With no hope of returning to their home timeline, Tolu and Riley take the only option available to them: to travel back in time and relive their favourite memories with the people and I the places they miss the most.
But the past is not always comforting. Little do they know of the trauma they will face.
It was the summer of 2015.
Riley Harris was at her high school prom, and the assembly hall was decorated in glittery banners and disco lights. The school hadn’t done proms in a long time, but ever since that 30-something new guy became principal, Southside High had begun to embrace many more ideas from the students in their programmes. And so the graduation ceremony was followed by an evening party they had decided to call their prom.
She especially loved this party because it was the first time she actually remembered having fun at a party. The first time she had an actual boozer, and not one from her Dad’s stash atop the fridge that she’d stolen a sip from. A full one this time.
Mandy and Shannon, her two best friends had come looking hot in ‘80s-themed outfits. She had won a dinner gown, but made her head up in puffy rolls to go with the ’80s fashion they were going for. She still had pictures of that day.
Watching it all play out one more time brought the memories closer. Standing there on the dance floor brought it even much more closely. What even made it better was that she could still interact with the inanimate objects, like the drinks in the bar. It sucked that everyone around her now was an after-image, flickering like static holograms, but who cared? She came back here to have a great time, and a great time was going to be had.
Oh, there was Gavin. She could still remember him. The hottie she’d always wanted to be noticed by. How she had been expecting a kiss or something that night, just like in the movies. How she had gone back home alone. And also…
Oh no! Now she knew why she had felt antsy about coming here.
“Get me out, Justin!”
A flood of blurry images wafted before her eyes until she was somewhere else.
It was now August 2018.
Rosetta Rhodes was in town for Rock Fest ’18. The city park was lit in floodlights and sparkling fireworks. Thousands were camped in tents for days, securing their spots for the 5-day rave of the year. Merch and memorabilia were on sale in hundreds of stalls, with no shortage of customers for their business.
It was here that Riley had got her first tattoo. Was she a fan of rock music? Not until today. There was something about the beats and strains that brought her a channel to release the pain and angst she felt often. Standing on the grass now, she could remember her spot over in front closer to the stage. She took a swig of the bottle in her hand. Good thing about this place was that there was no consequence. No matter how much she drank, she actually wasn’t getting drunk. She could do with more of this.
She felt a tap on her shoulder. It was…
“Dad?”
She had not seen him in almost a year now. To see him in the sweatshirt he usually wore, or the one he wore that other day… “Where are you coming from at this time, Riley?”
But as far as she could remember, her father had not been with her at Rock Fest that year. Why would he? He wasn’t supposed to even be here. And since when could flickers interact with her in this place?
She held a hand to her chest to still her pulse. She wasn’t sure she was enjoying this place anymore.
“Justin?”
A flood of blurry images wafted before her eyes until she was somewhere else again/
It was now November of 2018…
—–
Tolu Alade was back in the car on the way to church earlier that evening. He had been in the backseat, fingers tapping rapidly on his phone screen, desperate to beat his previous record on Jumbotron Run™ before they got to church. Seated here now beside the version of himself that was engrossed with his phone, Tolu was more taken with his parents in front. How he missed them, especially the times ahead that he would never get to spend with them now that he was stuck in time.
“Mummy! Daddy!” he cried. But they couldn’t hear him.
He rubbed a tear off his face.
“…I hear it’s pretty serious,” Dad was saying.
“Have you been able to call them?” Mum asked.
“The number isn’t going. Funmi hasn’t been home since he was admitted.”
Tolu knew that the only person his father called ‘Funmi’ was Uncle Femi’s wife. Uncle Femi was his favourite uncle.
Something is wrong with Uncle Femi? He stared at the other him, the one tapping on his phone screen, oblivious to the misfortune awaiting him in only a couple of hours.
“And I’ve been telling him,” Dad said. “He has been overstressing himself. No single off day in 6 months.”
“Ah, Oluwa ma shaanu wa, o (Lord have mercy on us, oh). Awon omo won nko? (What about the children?) Where are they now?” Those were Tolu’s cousins.
“I heard they are staying with some of their friends over there. Ah, I don’t even know what to pray. If Femi wasn’t sick I’d have gone over there to beat him up myself.”
“He’s not a baby anymore, dear.”
“I know. I just wish … I don’t want to lose him too.”
Tolu had not realised his uncle was ill or that his father had been this worried. Had he actually sat through this conversation? Tolu didn’t remember this part.
“For years in school, I had to be shuttling to Zaria to get him his inhaler refill. He always forgot, saying he was too busy. I told him busyness would kill him one day. You see him now?”
“Femi will not die in Jesus’ Name! Don’t talk like that!” She placed a hand on his shoulder. “I know you’re just worried for him.”
It was when Dad turned to her that he noticed his son playing on his phone.
“Kinni problem omo yii?! (What’s the problem with this kid?!) You’re still playing phone?!”
He reached toward him and snatched the phone. Tolu watched with disgust as his younger self yelled at his father. “Ah-ah! Daddy it’s not fair!”
Now, even Tolu understood his father’s rage. Playing a game at a time when Dad was bothered by something serious did have a ring of lackadaisicality to it.
Mom turned. “Toluwanimi? Is that how you will be wasting your time? Playing game?”
“It’s even using WiFi,” Dad noticed. “Ah, it’s my hotspot! You’re wasting my money on this nonsense? Why did I even buy you a phone?”
“Toluwanimi! Instead of you to use internet to find things for your future, you’re busy wasting your brain on these things?”
“In fact, I’m seizing it. You will cry before you get it back. Nonsense.”
And the Tolu of that time was sulking and kicking his mother’s seat. The Tolu of now was so embarrassed.
“I can’t … I can’t watch this,” he said.
A flood of blurry images. He was somewhere else now.
—–
Riley sat by the bar at Lorenzo’s, tracing her hand around the cover of her bottle.
The bartender came over to talk with another customer. Of course, he couldn’t see her. She laid her head on the bar, exhausted. Even downing a cold one had lost its appeal. These time jumps were draining her more than she expected.
This time she had chosen to be somewhere different from her memory of this time. Right about now, the Riley of March 18, 2019 was in a party across the road. But this Riley, the Riley at the bar, was avoiding those moments. Sadly she was doomed to only go to times and places she had previously been. This sucked.
“Hey there, beautiful!”
She slammed a fist on the table. “Are you kidding me?” She knew it was her Dad before she turned to look at him. In all the eight time-jaunts she had taken now, he had shown up. Even in places he had never been in her original memory. Sure enough, he was still in that green sweatshirt. “Have you no shame talking to your daughter that way?”
He still had that grin on his face. “Wanna see something you’ve never seen before?”
Why did that sound familiar? She spat in his face and swore.
“Oh … but I’m tired.” She stopped. That had been her voice. But she hadn’t said it, had she?
She turned and saw another version of herself seated at the same bar, still dressed in the gown she had worn to prom years ago. She was tipsy, head flailing.
Oh no. This was not supposed to be happening.
Dad held the other Riley’s hand. “It’s OK, lass. My, my, you really have matured, haven’t you?”
OH MY GOD, NO!!!
She hurried over to stop them, but they were already gone from the bar. No one else in the room was reacting to her or to the scene. She scanned the room, searching frantically for them. She couldn’t believe this. Her memory from prom night was crashing into this place.
This is all wrong, no, No, NO…
A green flash by the toilets across the room grabbed her attention. It was Dad leading her younger self away. He turned and flashed her a grin.
Riley shut her eyes and screamed.
Justin held her hands. “It’s OK, it’s OK… Shh, it’s going to be OK. Just breathe, Riley. Breathe.”
When she opened her eyes she was back on the cliff. The night was still dark and quiet. The grump was still on his bench across from a cottage.
She was out of the bar.
“I can’t do this anymore,” she said. “That was supposed to be my quiet place. He wasn’t supposed to be there. But he was everywhere. He followed me everywhere!”
“It’s OK, Riley. Just breathe, gently.”
—–
Tolu was getting more disgusted with himself.
In all the memories he had gone back to, he always found himself on his phone during important moments, either playing a game or on social media. They had seemed like the most important things at the time, but now?
Here they were back in April 2019. He found the Tolu of that time playing a medieval war game on the TV as his Dad drove into the compound. Dad rested his head on the steering wheel for a moment. He knew what would happen next. Dad would come in and spank him for not opening the gate for him, pack up the PlayStation system and lock it up in his room until the holidays. Tolu used to see this as Dad’s standard wickedness. But now?
Now he wondered what got his Dad so worried. He wished he could go over and talk to him, to ask him how he was doing. He realised that he had had the opportunity before. But now it was too late.
“Looks like someone has a problem.” Justin was with him now. “We always find you online or playing a game.”
“It looks all suck-ish right now. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with playing games now and then, right?”
Justin arched a brow. “Are you actually asking me?”
“I don’t know. But my Dad was really going through some stuff. Uncle is probably dying. Mum is just trying to keep the peace. And look at me: wasting my time playing video games? I was missing out on so much. If I knew then what I know now…”
Justin stared at the boy playing games. “This doesn’t look leisurely. Looks to me like you were doing this deliberately.”
Tolu leaned forward. “You think so?”
“I mean, you’ve always had all these resources. You’ve got books, encyclopaedia and internet access. So much to do with what’s available to you. Why were games your go-to?”
He observed the game playing on TV. Age of Empires had always been his favourite.
“I guess, when I really think about it, these games are the only world I can really control. Y’know? Where I actually know what to do. Like once I get the skills and know the rules, I can just plunge in and win. Each new level is a new challenge. But once you know how to do what you need to do, you’re can just go and win it.”
“A world you can control? That’s odd. Are you saying you wanted to be … well, like God?”
“No, now. But like… in this real world, outside of my games, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know the ‘how-tos’ or walkthroughs. I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing here. I don’t know what I’m supposed to become or what I should be doing. As a matter of fact, when I think about the future … I think I’m … actually afraid.”
They were quiet for a bit.
Until Justin spoke. “And that, my friend, is the reason you’re stuck in my Timescape. Your fear of the future is something you’ve not been able to escape.”
—–
Riley was shaking now, crying, desperate to get out of this traumatic horror.
“Why did my Dad show up in those places? You never told me this would happen.”
Justin shook his head. “Believe me, I had nothing to do with that. The—”
“I haven’t seen him in over a year. I deliberately do not go home because he’s still there. I can’t bear to look at the face of that man, and yet he follows me everywhere here? Why would you do that to me?”
Justin sat in the grass beside her. “That prom night, what did your father do?”
She took a breath, and the tears rolled. The strong hard front she always kept up was to prevent this from happening. The last time she’d spoken about this that very next day, to her Mom. But she hadn’t believed her. She tried to speak, but she couldn’t. My father raped me. My own father raped me. But she couldn’t voice it now.
Justin must have gotten the picture because he just nodded knowingly and said nothing for a while.
“What he did left its scar,” he said eventually. “The pain still lingers, wherever you are. It keeps you from moving forward, that’s clear. Riley, that pain is why you’re still here.”
She stared at him, the implications of that falling into place. “What?”
“Riley, it’s not your fault. You were hurt by someone you trusted. But the pain keeps you stuck in the past. A tumor that’s growing like a grain of … mustard?”
“You’re saying I got trapped in this blasted place because of … this? Because of pain?” But Justin didn’t reply this time. He just stared, concerned. “It’s not like I’m a wounded animal or something. I don’t think about him all the time. I go weeks without giving him a thought.”
“But look how the very idea of him still affects you. You find it hard to love or trust. Riley, you’re wounded more than you even know. You know it’s true. You see that. You must.”
She sniffed again, rubbing her eyes. “I really could use a drink right now.”
“Riley, for months you haven’t gone a day without a drink. Why do you do that? What do you think?”
She sniffed, thinking about all the time since then. She really didn’t trust people, especially men anymore ever since. Every little tryst she’d gotten into since then had been momentary, just for kicks. She partied hard to get away from all the hypocrisy and pretentiousness in the world around her. But after the highs and hangovers, the pain was always still there. She never escaped it.
“I drink to forget,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “It’s why I party. The thrill, the fun, that’s my one escape.”
They were quiet for a moment. Was that really the problem? Had she gotten locked out of the future because of ‘pain’? What kind of existential nonsense is this place?
“So what do you expect me to do? Just let it go? Like it’s so easy? Like I haven’t actually been trying?”
Justin stared ahead at the expanse before them. “Obviously, that didn’t work. It comes back time and again. But what if, just what if, there was something more to all this? What if something could heal you of your pain, and give you the strength to go on?”
“Even if that were true, what if I don’t want to go back?”
“What if there was something worth going back to? What if you could face the future without all that’s bound you?”
—–
Tolu was still back in March 2019, watching his Mum cooking in the kitchen. At that time he had been ostensibly working on his homework while actually chatting with his friends online. “You know,” he said. “if fear of the future is what’s holding me back, in a very small way I’m actually not surprised. I mean look at me. I’ve grown up believing what they said, that God has this Big Plan for my life. That all things work together for good. But in the real world, what does that even mean? How am I supposed to even know what that plan is?”
Justin folded his arms. “If your Maker has a plan, or a way you should follow, would He make it difficult for you to know?”
Tolu shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“No, think about it. Don’t let this slide. If He really loves you like He said does, would He leave you to your life without showing you the guide?”
“I guess He wouldn’t.”
“Exactly. If there’s something that conquers fear, it’s God’s love for you. Your Bible makes it clear.”
“You know, I think I’ve heard of that verse.”
“Oh?”
“I’ll admit, I don’t read my Bible as much as I should.”
Justin only sighed. “You’re like the boy whose eyes were shut, afraid to open them and see. When he’s asked to move, he doesn’t know where he is or where he’s supposed to be.”
Tolu smirked. “If I recall correctly, that was you that time, not me.” But then he realised what was going on. Justin had been mirroring his own disposition all along.
“If you truly believe in God’s love for you, trusting your future in His hands shouldn’t be hard to do.”
“Just like that? I should just ‘trust’ my future in His hands? And I won’t be afraid anymore?”
“We only trust people we really know. Tolu, is God Someone you’ve tried to know?”
Tolu knew that he had not really given this much attention. If he really believed that God had a plan, why hadn’t he actually tried to find out? Spending his time in virtual worlds kept him occupied all this time, but they never answered the question that bugged him. But it felt more fun than reading the Bible. At least there were immediate visible results for every action in those games.
Tolu shook his head. “Pursuing someone you can’t see is … difficult.”
“How about trusting what He’s said? And going into the unknown, knowing you are led.”
Tolu sighed. “The thought of it feels like stepping off a cliff.”
Justin smiled. “Precisely.”
—–
“You cannot be serious right now,” Riley exclaimed.
But he was. “It’s the only path forward. When I said that portal was the only way, I wasn’t lying.”
“You expect me to literally step off this cliff? That’s what you’re saying, that I should just … die?”
They were still at the Edge of Time, staring past the misty expanse at the light strobe connecting the sky to whatever earth lay below.
“What if this is the only way to truly live? You’ve trusted my logic this far. Is this one too hard to believe?”
“So you do want me to die?”
Justin leaned back on his arms. “Remember when you were sure you would get out? When the sight of the portal was exhilarating? But when you got to this cliff, you gave up hope. It was a cost you considered not worth taking.”
“This wasn’t even a choice. It was a freaking cliff. How do I drive from a cliff to get to that portal?”
“It’s not so much about the stepping off as it is trusting the one that called you in the first place. You got here believing in a way out, and all the time since. Why should it be different in this case?”
“Even if I end up splat at the bottom?”
“Who says there is a bottom?”
She stood and walked over to the cliff’s edge. There was no end in sight to its depth, he was right. Only the mist. But the portal across from her also looked so inviting, the possibilities it could hold. Somehow she was supposed to believe that the portal would help her out?
“Riley?”
She turned and saw that Nigerian kid, Tolu. She couldn’t define the relief she felt at seeing him again. “Tolu? Where’ve you been?” she asked.
“My past, same as you,” he said. “And my guess is we each saw what we needed to see.” He joined her at the cliff’s edge. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking too?”
She looked back at the boy. “They do say that when you fall off a cliff in your dreams you wake up, right?”
He stared over the edge. “Funny, for something that should cure my fear, I’m actually afraid. But I don’t trust if I’m not ready to take a leap, right?”
She took a breath. “Trust? That’s a tall order.”
“I know. But what choice do we have?”
They knew what they had to do.
>>The journey hurtles ever closer to an end, here.
Emmanuel Onimisi 