NINE TIME MACHINES: Do you want to undo your entire life on planet earth?

CHAPTER 6

Alone with my thoughts now, I realize I've got nowhere left to go. My relatives and strangers too have all passed me along like a slippery baton since Ebony's death. And Pete doesn't want to see me again, so I know he won't help. I guess it'll just be me, myself and I until the end of time, then. But I'm not too worried. Something or someone always comes to my rescue. I'm like a dog abandoned at the roadside, where humanitarians pass by every day. Somebody's bound to see me and stop, pat me on my head, rub my fur and take me to the vet when they see I've got no collar. My mother was my collar. But some faceless hand cut it off and made her die. Since then, I've been living off pity. You know what? Not today! I can't let myself slip into this funk again. I've got to pull myself out of it before I sink too low.

I do my best to ignore Lily's picture and grab my phone off the dresser. It reads thirty percent. That's usually when I charge it. I push the chair beneath the light bulb, stand and unscrew it, then grab the attachment from my drawer and screw it in. Now where's that extension cord? I look beneath the single bed, inside the cupboard, below the chair, but still nothing. Did I lend it to Hazel or something? Zero. She recently bought her own extension. And hers is always plugged in since Matron Caine never checks her room. I hold my head in frustration. Think, Mary, think. Then I remember where I left it, hanging outside my window. I'd wrapped it around the handle in a rush and hadn't used it since.

With everything in place, I plug my phone in and select my favourite reading app, an upgrade from my days of buying and reselling used novels. Today I get it all for free. Yes! Free wifi and a good book. Now that's what I call heaven. That and a spicy menu complete with dessert. The app finally opens. I scroll through the suggestions then head straight for the unknown writers section. My favourite is Daniel Sotina. So far he's written five books for a series called The Trial and I've already read two. Basically, The First Trial is about a man who was charged for rape. Yet it was clear to all the readers he was being wrongfully accused. Throughout reading it, I kept hoping he wouldn't be sentenced to death, as is the punishment for rape in Daniel Sotina Land. And when he wasn't, I exhaled like a leaking balloon. But he still received an undeserved lesser sentence, which – believe it or not – caused me sleepless nights until I remembered book two was waiting patiently for me. Then The Second Trial showed him being exonerated by DNA evidence and ended with him promising to go after all his false accusers.

I anxiously click on The Third Trial now. The first page shows one name in bold print: SANYA. I immediately condition my mind for the long haul. Sanya is the evil bitch who lied on him, for no other reason than she had to find somewhere to place the blame, and he fit the bill. She had left no details unsaid either. Sanya just kept going in without mercy, hacking away at his character like a vampire hunter, condemning a good man to her manufactured hell, making liars of true victims who still crouch in their dark silence. So for me this is personal. This is why, more than any villain who has earned my hatred over a fine career of novel reading, I want to see her suffer. He'd better make her pain exceed one hundred or I'll find him and ask why.

Oh, for goodness sake, Mary! Not this again! It's just a book. Daniel Sotina may be real but none of his characters are. Come on. A death sentence for rape? Where does that ever happen? This shit isn't real. Pull yourself together and focus on your own problems for a change. Still, I pull my feet up on the bed, down two pills with a glass of water, draw the covers over me, turn over on my left side and get lost in their world of make-believe again.