Chapter Four: Secrets Must be Kept

Chapter Four

                Nobody can see the future.  That was the fact.  I stood alone thinking of how erratic time truly was.  Back at home, I had been alone.  Left behind to watch the clock.  Not our clock.  One my father brought back from Earth.  I watched as a third hand spun free counting up toward the twelve.  But I lifted a hand and focused on it.  The hand came to a stop before it started to move backwards.  Time could be controlled.  In theory.  In my imagination.  It began to count down toward the twelve instead.

                “Najwa?” asked my brother.  I never heard him enter.  Salah strolled across the room and stared at me for a few seconds before he looked over at the clock.  “What did you do to it?!  Father is going to kill you when he learns that you messed with his gift.”

                “I can fix it.  I think,” I muttered before I looked back at the clock before I stopped myself.  Of course, I could fix the clock.  But if I did.  That would mean Salah would learn about my secret.  One that I wanted to keep for a little while longer.  “Well, I’ll figure it out later.  Ok?”

                “Not ok.  I think that I’m going to tell him.”

                “I hate you.  You always do this to me.”  I wanted to slap him across the face but instead, I started to walk across the room ready to leave when a wave of pain collapsed over my body.  My knees went limp and I almost fell over.  Quickly, I caught my balance but still I staggered away.  Had to get out of there.  I needed to get out of there before Salah learned about my dark secret.  A part of me wanted to call it my little secret but that was impossible.  It was more than a little secret.

                “What’s wrong, Najwa?” shouted Salah.

                Again, I stumbled forward but this time I collapsed only to writhe in pain while I gripped my head.  This shouldn’t be happening again.  It was never supposed to happen in the first place.  I buried my face into the floor.  Tried to pull my knees up to my chest.  My fingernails clawed at my heart as images of lies passed before my eyes.

                A girl dancing through a field.  She seemed to stagger and almost fall over.  She stops to look at me cocking her head to the side.  A smile crosses her face before she falls backwards.  Her hands reaching out to both sides.  An angel falling.  Fires engulfing a field.  Buildings that start to crumble.  Alien eyes start to stare at me.  A room that darker than the vacuum of space.  A laughing man.  A fallen tear drop.  Hand falling over the edge of the bed a yellow apple falling to the ground.  It rolls across the ground to a foot.  Somebody crushes it with their weight.  A single gloved hand.  White as a distant star.  As cold as the surface of the room.  A vial slipping free in between two fingers with smoke that rises into the air to suffocate the hand.