I’m in a black void somewhere, floating in ether, my limbs weighing nothing. No, that’s not right. I have no limbs. I have no body. I have no head or mouth or lips. I’m just a consciousness, existing in the realm between times.

I’m no longer dreaming. That much I’m sure of. My mind is too sharp for that, my awareness too precise.

I look around. In front of me, a bright line unravels, wavering and fuzzy. Somehow I know if I follow it, I’ll return to my own time. I’ll exit from this void and reclaim my body in the present world.

I move forward, but then something makes me look down—if “down” is a concept that exists here. Instead of more blackness, streams of color run beneath me.

What is that? I peer closer. Dozens of threads weave in and around one another, of varying thickness. The biggest, shiniest stream runs directly down the middle. The main thread, I realize instinctively. The original one. Every other thread originates from this central cord, branching out before weaving back in again.

I drift lower. The ribbons of color aren’t static. Rather, they’re made up of moving…photographs? Scenes? I focus on the moving colors, and they slow down, flipping by more and more leisurely until I see images of…me.

My face in different iterations. The round cheeks of my babyhood, the scarred nose from my toddler years, the acne of my adolescence. And older, too—my face as I have yet to know it, with crow’s feet emanating from my eyes and fine wrinkles around my mouth.

Flaming monkeys. I’m watching the literal time stream of my life. I always thought the term was just an analogy. I had no idea it was an actual river, with moments of my life rushing past like a current.

Except…the central thread seems to be fraying. In the distance, the colors fade. And then just stop. Even as I look, the loose threads begin to organize around a new stream.

Time travel, I understand with a flash. Every time we interfere with the past, a new thread is formed. Most of the time, it weaves back into the main cord, but change the timeline enough and the threads will organize around a new stream. A new center. A new world.

If I had a mouth, it would be hanging open. Instead, I move even closer to the time stream, the big bright one that’s fraying, the one that represents my original life…

…and then I tumble right in.

Chapter 32

Chapter 32