PinoyWrimos

Abbey was already a few blocks away and rushing off to class. In her mind, she knew that even if she ran at full speed, she would be unable to cover the length of the football field and climb six flights of stairs to the third floor of her building in two and a half minutes. It was already quite obvious that she would have to do it. Again.

Abbey looked around; surveying the area to ensure that there wasn’t anyone looking at her directly. It wouldn’t work if there was, for some strange reason. If she knew someone was watching, she wouldn’t be able to get into the right frame of mind for it. She then slowed down, closed her eyes and tried to remember every minute detail of the spot where she stood. The myriad images and sensations came to her now in a stream of thought that spontaneously unravelled like the layers of a large onion-the colours and forms, the shapes, the interplay of light and shadow, the feel of the wind against her bare arm, the distant noise of traffic and the sound of birds, the other smells and sensations of the city. It was a process she had come into quite entirely by accident, and over the years, it had been like second nature to her. She had originally thought it up as a way to memorize her lessons. It had turned out to be something much, much more.

With eyes still closed, she started running at full speed towards the building where her class was about to start. The darkness in her mind’s eye receded, revealing a world of ghostly outlines amidst a landscape of colourless forms made of wildly swirling fractal shapes of shifting intensity.

In this maelstrom of chaos, Abbey then focused her desire to get to class on time at a single point–her destination. She then saw herself where she wanted to be, a formless mass made up of wild, squiggly fractal outlines at first, then a definite form, a shape, a texture, a colour; then a consciousness, sensations of the distant hallway, and the distinct knowledge, the feeling of being in the other place. It was the hallway where her classroom was, and for a brief moment, Abbey felt she was literally in two places–standing in the field outside and in the hallway. The fractal shapes resisted. Vigorously at first, because something about what Abbey was doing went against their nature, after all. But Abbey’s will proved to be the stronger force, and the little fractals begin to respond to Abbey’s urgings. The ghostly outline of a hallway begins to coalesce around her. She then senses movement, and a few vaguely human shaped disturbances begin moving through the fractal ether she was currently suspended in. These were the people rounding the corner and sprinting to make the last few metres for the classroom door.

Abbey now remembered to temper her desire and control it. While her classroom was definitely where she wanted to be at the moment, every time she saw herself appearing in plain sight of one of the ethereal shapes she recognised as other people, she would open her eyes and she would be standing right where she was, just a silly girl standing in the middle of the football pitch with her eyes closed. There was no motion, no running, no hallway, nothing. This had happened to her a total of three times ever since she discovered this curious way of getting from one place to the next.

It was of course, these times where she would use a more mundane means of gaining access to the classroom, which would involve knocking on the thick oaken door, disrupting her professor and the rest of the class.

After a brief lecture, where the professor would liken her to a little child, he would grudgingly give her permission to enter his class late, provided that she would sit in the perennially empty front row, much to her embarrassment.

It essentially meant to the class that Ms. Chen, the “genius” of Professor Armand Dubois’ Advanced Number Theory class was the only student to be afforded an exception about the time one is supposed to get into his class. Abbey could almost feel the accusatory glances of her classmates, almost hear their thoughts. And if there was one thing Abbey really didn’t like was all of the attention. It was hard enough just being who she was, having to deal with the thoughts and feelings of other people just made it that much more difficult. Having to walk into class late then, was not one of the things that topped Abbey’s list of things to do this morning.

So she remembered to be careful and shifted her point of view back a few paces to a spot behind the door of the classroom. After a quick scan of the area to ensure no one was around, Abbey opens her eyes. To find herself behind the door in the third floor hallway of the building her class was in. Coming from behind that door, she sat where she always wanted to sit, one row behind the door, and smiled.

A young man sat leaning against the goalposts of the football field. He had stopped there for a moment to rest after running around the field a few times. He saw a young girl stop, close her eyes, lunge forward and disappear in an impossibly bright, but brief flash of light. Too brief perhaps, for most other people to notice. Not for Jean-Marc however. He had always been possessed with a talent for seeing things in more ways than what many thought were possible. What he saw in fact, was the girl shift into a space behind the space we all see, and shift out of it in another location, almost a kilometre away by his reckoning. The location of a good friend’s class, which was, by his watch, about to start. He takes his cellular phone out and slides the keypad out. Punching a key, he makes a call.

“Allo, Angeline, chere?”

“Bonjour! Oui?” a female voice responded. Her tone was warm, pleasant yet strangely distant.

“It’s the Asian girl. I’m sure of it.”

“Je comprends. Merci Jean-Marc.”

He places his phone in its pouch strapped across his left arm. Then he continued his morning run, a look of concern on his face.