Post by Katpride on Mar 7, 2022 5:39:48 GMT
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There’s only so much dread a heart can take before even putting one foot in front of the other becomes too much to bear. The present is a prison, the future a shackle, and the past is their only escape. They drag out their time as much as they can, barely returning to the present except to sleep and eat before throwing themself back into whatever they can think of to distract themself.
Their time is running out, and Lark knows it. So, one day, when the running and the distractions and the ticking timer counting down in their head all become too much, they decide that maybe they can tell just one person. Just enough to see if there’s something they’re missing. A second opinion.
Their list of contacts is wide and varied, but restricting it to the more recent present cuts down that number significantly. They can’t- won’t go to Lily or Cassidy with this, not until it’s Time. But there is another person that did explicitly offer to help in a situation like this. The business card she gave them is worn, with a neat white crease down the center from being folded in half some indeterminate time ago.
With them, so much of time is indeterminate. Until it isn’t.
Months in the past from their present, Lark picks up their phone and dials the number written in neat, looping script on the back of the business card for one Kore Smith. The line rings once, twice. They take the phone away from their ear and hang up. What are they doing? It’s the middle of the night, and they’re lounging atop a climbing structure in a park somewhere in Texas.
The time-traveler sits up with a beleaguered sigh and winds the clock forward slightly. The fizz of the timestream deposits them in the same place, later that day when the sun is high in the sky. Luckily, it’s nearing spring, not quite into the summer which would surely make the plastic structure unbearably hot to be on. A young girl who had been climbing the jungle gym nearly falls from her perch when they appear without warning. For a moment, teenager and child regard each other with equal shock, before Lark offers a, “Hey.”
They wave. The girl does not wave back, continuing to stare at them. Lark turns their back on her and slides off the structure, their boots landing solidly on the slightly springy ground. They busy themself with staring at their phone as they wander away from the playground, finger hovering over their recent calls list.
After too many moments of hesitation, their phone screen dims. They tap it, and the dialing screen pops up. Welp. Guess that’s settled, then. They listen to the line ring, until the call connects with a quiet click.
“Hey, Kore. Is this a good time? ‘Cause I’m running a little low on that front myself.”
There’s only so much dread a heart can take before even putting one foot in front of the other becomes too much to bear. The present is a prison, the future a shackle, and the past is their only escape. They drag out their time as much as they can, barely returning to the present except to sleep and eat before throwing themself back into whatever they can think of to distract themself.
Their time is running out, and Lark knows it. So, one day, when the running and the distractions and the ticking timer counting down in their head all become too much, they decide that maybe they can tell just one person. Just enough to see if there’s something they’re missing. A second opinion.
Their list of contacts is wide and varied, but restricting it to the more recent present cuts down that number significantly. They can’t- won’t go to Lily or Cassidy with this, not until it’s Time. But there is another person that did explicitly offer to help in a situation like this. The business card she gave them is worn, with a neat white crease down the center from being folded in half some indeterminate time ago.
With them, so much of time is indeterminate. Until it isn’t.
Months in the past from their present, Lark picks up their phone and dials the number written in neat, looping script on the back of the business card for one Kore Smith. The line rings once, twice. They take the phone away from their ear and hang up. What are they doing? It’s the middle of the night, and they’re lounging atop a climbing structure in a park somewhere in Texas.
The time-traveler sits up with a beleaguered sigh and winds the clock forward slightly. The fizz of the timestream deposits them in the same place, later that day when the sun is high in the sky. Luckily, it’s nearing spring, not quite into the summer which would surely make the plastic structure unbearably hot to be on. A young girl who had been climbing the jungle gym nearly falls from her perch when they appear without warning. For a moment, teenager and child regard each other with equal shock, before Lark offers a, “Hey.”
They wave. The girl does not wave back, continuing to stare at them. Lark turns their back on her and slides off the structure, their boots landing solidly on the slightly springy ground. They busy themself with staring at their phone as they wander away from the playground, finger hovering over their recent calls list.
After too many moments of hesitation, their phone screen dims. They tap it, and the dialing screen pops up. Welp. Guess that’s settled, then. They listen to the line ring, until the call connects with a quiet click.
“Hey, Kore. Is this a good time? ‘Cause I’m running a little low on that front myself.”