art by Shothot Designs
The value of folding space
The first time I folded space, I did so to cheat at hide-and-seek. It was purely by accident, and despite winning the game rather quickly, I didn't really understand what I'd done, not yet. It was several years before I found that I could move through my folds in space, that they were doors and not just windows. I discovered this when I was fifteen and quite accidentally fell through my bedroom wall and into the garden beneath Jennifer Milner's bedroom window. Partly in shock, I walked home two kilometers in my pyjamas. I was lucky to pay for the lesson with only a sleepless night and a few short-lived rumours at school.
I'm in my forties now. I haven't used my ability to lift bags of paper money from bank vaults. I am not a secret agent. I am not a hero. I have not delivered medical supplies to remote third-world villages. I like to think I'm smart enough to remain unnoticed, to stay out of trouble, and usually that's true. Sometimes when I can't sleep, I see my ex-wife and her husband, our children's step-father, peacefully asleep in their bed, and at first I don't realize that I'm actually seeing them. When it happens, I can usually close the portal before they notice me too. But whether or not my semi-conscious blunder is discovered, I always lay awake much longer, meditating on the unfortunate fact that I can create portals in space, visit any location in the known universe, but I cannot, hard as I try, bend time as well.
The End
This story was first published on Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010
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