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A Mishap in Time

A Story of Rememberence

By Ellen DoddPublished 4 years ago 10 min read
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A Mishap in Time
Photo by Matt Lamers on Unsplash

Lola sat upon a ripped up old booth seat, in the 24 hour railway diner, at the edge of some station in London. It was around 2am, she was the only person there. She sat jittering, eyes wide with fear, sipping on a coffee. Her hand shook as she picked it up, causing her to put it down and grab her wrist to try calm it down.

“You know what needs to be done, Lola.” She heard a voice in her head say, “tick tock tick tock…”.

This caused her to start silently crying, tears rolling down her face as she sat there shaking. She did know what needed to be done, but she didn’t understand it. Her mind wandered to her family, her mother and father, and her brothers and sisters. Then to her friends, her colleagues, her life! Oh, how she didn’t want to do it.

“Accidents happen, Lola…”.

At this point she was mid sip, and dropped her cup which rather dramatically smashed and spilt her coffee all over the floor. She just sat there, staring down at the spillage. “Oh, look at you” said the waitress, bustling her way over with blue roll. Her name was Betsy, and she was a very motherly character. Lola was a regular in this café, so she fancied herself somewhat of a guide for her. She wiped up the mess on the floor and put her hand on the shoulder of a visibly distraught Lola. “Cheer up chick, whatever it is, it can’t be that bad!”. Oh, how wrong she was. Lola weakly smiled at the kind gesture, internally screaming as she did so. “It really is that bad” she thought. But she was starting to remember, and when you remember, you must obey.

* * *

The first flash of memory was her arguing, and running through a city before jumping. Jumping where? It came hazily, but it was enough. She dreamt of this place often, she knew it was more than fantasy. But she was still confused, in denial.

“Time won’t let you be forgotten, Lola.”

Time. Time time time. It was so familiar to her, yet the memories were just out of grasp. She understood somewhat why she had to do it, but she really didn’t want to.

“None of this happened, Lola, you changed it all. The Earth should be different to this.”

Lola shook her head as if to try and make the voices stop. She smelt… pancakes? This caused her to look up and see Betsy heading over with some bacon and maple syrup pancakes. “On the house!” she exclaimed, “you look like you need it tonight.” She popped the plate down and bustled back to the counter. Lola reflected, she kinda did need this, but she wasn’t hungry. The aroma wafted up her nose once more, okay, maybe she was a little hungry… She began to meekly tuck into the pancakes, they were pretty tasty.

She dropped the fork when a flash of memory came to her, she grabbed her head in visible pain yelping as she did so. A vision came before her of a mysterious portal, with the numbers “1995” written on a dial above it. She looked up and around at her surroundings, which all of a sudden felt very unfamiliar, foreign. She trembled in her seat, unable to stomach the remainder of her food.

She stood up in a haze and stumbled through to the bathrooms. She looked in the mirror, and a stranger stared back at her. “Who am I?” she thought, “what the hell is going on?”. She ran the cold tap and splashed water on her face as if to wake herself up. Wake up to what though, what was reality to her? Where was she?

Well that was easy, she was on Earth - her home. She thought. She grew up in Glasgow before moving to London 2 years ago, she was an artist. She loved to paint, it was her passion. Not much work, however, so she settled for working in a gallery to satisfy her artisan needs. She was blonde with brown eyes, and tall and slender. She had a network of friends she cherished, an amazing family, and a life she loved.

But was it her life to live?

A question she had never asked herself until the last month, when she dreamt of different places and started to hear the voices, the guiding voices trying to help her clean up some mess she had inadvertently created simply by being alive.

“The butterfly affect, Lola. You weren’t supposed to be born.”

Another flash hit her and she grabbed her head and screamed, screamed out all the pain and confusion lingering within her. This time her vision was of the argument, screaming that she couldn’t do this anymore and wanted to escape their realm. But what was the realm? Time, time, time, it was all she could think of. What did it mean? Was it real? Had she lost it? Perhaps, but the memories felt real. Perhaps more real than the life she had been living, which had been real her whole life. But was it really?

* * *

She had always had a fear of heights. She couldn’t dive into swimming pools, got intense vertigo whenever she walked over bridges, and wholly hated being in any situation where she could possibly fall. Her mind wandered back to the portal… She remembered jumping vividly, was this why? She looked again at herself in the mirror. The face she had known for the past 25 years was still a stranger, but she knew it? She knew her features? Her rather large nose that complimented her face, her brown eyes, her freckles. But they suddenly felt false, like they weren’t supposed to be there.

“They were supposed to miscarry, Lola, no child was to come from those parents for a while longer.”

She wept, shaking her head. “MAKE IT STOP MAKE IT STOP!” she screamed, to no avail.

“This was an accident, Lola. You must come home.”

But where was home? She didn’t know. Not anymore. It was too hazy, her random collection of memories, and her current home suddenly felt like an alien planet. “Fuck, maybe it is?” she thought. Why couldn’t she remember? Another flash back hit her, so hard she stumbled backwards against a cubical. Of a school classroom, with “Corrections” written on the board. Corrections! She was starting to remember, she was a corrector, a corrector of time. Travelling around the universe and attempting to correct permanent established events which had gone awry.

A permanent event, one that has to happen in a timeline. She remembered, she must have prevented one somehow simply by being here. But why was she here? In an act of rebellion? To escape? Another flash back hit her, so hard she had to sit down on a toilet…

Of being in a managerial office. “Another failed mission we will need to send our specialised team to, this can’t go on Lola. You are a keeper of time, for goodness sake. It is your purpose to do this.”

She relived the intense guilt and shame she felt during this meeting, and sobbed loudly in the diners bathroom. It was horrible, this trauma being dragged up to the surface of her psyche. She sat and sobbed for a while.

“If you die now, the established event could still take place, Lola. Do it for your family, for your friends…”

“But how am I to know it is true? How am I to know I haven’t gone crazy?”

“You know, Lola. You’ve always known… think about it.”

She couldn’t deny she had always known… something. She stumbled out the bathroom and watched a train pass by on the railway tracks out the window. This was it. Her last supper was fucking pancakes in a dive diner, and her whole family would be devastated. Perhaps she might actually succeed, for once, as a corrector if she were to do this. Perhaps it really was the right thing to do.

She ran. As fast as she could, right to the edge of the tracks and stopped, taking a sharp intake of breath. She could see the headlights in the distance getting closer, and her heart started beating out of her chest, she was just gearing up to jump when a new voice spoke to her in her head…

“All is unfolding as it should, Lola.”

She stepped back, aghast, who was this? The train shot by. The voice this time, upon reflection, was much calmer than she had been used to.

“This event could not take place in the same way it had originally, for reasons even your agency could not yet predict. But I could, who do you think opened that portal? It has to happen in a different way, and you being here could just do that”

Another flash of memory, of the portal opening in the middle of some alleyway from Lolas home, “Earth”, it read, “1995”. As good as any place to escape to, Lola had thought. And she jumped. She flashed back to reality and spoke to the voice.

“What am I to do!”

“All shall be revealed in due time, child, but it is no accident that you are here.”

She took a deep breath. What the fuck was happening to her tonight. She thought again of her family, oh how devastated they would be if she was to die, it was a thought she wasn’t able to bear thinking about. “All is unfolding as it should…” she thought to herself.

“Your name is Pepper, not Lola, and you are in a lot of trouble young lady. Jump in front of that train and come home – now.” Said the original voice.

Lola looked around, and suddenly her surroundings no longer felt foreign but… Like home. She felt at home here, no matter what she was told.

“No.” she thought, speaking to the man. “As it is written, so it shall be, I am staying right here.”

She shook her head, mentally imagining this voice disappearing. She couldn’t help but wonder what this event was, and how changing its trajectory to it happening in a different way could possibly help this world. She remembered more now, and couldn’t fathom how the agency got it wrong…

“The whole universe, Lola.” Said the second voice, “The whole universe could have been in jepordy without intervention. Don’t worry child, all is well.”

She took a deep breath, and again looked around. She couldn’t even tell what she was feeling in this moment. Relief, joy, anxiety? An amalgamation of the lot? In this flurry of emotion she ran back into the diner and hugged Betsy. “whats this all about, chicken?” she said, beaming as she had a lot of love in her heart for dear Lola. “Nothing” Lola replied, “I’m just… Happy, now.”. “Well,” chirped Betsy, “isn’t that the best news I’ve heard all night!”.

Lola said her goodbyes and left the diner, walking through the outer London suburb, marvelling at the wonderful normalness of it all. But, how could she go back to her normal life after all this? She would just have to, and wait with bated breath to see how this supposed event would end up turning out. Relieved that this short-lived mental adventure was over, she arrived back home and went to bed, her cat curled up at the edge. Life. Just normal life, letting her past go and moving on. However relieved she was, she still couldn’t wait to see just what this event she had inadvertently corrected would turn out to be… But for now? She was just Lola again. And for that reason, for the first time in weeks, she fell asleep in peace.

science fiction
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About the Creator

Ellen Dodd

I am just a girl, blundering through life and tryna have fun along the way. I like to write and dance mostly. Namaste xox

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