Skip
By Casey Douglass
As part of #fridayflash
I was nineteen when I
learned how to skip forward through time. That probably makes me
sound like a time traveler but it’s not quite that clever. It’s
a mental thing. Somehow my body and mind still function but I’m not
there. I never did work out where I went to but I always came back at
the right time so didn’t worry about it too much.
I was waiting to go to
the cinema one night, had about an hour and a half to kill but
couldn’t decide what to do. I felt tired but had a racing mind so
didn’t fancy resting as I usually ended up anxious. I didn’t want
to watch anything or do much that used a screen as I would be
spending a few hours in front of the local IMAX anyway, which usually
made my eyes ache after a while. I thought about drawing or writing
but no ideas came.
I felt myself getting
wound up, that nervous energy feeling that was like a highly charged
boredom. Agitation maybe. I sat back in my computer chair and stared
off vacantly at nothing in particular. A thought crossed my mind
about how cool it would be if I could just jump forward the hour or
so and then be ready to go out. I nodded to myself, a whole body kind
of agreement. I heard a car horn outside which sounded like my
friend’s. I carried on gazing at nothing until the horn sounded
again. Thinking he might have come round early I smiled. At least
that would solve the boredom. I looked at the clock and felt my mouth
hang. It was time to go!
I don’t remember much
about the film. It was some action flick with swearing and a sex
scene every fifteen minutes. I’m sure it was good but my mind was
lost in pondering what had happened earlier.
When I got home, I
tried to write down everything I remembered, my mental state, my
thoughts and what I was feeling. I tried to skip forward again but it
wouldn’t work. Shelving my notes I tried to sleep but couldn’t.
Sometime in the early
hours, I began to fantasize about skipping to the time my alarm would
be going off. I nodded to myself and flinched as the dim room turned
to day and my alarm buzzed to my right!
I jumped to my notebook
and jotted down my thoughts. The nod, the need. I turned to my clock
and tried to skip ten minutes. The digits instantly changed to ten
minutes later.
I yelled and whooped as
the enormity dawned on me. I would never have to wait for anything
again!
To date I haven’t!
When the enthusiasm wore off, caution did play a part in my thought
processes. I decided to record myself with my smartphone to see what
happened to me when I was ‘out’. To my relief, I saw that I still
functioned normally, even getting dressed, tidying my room and doing
some of my art stuff. Everything I witnessed of my own behaviour
seemed to point to me carrying on, doing the things I would have done
anyway. Just without the boring stuff in between.
Reassured, I began to
skip my way through life. You are probably thinking that having such
an ability began to dent my levels of patience. If anything, I found
that they were vastly improved. You save so much energy when you can
cut out the agitated waiting for things: for appointments, for stuff
to arrive in the post, for that party to happen. When I did want to
knuckle down and do something that took a lot of concentration, like
my drawing, I was there!
One thing I did find
was that my drawing when I was ‘skipping’ was even better than
when I was there. Maybe it was a case of getting out of my own way.
Who knows.
There was a downside
though, as you can probably imagine. It became a bit like an
intolerance spreading. Say you are someone who doesn’t like adverts
on TV. You might initially just dislike a handful of the most
annoying ones, but as time progresses, you find more and more that
you despise, until you avoid any advert at all costs. I became a bit
like this with my time skips. I soon found myself skipping things
that previously I would have looked forward to. It took a awhile to
dawn on me but once it did, I knew I had to stop.
The turning point was
the birth of my first little boy. I was twenty seven, married to
Susan and we were both looking forward to our first child. It was a
long and hard labour, something like thirty hours. To my shame I
skipped it.
When I was back, Susan
was asleep, the baby was in the small plastic crib thing that
hospitals use and I was covered over with a blanket in a large chair.
I walked to the baby, Mark I mean. We had already decided on Mark.
His little chest was moving in and out as he slept peacefully, the
odd twitch of his fingers putting me in mind of Socks our cat when
she dreams.
I had a burning weight
in my chest that seemed to flare out with every heartbeat. My jaw
tensed and my eyes began to tear up. I had missed it! All for the
sake of an easy ride! We hadn’t even filmed it like so many people
do.
I remember leaving the
hospital room and balling my eyes out in the nearest toilet. I swore
to myself there and then that I would never skip again. And I never
have.
THE END
