Shards of Moonlight || A Short-story Collection

The Outsider of Time - SciFi

Many people wonder what being a time traveler feels like. To set sails into the wide ocean of the world's memories: the war's won in the bat of my eye, lives of billions like fireflies to the everlasting stars above and the growth of humanity in number and audacity. Opinions may differ. Seeing all key events of history, yet knowing close to nothing that could be labeled personal: no memories of bonfires, roasting marshmallows with friends. No playing card games with your close family, while your girl ruffles your hair. This annoyingly adorable moment. Not knowing the hype after graduation wearing your head high after accepting the certificate and hollering while throwing your hat into the air as high as possible. No education, no goal in life. This is what it is like, being an outsider of time. A disguiser. A silent watcher. Let me tell you how it works:

First, you need a trustworthy clock. A companion in times of need. Make sure to never lose it during fiery battles with lawless pirates rocking over deep blue silk in the 16th century, nor while escaping from burglars on the streets of London in the 18th century at a breakneck pace, nor on the exhilarating car chases in the 21 century. Your century, am I right? I had explained this a trillion times in different dimensions to millions of fireflies before and after you. It probably does not matter much. Time passes differently in my eyes. I used to be from around that time if I recall correctly.

As I met a handful other time travelers that never stayed around long, clocks may differ according to personality. Personal theory: all the people you claim lost, might actually be just that; lost in time. You wonder what mine looks like? A simple wooden hourglass ⏳, you can click into a sort of pendant whose smooth metal chain links rest against the sensitive skin around my neck and disappear into my newest disguise: the rags of a poor cabin boy hiding out on the Titanic.

This pendant you spin around before bed and see a countless number of doors mirrored across a plain light-gray corridor illuminated by aggravating unnatural light. The gracefully curved numbers on the doors show the year you left and those encircling it ie. 1999, 2000, 2001 and so on .You may only progress forth or back. To the back, the numbers decrease while torches play soft circles onto the walls. To the front, the corridor goes slightly out of focus. Imagine being shortsighted and taking off your glasses all of a sudden. You may find doors with correct years but as the future is constantly in change, you may start walking into a green street of potted plants and ivy that stretches out into thousands. If you open a door and step out the following day though, you may find yourself a door away from complete void. The end of the world, the end of time.

Second, you will eventually grow distant from the world you came from and lose track of time. This must be your goal for joining me on my adventure I suppose. Curiosity above that little voice of reason in your head. Your responsibility, your fault.

You may never remember me again, this is why I will be honest for once: I wish I never left my life behind. It was mediocre yes, yet it was mine. And I wish I would have known that I would never get it back. If I had known that curiosity only lasts as long as a filled stomach and deteriorates with a dried throat. Never being able to be myself ever again, being a disguised outsider that the world wants to obliterate with no food, no friends and no purpose.

I used to be anxious at the thought of losing my pendant, now I do not care anymore. Without love to care for, I have no life to care for, no need to go back to the period of time I forgot. I am lost between the pages of a book of meaningless notes far from real love. Or I am just stuck on thinking, that no one may accept an imposter like me for who I am.

Third, you must have noticed by now that time traveling destroys all worldly rules on the one hand. So the world on the other hand tries to pull time travelers into utter destruction. For every new memory you make, a piece of your previous life disappears. Compare it to one candle of your birthday cake being blown out with every year you grow older. Instead of collecting them until the cake is about to spill all those little flames onto the solemn tablecloth and having such a gigantic cake that only your wedding cake may beat it one day, the candles start dispersing. Then the cake disappears, until all those memories, all those dreams and wishes are gone.

Furthermore, you will never save a life. The balance of life prohibits you to change the course of history. If you were to prevent a mishap, then there would be an even larger catastrophe replacing it. Like saving your mother from cancer by going to a treatment with her way before everyone had even noticed her symptoms. For this a train may jump the rails the same day and drag hundreds down into the abyss under the Georgetown Loop Railroad. Trust me, I tried. Would you claim that one life would be worth a hundred lives being sacrificed? Even if this one life could be the most precious to you? Would the person you save be grateful for your sacrifice if they knew?

Time-traveling taught me not to mess with the balance of nature, but to hide and run.

If you still decide to pay no heed to bygones being bygones and trying to form the future through the present; join me. Be my companion through countless numbered doors to stitch up the wounds of solitary seconds, minutes, years, and centuries. A dimension of the moldable river of time destroying my dreams of a normal life to carry me into the repetitive past.