Somewhere around the Horsehead Nebula, 20 seconds out of sync with the rest of the universe.

"We made it! We're alive, oh my god, we're alive," Oblitia said, looking around the pod, which looked much better than she last remembered, all bent and flaming up.

She looked around the pod, now reinstated to its former state of monotony, a silver pod, bare, save for the sophisticated quantum system that had saved their lives.

It was then that the silver cage popped open, and Ren fell out of it. "What the-"

Oblita grinned at him. "Welcome! How was it in there?"

"Where am I?" asked Ren, bewildered by the fact that he was in a silver room with large buttons on one end. For Ren, this was something out of a futuristic space movie - not much different from the world portrayed inside the movie theater he had just walked out of. "How long have I been out, Rosa?"

"That's Oblitia to you. Also I'll need your-"she trailed off as he gave her a dirty look. "What? SO I used a fake name on you. How weird would Oblitia have sounded on the tongue of an Ancient?"
Now it was Ren's turn to look offended. "Ancient? Excuse me? And why would you use a fake name?"

Oblitia stared at him, confused. "You mean the system rules and regulations didn't register in your brain? Only the language?"

This was enough for Ren. He stood up, overcoming the waves of nausea that threatened to take over, and walked over to where Oblitia was. He looked at her, square in the eye, and said, "I don't know where I am, or what you've done to me. The only thing I know is that I don't like it, and you're going to quit playing around like an idiot, and explain everything to me, as if I don't know it. If I'm confused by the end, I'm going to be very, very angry. And people don't like me angry. Got it?"

Ren wasn't very sure what happened next, because all he saw was a fist coming up to meet his nose, and then he was on the floor. Oblitia stood tall above him, her brown hands clenched, a stark contrast against her silver suit. The contrast was too stark for Ren to take, blinding his eyes, so he stared at the floor instead.

Oblitia now spoke, her voice steely and cold. "I don't tolerate being talked to like that. You will treat me with the respect I deserve, because I just saved your damn life. As for what happened, I will explain everything to you, on my own terms. And I can get angry too, and so far, my anger hasn't suited your face. So you'll watch where that little tongue of yours runs."

Ren sat up, nodded his head once, and watched as Oblitia settled herself a few feet away from him, ready to tell a tale. He had no clue that this was the second strangest tale he'd hear in the course of his life.

"So let me start at the very beginning. This is all about the technicalities, but you're a physicist, so I expect you'll be entertained by all of this crap."
Ren looked at her very pointedly and said, "So I'm assuming you're NOT the aspiring young bread scientist you told me you were, Rosa."
"Shut up," Oblitia said. She resumed speaking, however, with a little grin. 
"So, as I was saying, Mr. Physicist, here are the details. It all begins with our allure for time travel. About five decades ago, a physicist by the name of Dr. Sharma  hypothesised that to time travel, you can't exist in two places at the same time. So, for someone to time travel, they could have never traveled into their past, and their future was too dangerous to consider. Sound good so far?"
"Yes, but only one problem. They'd exist, technically, in the minds of people. Don't memories have a certain weight or something? And when you travel to the future, the present becomes the past. And the future becomes the present. There's no way..."
"I know. But they found a way out. They made these people, who weren't remembered by anyone - through the process of memory wipes of course. They designed a foolproof process. And people do time travel. Only, they never interact with anyone from their present, obviously. They use fake names and appearances in the past and future. Never remembered anywhere."
"Then what's the point?"
"We wanted to fix that, you know. Make scientific advances, prevent disasters, change timelines, etc. And we noticed that the further away we got from a certain time, say, 100 years, the effect of someone remembering them was reduced. So we started bringing in people from the past, They didn't exist in the minds of the present. They were people who would randomly be remembered, but without any disastrous effects. Just the memory remembered would be taken from the traveler's mind."
"So that's where I came in? But why am I here, and not in some lab?"
It was at this point that Oblitia got up, and paced. 
"We're near a blackhole," she said. "But I managed to save us. I'm better than the rest of the time travellers. I can manipulate it. I placed this pod 20 seconds out of sync with the universe. We're hanging on by a thread, 40 seconds away from never existing. But I'm good. We're still alive. Only, the damn system died, so we're stuck here until the blackhole slowly pulls us back."
"Which could take forever," Ren said  
"Which could take forever," she repeated. 

There was an awkward pause, and both of them shifted uncomfortably, each without any clue as to what to say or do in this situation, until Oblitia got up and faced Ren.

"So, like I said in the beginning, I'm going to need your help." Ren looked at her like she was crazy. 
"And what exactly would my skills help you with? We're out of battery I assume, because 20 seconds out of sync with the universe, no one invented a power source."
"Don't baby me. This ship should be running on an emergency battery. It's an escape pod, for goodness sake. It has all kinds of energy."
"Then what's stopping it?" Ren wondered. 

Suddenly a large rumbling began in the ship, and it shook uncontrollably. Ren and Oblitia tumbled about uncontrollably, until it came to a stop. 

"What!" Oblitia screamed. "My watch! It jumped time! We're 25 seconds out of sync with the rest of the universe. The blackhole should be pulling us towards it, not away from it!"

Just as Ren was about to reply, the ship's engines came to life, and a hologram appeared in the centre.  It was a woman, except she didn't have a face. The featureless terrain of where her face should've been made Ren horribly uncomfortable. She simply stared at them for a minute, looking at Ren and Oblitia in turn. When Ren turned to look at Oblitia, he saw nothing but terror in her face. He wondered why, until the faceless entity spoke. 

"Oblitia, you have been charged with one of the most serious crimes in the history of nameless time-voyageurs. Putting yourself out of sync with the universe. Do you have a reason for doing so?"
Oblitia struggled to speak, empty air instead of words spilling out of her mouth. "I - I was trying to save us, um, er - faceless entity?" 

"Horae, Mother of Time. Do you know not of your own gods?" the faceless entity questioned her. Ren knew that the faceless entity was really... faceless, but somehow he saw a shadow of an angry face in the faceless entity's ... face? upper area? He didn't really know how to describe it, but he saw her becoming angry, almost to the point where the image of a woman shaking and struggling to control her anger jumped into his mind. Horae seemed to sense that he could see her, the voice that was mostly directed towards Oblitia changing it's focus.
"You can see me?"

Ren nodded, his throat dry. He was at a loss for words too. Satisfied with his answer, the goddess' voice angled back to Oblitia. "Trying to save yourself from what? A blackhole?"

Oblitia nodded again, her head facing downwards. 

Horae spoke again, her words slow and angry. "If you were telling the truth, Oblitia, then it would be perfect. Going out of sync with time to save yourself from not existing is an efficient, albeit ironic way to save yourself from never existing. Your kind has discovered this from their travels, yes? But they have never had a criminal run away from justice...with a hostage in tow."

Ren spun around to face Oblitia directly. "Hostage?"
"Ah, so she has lied to you too? What did she tell you? A little experiment on memory recall was about to take place?"
"She told me I'd be an experiment if it weren't for the blackhole but...a hostage?"
Horse's face, at least the one in his mind looked at him as if he were crazy for a second. "Then what else would constitute hostage for you?"
Ren jumped up to defend himself. "She made it sound like there were more? It sounded harmless too! I don't see any shackles!"
"Neither do you see any other test subjects. Oblitia was on an illegal chase. She was being chased. Straight into the blackhole region too. Oblitia is one of the most crafty criminals known to this time."

Oblitia neither denied nor acknowledged their little conversation. She slumped to the floor, and then spoke. "So what happens to me?"

Horae's tone was severe. "I intend to kill you. Ren shall return to tell his story but you, Oblitia, must die. Be forgotten."

Although Ren was upset with Oblitia, Horae's directness and stinging tone startled him. "Wait, but, shouldn't you give her some sort of a chance? A trial? Something?"

Horae spoke shortly. "I don't like those who meddle with time too much. The voyageurs made a pact with me when it first begun, promising never to change time apart from going back and forth, but this. Using my son to save criminals? I won't have it."

Oblitia rose suddenly to her feet. "What did you say? You made a pact with the voyageurs?"
In Ren's mind, Horae nodded, and he had a feeling the goddess wanted him to tell her. "She, uh, nodded." he said unsurely. 
Oblitia looked at him, puzzled, but continued. "Was this, perhaps, the pact made in the year 2109? The one that stated I would receive a trial by you? The one part of the pact you forgot to mention, perhaps?"

At this, Horae's amorphous form began to take shape, the white mist that seemed to swirl around the faceless body changing, moving and clearing away. When Ren looked at her face, which had finally appeared, he was shocked to find it the same face as the one in his head. He looked at her quizzically, and the goddess held a finger to her lips. 

"Very well then. Stand in front of the true form of Horae, Oblitia. Come and receive your trial, for it is to be this:
You shall fight. 4 times, two for the two offenses you have committed. Trying to manipulate time against the rules stated in the pact that you were well aware of, and carrying a hostage. Is that understood?"

Oblitia looked at her, bewildered. "But? Wait, how is this a trial?"
"It is a trial of your character." Horae answered. "Oh, and to make it better, I have just decided that young Ren over here, with the brilliant mind and eyes that can see my face when it is hidden must play too. Are you ready?" 

Before Oblitia could say anything, Horae disappeared. 

Oblitia yelled, "But who are we supposed to fight, and how? And why Ren? We don't know anything."
Horae's voice boomed over them. "With every fight, you jump 10 seconds closer to the edge of time. 3 jumps puts you precariously close, but the fourth jump takes you right over the edge. Win, and you don't make the 10 second jump. Lose however, and only one of you lives."

This time Ren yelled, "But we know nothing!"

There was an eerie silence for a minute, and they thought the goddess was contemplating a response. There was a rush of air, and then nothing. 

And then the lights went out.

Hey guys!

I'm starting a new blog for my school (as a club) where we write book recommendations monthly. I'm also working on a short series for the blog called "5." It's very mysterious and a little bit different, but I hope you like it!

Have a day,
Featherpaw.

Hi guys!

There was this day where I just felt smacked in the face by inspiration, and I wrote this really short story. I'm not really sure where it came from, but here it is. In case you want to know, the song this guy is listening to in the story is Pills by The Perishers. I decided to experiment with writing in second person ever since I read The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, and this is the least messy story that's come out of it.

Have fun!

_________________________________________________________________________________

You sit across her on the tube, like you do everyday, slipping in your headphones. She looks at you, and you look at her, just like you do everyday, but then both of you avert your gazes, not sure whether you’re strangers or secret lovers, because you feel this strange affection, but it’s not really love is it? Pieces of song drift into your ears as you recover.

My fists can fight for two...

And then suddenly, you’re walking over to her, just for once, being someone that you aren’t, and then, suddenly, you are you, just sitting next to her, talking to her, and you both know you’re best friends in an instant, but her eyes are too pretty to look into platonically, so when slipping your earphone bud into her ear, you ask her if dinner at Il Volo is fine. Of course its fine, only both of you know Il Volo is where every flies off the ground, into romance, which drips off of the air, and that both of you are very okay with this, because your romance for each other already cloaks the air and of course everyone can tell, of course, this is love this is love this is love and we are all in love both of you sing, the distance only deepening what both of you knew to be true. 

My love can blind you…

That night at Il Volo is where you take off, where the ground beneath your feet is finally removed. Sex on the first date, of course this is true love, and sharing dessert is also great on the first date, true love is true love and anything can happen oh anything can happen and both of you are singing as you take off and that’s the last both of you knew about the ground. You are floating on clouds, and this is true love.

Within the next month, both of you are living together, and you are living together in a fairytale and love is literally dancing in the air. You can see it in the bow of the tuxedo as you walk down the aisle, and all he can see is you, you in your little white gown, all ready to kiss him as his Mrs. Perfect and this is so much of a fairytale with the wind blowing your hair, and February whispering beautiful promises in the air.

Ooooh, ooh.

Then suddenly you are having your first fight because he is tired and you are also tired and this is the first slip up but it’s also the last isn’t it? Isn’t it?

One may think we’re doing fine…

Then suddenly that slip up seems so mild, and some nights when it’s not that bad, you can actually creep up into the same bed and share some human warmth with this person who is a stranger, who you once loved and with who you took off the ground at Il Volo, but you are landing and this is not okay, this is not okay.

I hope my arms can blind you…so you'll never have to see what we’re going to be...

Sometimes you are okay, and you smile stranger smiles across the dinner table, but once you take a walk after dinner, if any road takes you near Il Volo, both of you shy away, because suddenly the song this is too hard and we are too fast and crashing is inevitable is stuck in your head and both of you smile and hard, tight smile, and you turn around and head home in a chilly silence.

We need lies to make it through the day...

Both of you are only hanging on by a thread and that thread is thin and only one of you can hang on but this was true love and true love always lasts, always, and both of you were picture perfect but now it’s not and the voice of doubt it singing in your head saying is this it? is this it? can it be it? I can’t sing anymore god please end this for me I don’t want any pain. 

We’re not okay...

This is hitting both of you quick so you both recreate fairytale scenes, but they need actors, and actors are not what you are and both of you once prided yourselves for your honesty, but now you are shabby pretenders, shabby thieves with unshaven beards and hair that hasn’t been washed in a long, long time, but you cling to each other like you need each but you don’t.

But that’s one thing I would never…say to you

And then suddenly you remember the words of the song, and the song is not telling you your fists can fight for two, the song is desperately hoping you can, because this song knows your secrets, and this song knows you’re not okay. This song hopes loves can blind you but this song knows because it is a knowing song and when it sings in your head it sings in the key of paranoia paranoia and you are collapsing, collapsing and going to sleep shaking in the dark. You have hit ground zero. This is an airplane crash, no, a nuclear bomb inside the both of you, with no survivors.

...But that’s one thing I would never…say, to you.

And then suddenly the song ends, and it ends in three sad piano chords, and you are sitting in the Tube again, and she can see through your eyes that something has gone wrong.

Next morning, when she sits on the Tube, she sits in the corner, and you sit exactly where you used to sit, but something has changed and the air is not the same when she is not in it. Repeat, repeat, you have hit ground zero.

Hey people!

I know that I haven't written in forever, but today, I want to talk about a social issue.
The equality between men and women, boy and girls, and how their childhood is shaped, to be specific. To get my point across, I'm going to use myself as an example, because, well, you won't really realize what's happenning until it's narrated like this.

When I was five years old, my parents began to send me to a tennis class. I was hesitant at first, but I loved it. I spent two hours afterschool there everyday, and my teacher was pleased with me because I was able to hold my own and actually play a match with all of the older kids. This was beautiful, and I began to think of it fondly, but, then came a major setback. The school I was going to lasted until 3pm, and I got home by 4pm, which was when my tennis classes started. I also had homework to do. So, we stopped my tennis classes, and as a compensation, I began to ride my old, discarded bike with my friends, and I had started a trend. All of us began playing on our bicycles. Healthy, active, and great.

I thought I had a pretty active childhood, and that my parents had encouraged physical activity for me despite the stereotype of dolls, playing house and other things. But then my brother was born.

From the beginning, it was the expectation that he go to the park everyday. That was fine, you know. I had to go to the park too. Everyone in my neighbourhood did. But then, we moved to a different country, and my brother got older. For some reason, my parents got all worked up about him having a sport. My mother put him in swim classes for competitive swimming, football (Americans, that means soccer in English), and when the schedule didn't work out, insisted my dad make him play a sport on the weekends.

To be fair, they did the same for me. But the weird part was, with me, my parents tried once. If it didn't work out, then it was too bad. But somehow, for my little brother, playing a sport was of the utmost importance, and if he didn't find one (which he still hasn't) then the world would supposedly come crashing down.

Now, my parents aren't sexist, and they're the ones who put me in the more liberal mindset, telling me that I didn't have to be a conventional girl, getting me toys meant for boys as well as girls (which shouldn't exist, as in, toys are for both sexes what the hell, but okay). But what I'm trying to point out is that certain stereotypes are ingrained in the minds of people. If you EVER find yourself thinking, "But that's such a 'guy-thing' (replace synonyms with things such as 'manly') to do" or "That's only something a girl could think of" or "That's so girly" or, my personal favourites:
"You're so manly" and "I cried like a little girl".

The thing about these things is, we've grown up with them. My parents would've never realized it, and they still haven't, that all my life, through my physical activity, I have been trying to prove to them that I wanted to do a sport too. And I never got the chance because of circumstance, or because of difficulties staying afterschool with the team, my shyness, the fact that I broke my leg, and so many other things.

When I was 7, I got a basketball hoop in the backyard. My brother went to soccer classes with a professional coach.

This stuff is seared into our minds like it's normal. And only now, people are beginning to realize, it's NOT fair. I am branded as the weak and unable to play girl in PE. Whereas other boys got passed to and scored eaily in basketball, I had to steal the ball from my opponents, guard it from even my teammates and score a swoosh shot to prove myself to my teammates. My 'guy-friend' who wasn't even able to dribble 5 meters without passing was passed the ball instead of me even though everyone knew he couldn't play. I was closer to the hoop, open, and able to shoot, because no one thought I was even worth guarding. Three reasons I should've been passed the ball, but I wasn't. Sexism is everywhere. It doesn't matter what you're thinking, if you ever catch yourself thinking something is typical of boys or girls, or that someone won't be able to do something because they're a boy, or a girl, stop yourself. Please. The only way to make people less sexist is to start the change with you, to make yourself aware, so you don't endorse sexist things by accident, so you yourself can teach the others around you through just thinking a little bit more.

Is it really that much to ask?

The Problem with my Bluebird

Charles Bukowski once wrote about a bluebird.
The one who he wouldn't let sing,
the one who couldn't see the sun shining.

But I have a different problem -
I want my blue bird to shine,
to cause commotion.
I want my buebird to be alive.

Have you heard of blue babies?
They haven't enough oxygen,
and my bluebird is starting to feel a lot like one.

They smother it down,
not asking whether it can breathe,
but whether the pressure is enough,
can I still pump out a tune in the key of A?

My bluebird is dying
crying
screaming.

But no one hears it.
I am running out of breath,
and my bluebird is suffocating.

Locked inside a cage of my own volition
I cannot scream nor can I shout,
and I am stuck with my own bluebird
asking me why I don't get out.


Based on: x