No Time At All

A.G. Scott

I won’t be at home for half as long as I’d like. There are some days here, in the
house I grew up in, during which it occurs to me that living with my family forever
wouldn't be so bad. Don’t let that get back to my little sisters—who bully me
relentlessly—but it’s true.

Maybe that admission is a little unbecoming, or at least makes me seem somewhat

immature; but frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn. This is the only place in the
world where I love everybody and everybody loves me.

That being said, I’m not always happy here. I don’t think there's anywhere I could
always be happy. I believe you know a little something about that, but I could be
wrong. It’s been a long time since the two of us have spoken.

Sometimes, after a sleepless night, I’ll go out for a walk just to lose myself in the
silent harmony of a sunrise. My route is always the same: I can’t help but visit this
pretty piece of the Green Circle trail, where a neat row of towering sugar pines
stripe the path with long, thin shadows.

I lean on the low chain link fence at the edge of your backyard and take it all in.
Some things have changed, some haven’t. The wooden playground appears
dilapidated and unsafe... but the sunflower garden at the edge of the adjacent Vue
plot is in full bloom, so there’s that.

There are a few reddish objects spread out and half-hidden in the wild grass. It
seems to me that the silvery sprinkler heads have been steadily rusting over since
the day you left.
They’re a little ugly now. But boy, do they take me back.

Back then, we knew that when a rainbow painted the mist over the sprinklers, a
portal would open to another world. A world of myth and magic. Sometimes we
allowed the other neighborhood kids to tag along on our adventures, but most of
the time, it was just the two of us.

And do you know what? That suited me just fine.

***

I remember the first time I came to your house, because no matter how much I
knocked or spammed the doorbell, nobody would answer. Then, right as I turned
around to walk the long block home, you grabbed me by the shirt and dragged me
into the backyard. I pointed at the personal playground and started asking
questions, but you brushed them aside.

You wouldn’t say another word until I agreed to follow you through the sprinklers.

That was the day we met Florabella, a wounded pixie in search of a pair of brave
knights who could defeat the ogre that had ravaged her home. You showed me that
the playground was not just a playground, but a treehouse kingdom run by
mischievous monkeys; that the ogre was waiting for us beneath the oak across the
yard; and that the grass between was rife with weed monsters that would pull us
into the ground if we didn’t watch our step. Your enthusiastic voice translated
effortlessly into those of the creatures we faced, and as far as we were concerned,
the back edge of your property marked the very end of the world.

In a matter of hours, we escorted Florabella back to her forest and freed the fair
folk of the ogre’s oppression. We detoured only once, to share a plate of peanut
butter and honey sandwiches. Knights get hungry too, you said. Never once in the
course of that quest did I feel lost, because I had you to guide me.

Years passed like that before the world in your backyard began to feel small and
stale. I took the lead for once, suggesting that we expand our efforts. Your father
really didn’t want you straying away from the yard, but eventually he agreed, on
the condition that you were home before the streetlights came on.

We knights errant became modern soldiers, taking our battle to the Vue brothers
next door. Our warring factions barked orders, fired at one another with rifle-
shaped branches, and tossed pinecone explosives over the fence, taking care to
steer clear of Mrs. Vue’s sunflowers, which were sacred. Of course, the majority of
each engagement was spent arguing over who had been hit, which parts of the
body were considered lethal targets, and how long it actually took for a grenade to
explode once the pin had been pulled.

You always seemed older than me. At first I thought it was because you were a few
inches taller, but I passed you up pretty quickly in that regard. Then I thought it
was because you were so sure of yourself, but you weren't always sure. No; slowly,
I realized you were struggling with things I couldn’t understand. I saw hints of it
sometimes, when I showed up unannounced or forgot a house rule. You weren’t
walking on eggshells; you were walking on broken glass.

We tried not to bring that kind of thing through the sprinklers. In the world we
made, good guys were supposed to be good, and bad guys were supposed to be
bad, and that was all there was to say about it.

But the older we got, the blurrier the lines, and the harder it became to leave our
personal conflicts behind. We decided that could be a good thing. Our emotions
were burgeoning, maturing, and they needed an outlet. The sprinkler made them
superpowers, if only for a little while.
Anger gave us strength. Fear gave us speed. Pain gave us shields.

One overcast mid-August day, after a fair bit of arguing, you challenged me to a
duel. This rarely happened, as we usually fought side by side, but when it did, we
took it seriously. As the challenged, I got to choose my power first, and picked
teleportation. Predictably, you chose super strength.

Our spars were verbal, describing one fluid movement at a time. Those were the
rules.

I teleported in front of you, just out of reach.

You took a small step forward and threw a right hook.

I teleported behind you.

You used the momentum from the first swing to turn around and grab me by the
arm.

I teleported across the yard to get away, but we agreed that this would bring you
with me.

Still holding me, you jumped straight up, hundreds of feet in the air, and spiked me
at the ground.

As I plummeted, just about breaking the sound barrier, I teleported above you in
the air and delivered a sharp kick with both feet.
You slammed into the ground, hard, and had no choice but to concede.

Suddenly, the air of magic we’d been playing in dissipated. I looked in your eyes
and saw no wonder, no whimsy, but fury. It couldn’t have been aimed at me, not
really. I was just the thing in your way at the moment. You walked up to me, and I
braced myself, certain that you were finally going to punch me out.

Much to my surprise, you kissed me on the cheek.

I was sorry then, and I’m sorry now, but my jerk reaction was to push you away. I
didn’t know much at that age, but I did know that I didn’t feel that way about you.
Still, my response was a bit callous, wasn’t it?

You seemed to think so. You shoved me off of your swing set. Then, without
saying another word to me, you ran into your house, slamming the door behind
you. Your dad wouldn't like that. He wouldn't like any of this.

There were only two weeks remaining until summer’s end, but I couldn’t bring
myself to come and knock on your door. I was a little weirded out, and angry, and
afraid that if I saw your face I would say something I couldn’t take back.

I guess it didn’t matter, because on the first day of school, you weren’t there. You
weren’t coming back any time soon, either. Your father was gone, and you and
your mother had packed up and moved to Canada, which might as well have been
in another star system.

Your house was soon purchased by an older couple who had no use for the nice
wooden playground in the backyard.

In the decade since, it all came to look mangy, even post-apocalyptic.

Fair enough. There was a world inside that fence once, and it ended rather bitterly.

We haven’t talked since then, and now it's too late. We’re different people.

I hope you’re okay.

***

There’s movement at the porch door. I bend down and pretend to lace up my
sneakers, then continue down the path toward home.

As the sky fades from orange to blue, I wonder whether you realize how much I
owe to you. It was on our little adventures that I first fell in love with stories. We
insisted on making those ordinary summer days extraordinary, and I pride myself
on continuing to carry a sliver of that joy. The memory of what it felt like to live in
a world of our own is among the very biggest reasons I quietly hang on to the
foolish, childish, wonderful dream of being a writer.

I round the corner and head up the driveway to my parents’ house.

You know, it’s funny. After you left, I felt so alone. All I wanted was to leave this
town behind, so I wouldn’t have to walk down the Green Circle trail and be
reminded of the marvelous childhood that had been taken away from me. Now I’m
a visitor here, a serious young man on his way to graduate school, and leaving is
the last thing I want to do.

My littlest sister is only nine. She’s sitting in the window, scowling and waving at
me with a purple cast over a healing wrist. I think of you as I turn on the sprinklers
and beckon her to come out and play. I can’t really see things the way I saw them
with you, when I was a kid, but she can.

It kills me: she’ll be grown up in no time at all.

What a crying shame it would be if the only world she ever got to experience was
the real one.

She and I run through the rainbow-painted sprinklers, disappearing to a place

where time is insubstantial.