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Coffee spoons clinked against mugs. People chatted in waves of sound which swelled over the café. Ribbons of cigarette smoke unfurled over the surroundings. Patience pulled the edges of her coat closer to her.
She had begun to regret coming here. All the food was fantastic, the tea was great, but the man by the counter kept glancing at her lecherously. Her skin crawled all over from his gaze like sticky ants.
She kept swirling the tea with her spoon, watched as it darkened from the teabag which sat at the bottom. People came in for the lunch rush and then stayed for the afternoon- it was a small pocket of warmth on a dreary October day.
She wondered if this was what her life would become: sitting alone, studying for her nursing tests each weekend in overcrowded cafés, barely getting enough sleep during the weeks, trying to fend off interested men without seeming too uninterested.
A man brushed past her. He tripped.
“Sorry!” His hands clutched the almost-tipped table as he steadied himself. His long black coat was rough against her cheek. She instinctively pushed him away. The tea licked dangerously around the edges of her transparent mug. His hat (a fedora) was askew, and as he adjusted it a slip of paper from inside his sleeve fell onto Patience’s lap.
He ran out of the café. Before the bell finished ringing he had disappeared somewhere amongst the rows of houses, the bustle of London crowds, a small cogwheel in the machine of the city.
The simple slip of paper in her lap, double-folded, held her future and past.
All it said was a time and place. She couldn’t resist.
They had known she couldn’t.
Within the space of twenty years, she became their most valuable agent.
Unbeknownst to anyone, the energy of that single moment, the single meeting which changed the world, made a minuscule black dot in the café.
________
Delia first saw Patience years later, hundreds of years earlier, when the Earth still hummed with life and growth. One hid in the woods as the other arrived, set on resetting what the other had done. At that point, Patience was known to her as Red: the other side’s most prolific soldier.
Delia watched from a distance in the shade of a birch as Red dug up the seeds that she had planted. She strewed salt around the ground, the special kind which wedged itself into the earth and could not be moved, and Delia almost cried out. The trees around her silently howled in suffering as the birds kept chirping.
The Earth waned like the moon.
She mustn't give herself away. The danger of two agents meeting was too great. She swore they’d meet again, and when they did, she'd thwart Red.
________
And so it was for years. They travelled across the times and places in the world, both moving forwards and backwards through the aeons, seeking to correct what the other had done so they’d have the upper hand in this great time war between two sides more powerful than themselves. Patience became more android as her frail mortal body gave up, and Delia used powerful runes to keep herself alive which left her body weak.
Patience was a warrior, a blacksmith, a nurse.
Delia was a witch, a ranger, a nurse.
Both felt each other in the slow pulses of time, in the small quiet gaps of their lives. When she wasn’t working Delia had a flat in the 2100s in Scotland. Patience lived in France.
Delia wore a dark cloak. It was the ‘30s- which ‘30s she wasn’t sure of anymore- and she was watching under a bridge. It was rainy and dark, as it always was in London. The rain came in brilliant golden flecks, like miniature falling stars, lit by the lights, extinguished by the puddles they fell in. Waggons and cars thundered along the high streets. The city had become too busy for reflection. It could swallow you whole if you weren’t careful.
The man who’d change the world, who’d destroy her vision of the world, lay sleeping across her on the other side of the water. A drunk. And a priest, at that.
She built a bridge of vines from half-drowned roots in the river Thames and crossed the gap.
She pulled out a poison made from the tongue of a frog in the 1300s and a newt’s eye from the far future, mashed them together with the river water until they made something drinkable, and made him drink it. She held him down as he struggled, coughed, finally drank. His eyes ballooned out and his face was purple.
His lifeblood pulsed weaker, weaker, fading as the poison took its course through his veins. Gradually he lost his colour. He gasped a dying man’s breath. He was not dead yet but would be very soon.
The collection of thoughts that would have meshed and formed a horrific technology used to kill thousands lay, itself a soul devoid of a body, a heartbeat, by his side.
She’d been a nurse in another life, she knew that. She was a nurse in some senses of the word in this one. The Head trusted her with all the poisons. All left her with a sick sense of satisfaction.
________
Patience was far away, in another time, a country whose name did not still exist in Delia’s time, but felt the ripples of what Delia had done shock down the strands of time, creating new twists and connections here and there, combing out others like a knot in hair. At that time Delia was known to her as Blue- the other side’s most prolific agent.
She inspected the timelines, felt the order from her Sister, and moved to another time, another place, where she moved things around until it shifted back in her favour. Technology would win. It must.
Patience picked the lock of a great inventor’s window in the dark silk of the night. She snuck in and left a rudimentary prototype of the radio on her drawing board as she slept over a half-drunk coffee. In the bright papery morning, she’d claim the invention as her own, work tirelessly on it for years, revolutionise communications technology, and then be found with a cracked head in a pool of blood in the shower. She had slipped.
Funny how quickly life could pass.
Not very funny at all.
The strands of time were moving back. The great tapestry of the universe had become a game of tug-of-war between her and Blue, this frustrating agent (witch) whom she’d never met.
________
Patience travelled under the water in an ultra-sleek submarine as Vikings docked at the Iberian kingdoms and slashed a wide hole in their boat.
In the ear of a Japanese Emperor, she whispered the beginning of an idea.
From a seed, a tree bloomed a hundred years later.
Delia sat in a Buddhist cave in India. She was collecting the breath of the wolves in jars.
She blinked and appeared in a gilded house.
Red.
________
Patience began loving the chase. As she finished something, she felt the need to glance over her shoulder, perhaps in anticipation of Blue appearing.
That was a problem.
She had begun to become addicted to the thrill of an illicit chase.
________
Delia watched the gladiators in an official’s box, invisible to the general public. Something about the simplicity of the sport fascinated her. Thumbs up or down. Death, or survival. Till the next match.
It stank of men’s sweat and general bodily fluids.
The crowds shouted, craned their necks so they could see down below. The women were sectioned up by the top rows of the stadium with the slaves to protect their frail minds. Delia wondered if any of the men had felt a cracking skull under their feet.
Delia started. Paused.
Behind the Emperor, a shift in time and space. It was subtle enough that any completely normal person wouldn’t notice. It looked more like an odd blur around him than anything magic. But then, it wasn’t magic- just technology.
Delia whispered the words and teleported next to him. She kept the invisibility spell on.
She took hold of the blur, wrestled with the person, and teleported both of them out of the arena, away from the crowds.
They ended up in a wonderful Greek grove a few hundred years earlier- Delia could tell from the style of garden. Before the start of all this, she’d been a fan of the classics.
They clawed at each other, furious harpies, tossed and turned like they were two bodies seeking to become one. Delia finally ended it by planting her knees on either side of the woman’s legs. They were chest to chest, eye to eye.
“What the fuck!” The strange cloaked figure said. She became visible, then invisible, before the technology gave up completely and she lay under Delia. Half her left arm was bionic. One of her pupils dilated unnaturally. Her hair was red as fire. It burned into Delia's memory.
“We’re not meant to meet!” She hissed, suddenly snakelike, as though she wanted to slither through the grass and hide from Delia. For a second she thought of metamorphosis, the impermanence of physical existence.
“I couldn’t just let you ruin my mission for the sake of yours.” Delia ignored how good it felt, how powerful she felt, on top of someone else. She wasn't used to being in charge of something. The woman’s chest heaved, her lips flecked with spit, and Delia realised they had been in this position for much longer than they should have. She smelled of motor oil and resin- an oddly compelling combination.
She needed to move on. “And now that you’re somewhere else, I’m leaving.”
Delia disappeared.
Patience exhaled and looked at the sky. Thought of Blue’s eyes.
She scolded herself for failing her mission and moved back to the Sister’s office for her next one.
A multitude of paper-thin black tears grew in the blue-green Grecian landscape like the cracks in an old painting.
The yellow grass kept swaying with the wind. Birds flew past a crack. On the other side, some disappeared.
________
Patience and Delia (Red and Blue) kept their anger close to their chests where the Sister and Head wouldn’t see. Left each other notes with instructions:
Burn to read.
Eat to read.
Cut to read.
It was funny how reading became about any sense or experience other than sight.
Delia left notes for Red in the gurgle of the river, scraped into the bark in Morse code, in the whistle of trees, in the taste of the mint leaves she’d left in the outline of a footprint.
Patience left Blue notes in the hum of an oven, the miniature cogs of a clock, the smell of engine exhausts and the swing of an axe.
A chase began- both pushed the other to change their works, change the timelines. Both sides of the battle fought viciously on battlefields. A mental battlefield had begun as well.
At first, the notes contained anger and boredom from repetitive days.
Dear Red,
I saw your work in Australia. It’s a little sloppy, don’t you think?
Go to the Yuan dynasty. 1296. I left you a gift.
Blue
________
Dear Blue,
You call me sloppy? Your ‘gift’ leads scientists to discover the microscope.
Your enemy,
Red
________
Both dreamt of their meeting in that grove. Their recollections moved, shifted with want, desire, until they dreamt of a very different ending to their story. Neither acknowledged this until much later.
Their notes slowly, incrementally, became softer.
________
Patience sat in a suit and tie. She was in a tea room with the President- she forgot which, of where or when- disguised as one of his advisors. So far the scones had been exemplary, if dry. The final, which the President was eating very gladly, was laced with some radioactive substance.
She hoped he would die sooner rather than later. He kept talking and talking about a war Patience knew would occur and cause thousands of deaths on both sides, sending both countries into great financial difficulties. All over some land. No, his death would be much more beneficial.
Patience swirled the tea leaves. As the leaves sunk to the bottom of the strainer, the steam entered her nose and spelt out words behind her eyelids. Patience smiled internally. The words were slow to come, sedentary with the tea leaves. Patience immediately sought to memorise the letter and keep it by her heart. Because she was angry, of course.
She tilted her head in thought. Blue sounded weary.
Dear Red,
I sometimes wonder what you are doing- where you are, when you are, and if you are cutting down the tree I just planted, or if you are on some remote island in another aeon. I do not know whether I would rather have you thinking of me, or not.
It feels as though every time I seek to correct time, someone has already changed it for me. Sometimes I wonder why I’m even fighting this war.
Have you felt the same?
Your enemy,
Blue
P.S. I hope you enjoy the Darjeeling tea. I tended for the tea plant for some years in a mountainous region of India.
Blue seemed nervous at the end. Patience smiled.
The President began choking. Before anyone could intervene Patience slipped away in a fold in time and began writing to Blue.
________
Delia sat on a battlefield in Iraq. The villages around her were empty. A small lake reflected the sun like a great eye in its waters- the sole witness to the war. Delia called on the plants around the region to grow so what was left of the population may survive. The Head said someone important was to be born here. Magic sapped her strength, so as she was recuperating she stared at the lake and considered swimming in it.
Was that against protocol?
In the ripples of water Red’s message came through. She sat up straighter, excited.
Dear Blue,
I feel the same some of the time. Are you familiar with the Indian game chess? I often feel like we are pawns, vulnerable to every whim of a great invisible Master’s game. His hand moves us and we must obey. But there is a purpose to where we are sent. We must trust our leaders.
Your enemy,
Red
P.S. I enjoyed the tea, thank you.
Delia dipped her toes on the lake before whisking off to the next mission.
________
Delia stood cloaked on the battlefield. She’d already cast a protection spell on herself but tried avoiding the others all the same. Rifles with bayonets and plasma guns and AK47s all fired on the battlefield. Vines and thorns and vicious plants bloomed on their side, spat poison.
From the other side, one of the other Red Agents called, “Patience!” His helmet cradled his weak half-mortal head, probably so bulky because of the technology it contained.
He stared at Red. Her Red. The Red she knew. Patience.
Patience looked much the same as she had before. She had a bionic leg now. Her hair was just as red but longer. Still, it burned in Delia's mind.
The name was sweet on her tongue and ears.
Patience ran over to some of her Blue soldiers and shot them five times with the plasma gun. Limp bodies collapsed on the battlefield.
Her coldness shocked Delia. Angered Delia.
Delia channelled her fury to the half-dead, trampled roses from the side of the battlefield. Their roots shifted and moved through the earth like coiling snakes waiting to strike. Grew around the other Red Agent’s feet, then his legs, then his panicked face. He collapsed face-up, gaping like a fish. A red rose grew out of his mouth.
Although she was heavily cloaked, Patience looked straight at her. Spat on the rose. Walked away. Delia couldn’t bring herself to harm her.
She almost felt regret.
As they moved to other times and places, the world’s cracks grew.
________
Dear Red,
Delia paused. Should she call her Patience? It was her name, after all. Though any attempts at being too familiar would probably be scoffed at. They had just killed other people.
She continued writing into the sea. Hoped Patience could see how sorry she was.
I was foolish. I almost forgot we were on opposite sides of the war. I hope we can continue writing to one another.
Blue.
Delia left. All that remained was a set of footprints she’d made.
The sea crested and fell. Returned back to its normal state as though she’d never been there. The sand around the footprints sank, filling the gap.
________
A couple sat in the car. They looked perfect, all-American. He wore a suit and tie, she wore sunglasses and a white dress. Her veil blew in the wind.
“Come on, Christopher!” Trixie looked at him, pleading, “this is one of my favourite songs!”
“Alright, alright.” He turned the volume on the car up. She laughed, on a high from their wedding.
Patience stood by the side. She tossed a small bug into their engine. It settled into the bonnet. As Patience turned on the controller, she made the bug gnaw through all the wires and pipes of the car and spit acid on the rest. Then it exploded.
The car burned a red-orange-yellow speck on the horizon much like the Sun.
She thought of Blue’s suggestion. Felt like tearing the ground up.
What was she thinking? What had they been thinking? They couldn’t be whatever they were. Had been. Enemies. Friends?
She thought of Blue’s tearful words captured in crests of white horses and seafoam.
Why had they even begun this relationship? This was the problem with the Head and his side.
Plants couldn’t win over technology. Not when they built machines that cut and tore sharper, faster than any organism could, and didn’t die with the seasons as plants did.
After all, the only reason she still had control over all four of her limbs was because of technology.
She thought back to her life before the war. She survived that horrific camp because of technology and nursing. They’d kept her going when it got tough. The elements and plants fought her whole family the whole time they were there. It wore them down, tore them down till they were skin and bone. Sanitation would have saved her family.
What did Blue even know? Plants could die. Technology could not.
________
Delia read through a set of riddles in an old book as she watched over the dying embers which should have caused a forest fire. She chuckled at some.
Then she realised that she was imagining reading them aloud to Red. Patience.
Like the embers which caused a forest fire, she had tried blowing her feelings out but had only resulted in a larger spark.
She scolded herself. Patience hadn’t replied for a reason. They were fighting each other, they were enemies in a war, for God’s sake.
As she watched the embers finally flicker out, she was left in the dark.
In the darkness came a clarity. Patience would never reply to an unsent letter. What was the harm in sending one more?
As she wrote the letter, more by touch than sight, she dared the Head to scold her. Dared Patience to reply.
Most of all, she hoped quietly. Tucked the hope away with the anger, sadness, and confusion in her heart. It was the one she could least explain away.
________
Patience thought about the riddle Blue had left her in the blackbird’s cry:
This belongs to you, but everybody else uses it.
She thought of it as she cut down the redwoods. Her Sister was pleased with this. They’d build a new workshop for inventors here.
All the while she thought of Blue. She wondered when her job became a chore. She wondered when the war had begun to feel infinite, impossible to win.
She still thought of Blue’s riddle when she sat on the cargo train through Russia, watching the world go by. The harsh landscape didn’t faze her. Birds flocked in black arrowheads with the train but were too slow.
The train passed a bend and the birds disappeared. The sky was bright, clear and wide again. The snow lay a blanket over half-asleep plants and wildlife. Small houses squatted in the fields by winter-stripped trees.
They’d fought a war for thousands of years over this Earth but had never stopped to look at its beauty.
She knew there was beauty in steel- that she’d seen for herself.
But there was something about quiet nature surviving the harshest of conditions and flourishing without demanding attention or recognition that Patience could respect. They’d tried killing it for thousands of years now. Yet it survived.
________
Tom curled in. Distantly, he thought of his death. The woman who gave him the poison had left, and he’d struggled for half an hour against it in vain. Or roughly half an hour- it was still dark but had begun to lighten. Now his body was tired and his soul doubly so; he’d just meant to have one beer, but one had quickly turned to another, and another, and…
He had taken refuge under the bridge because he knew Barbara would never have wanted him to come back as drunk as he was. Andrew, the guy he’d usually stay at, had a lady over, so he’d get some shut-eye and then come crawling back to Barbara, his sweet wife who knew him so utterly, tenderly, completely, looking for forgiveness.
He could not breathe. Gulping in the air like a panicked fish, all he thought of was Barbara and his God. Black spots from the corner of his eyes grew until they swallowed his vision whole.
He died the minute before an ancient Grecian cow walked into the streets of London.
________
Patience thought of Blue’s riddle as she gutted a man in a dark alley of Ho Chi Minh City. His ashen face looked even greyer in the yellow neon lights, his expressions crumbling with death.
A quiet epiphany. She smiled. Wrote a note to Blue and sent it through time to the Mali Empire of West Africa.
________
Dear Blue,
Is the answer a name?
Red
________
A Red foot soldier caught the corners of the message in the gust of wind travelling over the battlefield. Sent a thought to the Sister.
In the Mali Empire, Delia smiled reading the message. She sat by the river Niger and thought of Patience.
Delia gave Patience her name, the final gift they could share.
At the end of the letter she also wrote Red’s real name, and on a whim asked to call her Patsy. Just between the two of them.
As Red and Blue shifted to Patsy and Delia, the fabric of space and time shifted, was pulled from all sides, as it tried to adjust for the new changes. Its tapestry tore microscopically in a thousand more places.
They exchanged half a dozen messages after that, each more intimate than the last.
________
Dear Patsy,
The way the sky turns from dusk to night to dawn reminds me of you. I’m in some forest in northern Wales. It’s so quiet. The trees shake, and they’re the loudest. There used to be a battle here.
Most of the places I go to, I go to for a reason: to change the course of time for the Head’s timeline so we’ll win. Most of the time I get in and get out as quickly as possible.
This time I moved for myself. I needed a clear head. I used to live in Wales, before I joined the war.
I haven’t had a proper night’s sleep since that day on the battlefield.
Where are you? You feel far away from me somehow.
Delia paused. She was writing the letter in the smell of violets. They bloomed as she kept writing, a purple carpet over destroyed helmets and torn earth and crushed dreams. In death, plants showed the way to peace.
She knew this could end terribly. There were a thousand different ways it could implode in her face.
And she didn’t care anymore. She gave herself completely to Patsy.
Yours,
Delia
She left the violets as they were, rustling softly in the breeze, and fell asleep in the forest.
________
Patsy was called into the Sister’s office. She had begun to choose to call herself Patsy in her head because she much preferred it to Patience. It was also thrilling to have a secret from the Sister, this person who had spent hundreds of years being so opaque to Patsy that she could not resist the chance of finally knowing something she did not.
She sat in the reception in the middle of space-time. The geographical location of the Sister’s office was cloaked. Patience always felt odd in the office- technologies didn’t work here either, meaning her arm worked more on instinct and pure stubbornness than any actual technology she’d implanted. The seats were from IKEA, though. Even in the Sister of Technology’s office, IKEA was the best they could do.
Her human leg began hurting as well; she’d need a new one soon. Or at least new kneecaps. Patsy wondered how she’d survived without the Sister as a mortal. Her body was so frail.
Or perhaps she wasn’t meant to live for as long as she had.
The receptionist looked at her from under her spectacles. They were more for the aesthetic; everyone’s sight was operated as soon as a slight flaw could be detected. Patsy hated people who wore glasses without frames for the aesthetic. It seemed so foolish.
“Patience?”
She came in and shut the door behind her.
For such a technologically advanced group of people, the office was very simple- a potted plant sat behind Julienne. The wallpaper had small cogwheels on it.
Otherwise, what the office lacked in interior design, it made up for by the presence of Julienne. She was an older woman in a nun’s habit. She wasn’t a nun, but the Sisters (there used to be several, but now only one remained) had been some thousand years ago when they began their mission. Some tradition, it seemed, was hard to shake. Even if you were a robot.
(Actually, Patsy wasn’t really sure what Julienne was.)
Julienne had been writing, and as Patsy came in she paused mid-sentence. Patsy wondered if she didn’t know whether she would come or if she simply wanted to write as much as she could before she was interrupted.
Or maybe she liked to make her subjects feel they were imposing upon her time, to limit the number of unnecessary meetings.
Julienne watched her. “I have called you in because I felt I needed to say this in person.”
She pulled the letter to the side and sent it off with a flick of her wrist. The stack of papers disappeared. Patsy sat down on the chair in front of her desk. “There have been some tears in space-time because of you.”
Patsy’s eyebrows moved to her hair. “Tears in space-time? Sister Julienne, my work has been about changing history through small actions. Taking the seed or sapling before it becomes a tree, not chopping the entire tree down. How can I have caused such large damage to the universe?”
Julienne looked off into the distance for a second as if considering how to answer the question. This was likely the most direct anyone had ever been with her for a long time.
“Every person- indeed, every living thing on Earth- has a very specific energy. Every living thing affects every other living thing. As such, each organism affects a certain amount of the Universe.”
The tapestry of time rippled and changed in the window behind Julienne as though trying to give an example to Patsy. “An organism’s energy can be found in the amount of the Universe it affects in its short lifespan, and after its inevitable perishing, as each action ripples out in small waves which become wider-reaching over time. The longer the lifespan, the more impact an organism has on the Universe and the fabric of space and time itself. Most things only live for a few decades, if that.”
Patsy wondered what her sister and mother's energies were.
“You are one of the last remaining first-generation soldiers. You- indeed all Sister soldiers- have an immense amount of energy in the Universe. This is also true for soldiers of the Head. You have already lived for far longer than any mortal would, and changed the course of history in so many innumerable ways that your energy source is…notable, even by our standards.”
She took a breath, as though steeling herself for the upcoming conversation. Her tone changed- it became less ethereal, more grounded. The contrast was like satin and steel.
“Is there any chance you have interacted with another equally powerful source of energy? For some time, perhaps? Any minor interaction makes a large difference. It could destabilise the Universe.”
Her voice became serious. “Those interactions spanning months, years, or even longer could tear the fabric of space-time apart. The Universe wasn’t created for organisms with such large energies in such a small volume, particularly not when some meet- or even communicate- for lengthened periods.” She stared at Patsy like she was daring her to say something to the contrary. Patsy went cold.
Julienne knew about Delia.
How could she not? She must.
She shook her head. Hoped the action did not look as disingenuous as it felt.
“I do not know, Sister Julienne.”
Did she sound like a good soldier? Like a loyal member of the Sister?
When did being part of this order become such an artificial part of her, she wondered. When did she realise that she had to put on a show to stay part of them? Why did she want to rebel?
The answer sat in her head like Pandora’s box, begging to be opened. She refused to see it, for fear acknowledging it would mean Julienne became privy to it. All the badness may rush out.
(She’d still be left with hope.)
Julienne leaned back, looking disappointed but not surprised. “Very well. You are barred from any direct battles- the Universe is hanging on a tightrope. Any more energy changes may completely destabilise it. You may go.”
Patsy walked towards the door, exhaling quietly as her back was turned to Julienne.
“Mount?”
Patsy turned in shock. She had not been called by her surname since she was mortal, more than two hundred years ago. It used to be her codename in multi-people missions. Those had made many fond memories, though she hadn’t gone on one since she could remember.
Had her energy hindered her from working with others? Was that why all the fresh recruits worked together as the more experienced soldiers were sent to the corners of the Earth, isolated?
“Be more careful next time.” Julienne wanted to say something else, she could tell, but she did not. She leaned down to her letter and waved Patsy away.
________
Patsy knew their time was counted now.
Dearest Delia,
Let’s meet at the Silver Buckle. You’ll know the time.
Yours,
Patsy
Delia finished the letter (a normal letter of all things!), had a slight panic, but then realised: Patsy was no fool. This meant something. She could hold evidence of their relationship in her hands now, caress the words and looping scrawl like she wanted the person who’d written them.
She felt for the right strands of time and gasped when she realised what Patsy had planned. On an impulse, she travelled to a younger version of herself first.
________
Patience pulled the cloak closer to her. She’d tried a new café, but was soon regretting it- all the food was fantastic, the coffee great, but the man by the counter kept glancing at her lecherously. Her skin crawled all over from his gaze like sticky ants.
A woman walked past her and sat down.
She was very pretty stranger. Patsy suddenly didn't mind her sitting down.
Two older-looking versions of her and this woman appeared. A black hole appeared, first as small as a ping-pong ball, but rapidly expanding until it was taller than her, in the café.
“What is that?” Patience asked foolishly- like someone else would know what a giant black hole was doing in a random coffee shop. She looked around. Everyone had paused and sat or stood like mannequins. Everyone apart from this other woman. And this android version of her.
The older women looked at each other, held hands, and ran into the hole. It collapsed, caving in on itself rapidly.
The café resumed. People looked dazed for a second, and a strange pause hung in the air, before returning to normality. The chatter swelled back to its wave.
Patience looked into her mug. “I just wanted some coffee,” she muttered.
She looked up at the woman sitting across from her. “Do I know you?”
Delia held out her hand. Tried to ignore the importance of their meeting. The mundanity of it.
“Delia Busby. I just moved here.”
Patience ‘Patsy’ Mount lived a long life as a midwife in the East End, before passing away in her sleep at 70. Delia spent her life as a nurse and then midwife in the East End.
They had a flat together and loved each other until their hearts gave up.
________
Around the ship Vikings ran to try to patch the hole; they were too far away from the shore to wait, had begun the voyage back.
A half-naked man in a gladiator’s helmet thrashed about in the water quickly filling the ship. He drowned, along with the crew on the ship.
A hundred years later a group of divers stumbled upon the scene. They surmised that the man dressed as a gladiator must have come from somewhere else- but where?
________
Patsy and Delia were floating in space-time. All around them the stars shone in the inky blackness, their only guiding lights to the future. They held hands, high on freedom for the first time in their lives. There was no Head. No Sister. Just Patsy and Delia. As it should be.
They tucked away a part of space-time with sheer willpower and magic sheathed by technology. Love made them stronger.
They laughed while going to bed in their new cottage.
________
A series of cracks appeared in the Japanese Emperor’s Court as he continued talking to his subjects, standing next to his guards. The subjects stared, a large crowd hushed in abject horror as their Emperor seemed to crack at the surface.
A radio prototype from the late 1700s hit him on the cheek. He fell sideways and was knocked unconscious.
________
It was a hot day, the kind that made the roads look like they were steaming up from far away. All the grass in the park was limp from a lack of water.
Tim walked along in shorts and a short-sleeved shirt. His back was damp from sweat. At least he had some time away from his two-year-old.
On the end of the road, a bungalow sat. Its appearance was unassuming. Two women sat in front, a redhead and a brunette. They sipped tea. Both looked to be about sixty or seventy. A golden retriever sat curled around their feet, panting from the heat.
Tim squinted. He’d lived here thirty-odd years, but never seen a house of any kind there, nor those women. Sure, London was big, but not big enough for a house to just materialise.
Perhaps he needed glasses.
He wiped his eyes and took a break on a bench to drink some water. Because it was black his thighs burned. He cursed whoever had chosen to make that bench.
Taking another lap around the park, he almost forgot about the house. He came back to that same Sun-hot black bench. By now his water was tepid.
He looked and looked for the house. It had been over there, where a large birch now stood.
The house was not there.
In fact, Tim never saw the house again.