Yesteryear Fiction

Timer
By Lucy Montague Moffatt


Ok watch this…Did you see it? No you didn’t see anything, did you? Watch carefully this time…See anything? No? Will I tell you what I’m doing? Ok, come closer. I’m time travelling. I am going back into the past. That’s why you can’t see anything different when I do it. I can see you. It’s like going into a tunnel of slow motion, I go in and everything becomes quiet and murky. I can press rewind on life and move through the tape like a space man walking on the moon.

I can only go back a few seconds, so far. But I’ve been practicing. I first went back in time when I was eight. I was sitting in class watching my teacher when suddenly everything stopped and went into reverse. It was only for a spilt second, then everything went back to normal. I knew at once what had happened. I had time travelled! Only for a few seconds but that didn’t matter, I had the power! Finally I knew what my purpose in life was.

Since then I have been trying to harness my powers. It’s very difficult, working with time, as you can probably imagine. It’s so unpredictable and invisible that trying to control it can be a bitch. I can only control it sometimes, but I know I will be able to properly one day. I just need to practice more.

It can happen at any time. I could be in a lift or at a party or on the toilet, when suddenly I get this hot feeling right in the pit of my stomach. The heat moves up my body, through my arms and into my brain and then I am floating. I enter the tunnel of time and there’s nothing I can do about it. A few seconds later I’m back to where I was before, just a few seconds behind.

Once, I tried so hard to control it that I passed out. All the blood rushed to my head and I nearly popped a vein. I hit the floor with a bang and when I woke up I really thought I’d gone right back in time, back to the stone age. But I was just in my back garden, lying beside a tree. That was really disappointing for me.

I haven’t told many people about my power yet, I want to try to get to going back in minutes before I do, not that anyone will believe me when I do manage to do it. I’ve talked to some people on the internet about it and some say they can do it too. One guy even claimed he’s gone back to Roman times and was Julius Caesar’s advisor. He says next time he goes back he’s going to stop his getting stabbed. But that’s bullshit. I don’t believe a word of it. He’s just looking for attention. But my powers are real.

There, I just did it again! Did you see it?


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Lucy Montague-Moffatt is a 23 year old writer, comedian and student from Dublin. Her work has featured in Wordlegs Presents: 30 under 30, wordlegs.ie, The Bohemyth and the recently published short story collection 30 under 30. She was a winner of the Fishamble: Tiny Plays competition and is writing the first year play for Inchicore College Dublin for a second year in a row.