Travelling Without Time

Poppy Mullins

Content Warning: Ableist language

This is time travel.

 

You feel no thud.

You don’t straighten your shoulders

and look at a watch

to find the date wrong

as your feet climb over rubble

or out of a broken car.

You just sit at your desk

the words on the screen in front of you, dark lines drawn by a child with stomach pain.

You don’t slide your hand off the glass of the table

listening for a deep grinding sound,

you just let a red bubble of pain expand tight round the back of your neck.

You look down and find yourself gripping the wooden border of your school desk,

trying to count backwards from zero

taking five increments off

until you’ve lost count.

You watch

the teacher’s brow

dig a furrow so deep

it leaves no shadow on her skin.

She slides out a lilt of concern,

the background hum of her pre-exhale

puffing her words up to frustration:

‘Do you find it difficult to subtract numbers

in your head?’

Your tongue is too wet

with the muffled weight of the truth

to answer.

You dig your palms into

the greenish-yellow streak of old paint

in the centre,

excrement from a time

when daubing stick figures with paint

was the most valuable task

you could achieve.

 

You don’t get to hide your shame

by catching the wide-eyed glance of a classmate.

In fact, the humming static in your ears

keeps clogging reason.

You pause the kitchen radio

of your mind, ears tumbling

to register the tone of her speech

and the gaps

between each sentence.

All these are irrelevant details to you now, of course. The bubble of pain keeps expanding.

It pops, just towards the end

of the teacher’s speech

in a statement spoken in the manner

of a tired mother coaxing a toddler

to put down a toy:

‘I can’t keep giving you

thinking time forever.

You need to learn

to be more independent.’

The white-hot glare of the screen leers up at you.

The words still don’t come.

 

A week later your protagonist has no external motivations.

It takes you ten minutes to describe pain.

The bubble sits on the edge of your ear this time.

It worms its way in.

Your radio picks up too-bright chatter spoken in too-loud voices.

The metal rim on the edge of your desk hurts your fingers if you clutch it for too long.

To the right of you sits a new teacher aide:

a woman whose sunspots

sit on her cheeks

like the fossils of tiny ants

made fat with years of cigarette feasting

scattered over

nervous flabs of skin.

You look down at the worksheet in front of you.

The equals sign sits there

like a broken pen

dropping ink onto a full page.

She asks you

five times over

the correct line to put it on.

You reply six times.

She can’t hear you.

 

Moments pass.

She asks you

for the next number.

The fur of heat

clings to your neck.
The logical answer is to

let the equation stretch out,

to focus on letting your head

finish the sequence, but the

drawling accent of the

pseudointellectual boy

with the quiff

who always sits behind you

is just a bit too loud

and the classroom clock

is ticking a bit too near your eyeline

and the teacher aide

is asking you

about where she should place

the vinculum on the page

and her ear

is tilted away from you.

You do shout:

‘Place it above the nine and the six!’

Your voice is quiet though,

for the sake of respecting

your new employee.

You look around the room,

hyper-attuned to the footsteps

close to your desk,

pine for them

to flick the pencil

from the teacher aide’s hand

and without once interrupting,

allow you to finish

the sum.

 

A day later

you call for a ceasefire

from the computer.

You thumb through that same notebook,

the question still there

unanswered.

In your ears

you hear a faint pop.

You place your hand

on the back of your neck.

The muscle is smooth.

It feels light.
The last time you look at the screen

the words are right,

the spacing’s correct,

tone wilts

underneath the metal grip

of each word,

each comma,

each metaphor.

 

This time, you run a finger

over the glass of the table.

Still, there is no noise

as it warps

into an office desk.

There are no objects in the room

to tell you how to hold your tongue, or

speak before she does, or

wrench the mouse

out of her hands

so that it lands on the right document.

There’s just the things that you can remember:

acrylic nails on a keyboard;

the huff

of breath

from your new case manager –

a title made

of Time’s boots kicking dead

the hours required

for teacher aides and teachers

to sit and talk with students

in voices that do not scoff at the slow steps of ideas,

that do not use upward inflections

as weapons – the other clues you notice are

(these make your skin crawl)

that it was the wrong essay;

her ready-made

flash of a smirk:

‘Did you get much feedback

on this assignment?’

‘Y-yes.’

The smirk grows wider.

‘What did they say?’

‘That I hadn’t made my point clear.’

It’s gone from her lips now.

She tilts her head to one side,

pats your shoulder,

‘It’s just about retraining yourself

to not focus on what the teacher aide is doing.

It’s about you focusing on you.’

The pat she gives your shoulder

feels a bit hard this time.

She huffs again:

‘See, what you should be saying here

is that William Paley grew up religious.

You need to give more background on him.’

 

Time speeds up now

and the truth

prods at my tongue, slipping out

of its plastic sleeve.

‘Ac-actually, Miss,

we’re meant to be

analysing the argument

without historical context.

That’s why I haven’t talked about it.’

The clock on the wall next to me

is ticking too loud.

She leans over

and looks me right in the eye.

Fear makes me think

that her gaze is made

of real anger.

But her voice is just tight

in the way that people use

when they’re trying to show you

they dislike you.

‘Do you want to get an A?’

 

Time is gone.

My thoughts slow to static.

I have moments

to give the reply of a proper student,

to explain

without hesitation

that my head

creates ideas as smooth

as a printer.

Instead, the clock is too loud.

So I choose a small voice.

‘Miss, I really, really don’t think

that I need to mention

anything historical.

That’s not what they’re marking us on.’

I sit in the humidity of silence

as she shakes her head at me

and shoves the computer

back into my bag.

 

Now,

you come back.

You stop.

You breathe in.

A voice whispers to you then.

Soft, urgent.

You smile before you respond.

The line comes out.

Humming air clears

and you feel cold.

The words show up on the page.

Author: Poppy Mullins (she/her) is an aspiring writer of domestic gothic fiction that explores how far the social model of disability can excuse the enacting of immoral behaviour from young people with physical disabilities stuck  in environments where they cannot express their deepest thoughts, regardless of how violent those thoughts might be. Poppy is also interested in exploring how existing in different spaces as a young person with a physical disability impacts the creative ambitions of those seeking to find a place in the mainstream art sector.

As a part of this, Poppy’s particular ambition is to explore how different subcultures of music help young individuals with physical disabilities navigate the challenges of finding a pathway through the mainstream art sector, with a focus on finding positive rather than cathartic outcomes.

Artist: Damon King is a mature age student in the third and final year of a BFA in Creative Writing at QUT. Over the past decade, being an artist of mixed media owned and dominated the creativity side opposed to my writing. Street art and graffiti was the starting point, then came multiple exhibitions, studios, and showings on professional levels. Artwork being purchased and commissioned from all over the world while building up a healthy presence on social media and travel-got my name out there. My writing has just re-discovered itself in the past few years, and it has been an exciting ride so far, so I am very interested to see where this takes me… @skullcapper @5kullc4p @johnnymahogany F.B Skull Cap (Brisbane artist) 

Edited by: Ricky Jade and Benjsmin Forbes