees the world through queer brushstrokes, infinite rainbows, demonic cartoons, gory afternoons, and a veil of moss.

  Also by this author:

  Achievement Tentantacle Lust: PWP M/M/M tentacle/dub-con smut -- rated NC17

  Ghastly Entanglement: F/F paranormal romance -- rated G

  Twitter: @_indelible

  Goodreads: goodreads.com/indelible

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