Lifespan of Starlight

by Kalkipsakis, Thalia

  I think my heart has stopped.

  ‘Can’t or won’t?’

  All I can do is shake my head.

  We’re left staring at each other. Mason’s forehead pinches, and he turns away.

  He thinks I’ve rejected him, I realise with a breath. But then my throat goes tight. He thinks I’ve rejected him.

  ‘I have to go.’ There’s no air left in me, but somehow the words come out. Already I’m standing, blindly grabbing my bag. Escape is all I can think of.

  At the door, I pause and glance back: ‘See you.’

  ‘Bye.’ He hasn’t moved. He’s still sitting in the same place, facing the space on the floor where I used to be.

  * * *

  At home I gulp down a glass of water, my heart still thudding at how close I just came. If he ever realises I can’t time skip …

  I’ve been meditating on my own every day, sinking into the quiet spaces of my mind and feeling my way into the silent tunnel. It’s not so much about taking control of time as letting it go.

  My mind is spinning right now, but I have to try. I find a place on the mat, and breathe out. My shoulders relax as I let go, drifting down until I’m deep inside. It’s cold down here, in this dull-mute place. There’s no light and no air. No wonder Mason found it difficult at first.

  Mason.

  The next thing I know I’m out with a rush, sucked back by the mess of today. I take in the world around me, rubbing warmth back into my arms as if to remind myself that I exist.

  My eyes close at the disappointment. Come on, Scout. You can do this.

  You have to.

  I’M HEADING OUT to collect our delivery on Monday night when I catch Alistair carrying his box back to his room.

  He sees me in the hallway, and lifts his chin. Any news, Agent X?’

  ‘Not yet.’ A slow sigh. ‘Should be soon.’ I’ve tried hacking in to the Karoly High School server, but all I could find was a list of applicants and their contact details. ‘They said I’d receive a response either way.’ Think I added that last bit more for myself than Alistair.

  His chin drops. ‘Be sure to let me know.’ He straightens his back, steadying himself to keep walking along the hall.

  I shuffle forwards as if to block his way. ‘So, how are you doing?’

  ‘Still working.’ A pause, as his eyes come to understand and rest on me. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Good.’ I check for Mr or Mrs Richardson and decide the coast is clear. I drop my voice just in case. ‘What would you say if I told you that the stuff I was telling you about Relative Time Theory was true?’

  Alistair’s bushy eyebrows go up, but it’s more about paying attention than actually believing.

  ‘I can prove it.’

  More of a reaction this time: a jerk on the head, but it’s tinged with disbelief. ‘You can choose where you are in time?’ Alistair asks slowly.

  ‘No. Not me, yet.’ I push down the frustration. I’ve spent all of this past week meditating but each time I come close, I seem to get stuck. It’s like I can’t find a way out the other side. ‘But … I’ve seen it happen.’

  Even as I’m saying the words, I can tell Alistair has barely heard them. They don’t carry the weight that I thought they would.

  ‘Scout, listen.’ Alistair shifts the weight of the box in his hands. ‘Be careful, yes? If I were considering a candidate for my elite school, I’d do some background checks. Do you understand?’

  Then again, why would Alistair understand the news I just told him? Unless he actually saw a time skip for real, there’s no reason for him to believe that it’s possible. Maybe I should show him the gaps on the grid …

  ‘Scout,’ Alistair says, a little louder. ‘Those sites you’ve been reading, and all the hours you spend on the grid. If I can see what you’re doing, then other people can see it, too. Even with a firewall set up, there are ways around it.’

  I frown, not bothering to hide my disappointment. He didn’t even listen. ‘So you’re saying –’

  ‘I’m saying that you need to clear your cache more often. And any reading of the grid history. Be careful what you get up to. At least until you hear back from the school.’ He’s leaning really close, frowning at me.

  ‘Okay,’ I manage. There doesn’t seem to be anything else to say. Alistair draws himself straighter before moving off again. ‘Let me know, Agent X,’ he calls once he’s further up the hall.

  I watch as he shuffles away. ‘Thanks, Alistair.’

  He has a point, I guess. If Mason and Boc taught me anything about hacking, it’s that other people can do it, too.

  Mum’s not due for another half an hour, so I leave our grocery box on the bench and switch the comscreen on. Now that I’m looking, I can see what Alistair was saying. I’ve been so busy watching Mason and Boc that I haven’t been thinking about anyone else checking me. Like the school admin, perhaps.

  It’s easy to clear stuff from the front end, but harder to swipe it all completely from the mainframe. I’m still picking through the back end, manually selecting and deleting parts of my browsing history, when the corner of the screen pings to show a new message. Only a few words of the message can be seen in the box, and at first my eyes just brush over them. ‘… pleased to offer …’

  My focus zaps to the box, which opens at my blink: ‘Congratulations. Your application has been successful. We are pleased to offer you a place at Karoly High School for 2085.’

  The message goes on to talk about the uniform, booklist and orientation days but I barely take any of it in. I’m reading it through for the second time when the door slides open.

  ‘Heya.’ Mum steps into the room.

  I turn to her but no words come. Instead, I dissolve into tears.

  * * *

  Each morning when I wake there’s a moment when I remember. It brings a delicious lift, reminding me who I am now: a normal teenager enrolled in a real school. It’s everything I’ve ever dreamed and more.

  Life gets busy after I accept the offer: uniform orders, subject selection, downloading various apps and education programs.

  I even call Mason, gushing about getting in. ‘Can’t wait until term starts!’ I finish happily.

  A pause, before he says, ‘That’s great, Scout.’ But that’s all he says.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘I don’t know. Guess I didn’t expect you to be calling me.’ It’s as if he expected to never hear from me again.

  I want to reassure him, but I can’t let him think that I’m ready to skip with him yet. ‘Yeah … I just wanted to tell you I made it.’ I decide to leave it at that. ‘Anyway. Better go.’

  Mum and I go out for dinner to celebrate. The week after, we take Alistair out to the movies. He’s part of the reason why I’ve made it, even though none of us say it directly. Without the stuff he taught me, I never would have worked out how to access the national curriculum lessons online.

  Alistair doesn’t say anything about Relative Time Theory or my browsing history, but it would have been easy enough for him to check how much I cleared away. During the ads at the start, Mum and Alistair discuss the peace talks in Egypt while I check out the other people in the cinema, and it almost feels as if we’re a family of citizens – grandfather, mother and daughter – every one of us sure of our place and worthy of our rations.

  The best part about getting into school by far has been the change in Mum. She’s been busy sorting out the safest route for me to travel to school, drilling me about our emergency alert plan and working out the best way to have the chip inserted. She seems younger somehow, her movements lighter. And there’s something in her eyes that I’ve never really seen before. Hope.r />
  It’s the best feeling, seeing her like that. Especially since I know that she has more good stuff coming. Every morning for the past couple of months I’ve been transferring credits into a savings account. Already I have enough for a haircut in a real salon and, judging by the speed I’m saving, I’ll have enough to add a movie and dinner, too. This year, Mum’s going to have the best birthday in the universe.

  * * *

  A few weeks after I received the acceptance, we’re called in for ID photos. Everyone has them already, of course, but unless they take the photo themselves there’s no guarantee that it won’t be doctored in some way. You can’t be too sure what anyone’s been up to these days.

  They have a heap of info sessions, too, about study techniques, online safety and the emergency procedures in a disaster event, and that’s before they even mention the extracurricular stuff like clubs and activities. The careers auditorium gets the biggest crowds.

  The line for ID photos is the longest I’ve ever seen. At first I just stand and shuffle, letting the normalness wash over me. After about twenty minutes though, the sense of gratitude begins to fade, even for me. The guy in front of me cranes to see the front as if he thinks that will somehow make it go faster. Then he turns to check out the line behind us, which I’m pretty sure is growing at a faster rate than the line ahead is moving.

  The senior band is playing up the front of the hall, which helps pass the time for a while, but we’re still a good distance from the front when they stop for a break, and we’re left once again with the dull murmurings of the catatonically bored.

  I’m tracking the line ahead in my own private form of self-torture when my eyes land on a face staring back at me. She’s so out of context that it takes a second to realise who she is, but almost immediately I do a double take. I know the shape of those eyes, have seen her even skin so many times before. It’s Kessa, one of the twins who live at the end of our street.

  For some reason my cheeks burn and I find myself blinking as if I’ve been caught naked or something. I look away to cover my surprise.

  Pretend to be bored, I tell myself. Act like you didn’t see her. Her twin mustn’t have made it in, which is no surprise. Kessa was always the one with something to prove. But now that my focus has shifted, I wish I hadn’t looked away. I’m so used to hiding my truth from people, that I don’t know how to react like a normal person. I should have smiled, at least.

  I must have been six when I started hacking into the grid so I could catch the twins and their mum on the way to the park. Whenever they went, I just happened to turn up, too. There was always enough of a jumble of parents and carers there that I just made out as if my mum was part of crowd, rather than working on the other side of the city.

  It got to the point where Kessa started looking out for me. We’d spend half the time refusing to get off the swings and the other half making stuff out of leaves and polychips to sell at our make-believe shop.

  We became so close that her mum started asking who my mum was and whether I’d like to come over to their place for a play. I was still trying to work out a safe way to say yes when Kessa asked if I wanted to do a friend link.

  Never in my life have I wanted anything as much as I wanted that. Even riding on the fast train was nothing in comparison. But all I could do was shake my head because without a chip of my own, how could I?

  Kessa backed off after that. I’m sure she thought she’d misunderstood how close we were.

  The reality was the exact opposite. Kessa was the only friend I ever had.

  We’ve never talked much since then, just an awkward wave in the street every now and then, so I’m not sure what she thinks of me now.

  Still acting as if I haven’t noticed her, I check the back of the line again. It’s stretching out the main auditorium doors by now, the end out of sight. Somehow, that makes it worse; there’s no way to anchor yourself in a line when you can’t see the end. It makes me think of entering the tunnel when I meditate; the way it feels to be left with no certain future because there’s no past to hold you from behind.

  When I turn back to the front, Kessa is facing my way again. Somehow I find the courage to meet her gaze and immediately her eyes relax and crinkle. One hand lifts to waist height and three fingers flutter in the faintest of waves.

  Pushing aside all doubt, I lift my hand to exactly the same height as hers, a mirror-image hello. Is it possible to miss someone you hardly know? Maybe it’s because she’s the friend I never had, part of a life that should have been mine, but wasn’t.

  And yet, here I am, in a line with her. A chip stashed in my pocket. My whole face breaks into a grin as I watch Kessa leave her place and shuffle my way.

  ‘Heeey!’ A wink as she slips in next to me so we’re shoulder to shoulder.

  ‘Hey.’ Can’t help pointing at her place. ‘Don’t lose your spot, you were nearly at the front.’

  One shoulder jerks. ‘Doesn’t matter. It’s better with company.’ There’s a second of silence, standing side by side, but it’s not awkward. More like a nod to the moment.

  ‘Here we are, hey?’ I say. ‘Who would have thought? Congrats for making it.’

  Her whole body sort of relaxes then, her feet shifting position. ‘Yeah. Congrats yourself.’ She checks the line as if taking it all in from this fresh perspective. ‘All these people. And this is just the ones who made it.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I wonder how many people missed out.’

  ‘I heard about 900.’ Because that’s how many names were on the rejected list when I hacked in.

  ‘Wow.’ She stares at me for a second before her mouth snaps shut. ‘Glad I didn’t know that before.’

  We shuffle ahead, enjoying the hope that comes with moving for a couple of steps before everything comes to a stop and our shoulders sag again.

  Another sigh. ‘How long now, do you think?’ she asks.

  ‘Don’t know.’ I check the line in front, and make a face. ‘Twenty minutes maybe.’

  Her head drops back, mouth open in a groan. ‘This is worse than the test.’

  ‘You reckon? Nothing’s worse than the test. Well, maybe the interview.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  She leans closer, her voice drops and we spend the next five minutes comparing our interviews. She can’t remember the Minister for Resources and Rationing, but it turns out that her story isn’t so different from mine. She was told that she’s better suited to emergency triage rather than paediatrics, which is sort of the same thing that happened to me. Maybe I didn’t stand out as much as I feared.

  Chatting this way seems to have helped pass the time because by the next check, we’re nearing the front of the line. Suddenly it’s as if time shot ahead too fast; I don’t want this to end.

  ‘Hey, Kess? Can I ask a favour?’

  ‘Sure.’

  I drop my gaze. ‘Do a friend link with me?’ I keep going as she reacts, talking faster to explain. ‘Sorry, I know it’s dumb. It’s just so that we can meet up on the first day. You can say no.’ Does she remember the last time?

  ‘Of course, that’d be great.’ Kessa leans close and places a hand on my shoulder. She seems so open, so natural about this, that I can’t help wondering how it must feel to have lived a life where linking up is so easy.

  Already Kessa has the back of her wrist lifted, ready for mine. One hand in my shirt pocket, I make a loose fist as I press the chip into my palm with my middle finger. Am I standing too stiffly?

  Kessa cheers as we tap our wrists together. We’re way too old for this, but still it’s fun. I make a point of keeping my arm moving then pushing my hand back into a pocket, making
sure Kessa never has a chance to focus on the strange way I hold my hand or realise that my ‘scar’ smudged when our skin touched.

  I’ll be able to message her now. And she’ll be able to message me. Who would have thought? It’s as if I’ve caught up a little bit more to the life that should have been mine.

  We reach the front of the line after that and I watch Kessa pose for her photo. Then we wave and head our separate ways. And even though the friend link was immature, as I head home I can’t help feeling as if I’ve made it through to the other side of something. I’m leading a life conjured up from dreams, where hope has became reality.

  As I step off the train and move with the crowd towards the exit, I find myself thinking about the way the line for the ID photos moved so slowly at first, and then the way a friendly face made the time speed up.

  That was it, in real life. My time moving at different speeds.

  I’m still on a high when I come home, singing along to the Indie Top 10 as I whip up Mum’s favourite veg and lentil soup. She’s really happy too, talking about a breakthrough with one of her clients, and for a moment I’m tempted to drop a hint about her birthday. I feel like knowing that you have something good coming makes the waiting more fun, but the right moment doesn’t come and I don’t push it. The evening’s so good that I just let it be.

  I’m not sure that I’ll sleep or even that I want to let the day go, but I drift off easily and find myself dreaming of meeting up with Kessa on the first day of school. It’s one of those dreams where you sort of know that you’re dreaming but you ignore the fact because you don’t want to break the magic of it.

  After we meet up the dream jolts ahead to the end of the first day. As we’re both saying ‘See ya tomorrow’, I get this maybe sort of feeling, like a whiff of possibility … maybe, I can. And even though I know at the back of my mind that I still can’t jump ahead in time, in my dreaming mind I decide to try.