Writing inspired by the following SWC prompts:

1.
Have you ever attempted to beat time? Did you win?

2.
Lacuna
A lacuna is a gap or a space, where something which is expected be there, is missing.
Maybe a gap in time, in place or in memory. Describe someone discovering (or trying to fill) a lacuna.

Space & Time

by Doxa Papachartofyli

I woke up on the wrong side of bed today. And when I mean “wrong”, I don’t mean, Oh no, I somehow rolled over to the right side and I am very much a leftie. No, nothing of the sort. Today, I woke up in my bed, but in a different century. I woke up in a lacuna.

“I will slap her, I swear I will,” I murmur as I prop myself on my elbows, trying to breathe through the tight corset I seem to be wearing.

My baby sister had managed to erase a few centuries again. I get up and trudge over to the conjoining door. There is something to be said about codependency and unhealthy family dynamics, but I won’t say anything of the sort now.

“Time! Open up!” I yell, and pound the door with as much momentum and range of motion as my restrictive clothing allows. Ugh. I’ve always hated this era. I keep pounding on the door, until a weak, “Shut up, I am coming, okay?” croaks back at me.

I hear bed springs whining and bottles rattling. I take shallow-to-medium breaths, trying to remind myself how young my sister is.

The door opens and, as always, I need to look down on her. Because Time is short.

I always find it particularly amusing that humans have been musing about fleeting moments and stolen years when, indeed, Time is literally short. And now she’s clad in torn black tights and a Red Hot Chilli Peppers T-shirt. I take in the stains that adorn the face of Anthony Kiedis and half the torso of John Frusciante. I half hope that the stains weren’t produced by her own bodily fluid and fully wish she’d suffer from a corset and a puffy dress like the ones I got stuffed in. Alas, lacunas never seem to affect her – only everyone and everything else that has ever existed or will exist.

“What do you want, Space?” my baby sister asks me with the same hostility I am currently trying to suppress.

I walk in and look for a chair to sit down on that isn’t covered by what seems to be the entirety of Time’s belongings.

“Good morning, Space. You look lovely today, Space,” I reply in a high-pitched voice.

“You told me not to lie,” she says, and returns to her bed, plopping next to a bottle of beer that is leaning to its side on a pillow that I know for a fact used to be white. Because I bought it. I space-move it, causing it to roll next to her and spill its contents on her t-shirt.

Now Chad Smith is stained too.

She cracks open a mascara smudged eye.

“I know you did that,” she accuses.

“Well, you caused mankind to reset by a few centuries, so I reckon we’re even”

“I did what?” she asks, feigning innocence.

That might have worked the first time, three or four millennia ago – I don’t remember anymore – when she got drunk on Uncle Sapience’s eggnog. And fell into a deep slumber, accidentally resetting life to the Bronze Ages.

“You created another lacuna again,” I tell her, trying my best not to start yelling.
In her hungover, hazy state, if she gets upset, it is very likely she will create another one.

“Oh,” she says, and this time she doesn’t have to feign her nonchalance. She really doesn’t care.

I sigh. “Time, we’ve been over this before. Every time a lacuna gets created, humans have to start all over again.”

“So?” she says and then spits out a piece of gum. Did she sleep in that? I shake my head. Man… Teenagers!

“So, every time they reset: something goes wrong, remember? This is how racism was created in the first place. And climate change. Last time we got the Kardashians!”

“Okay, whatever,” she says. “Can you let me sleep some more?”

I grind my teeth and recall our mother’s words. “Space, be patient with her. This is how you were when you were a teenager.”

Sure, Mom, but the worst thing I did was have a tantrum and kick the continents around. And maybe created a couple of mountain ranges. Fine, and one or two deep ocean trenches.

“Okay,” I tell her. “But we will be talking about it later,” I tell her, walking to the door.

“Later,” she slurs and rolls over, turning her back to me.

I pause. “Please, try not to take us back to the dinosaurs again,” I say, my hand on the doorknob. The only response I get is a soft snoring.

Man… Teenagers!