“Again? This is the seventh time!”

Mom walks fast whenever she gets annoyed. I jog to keep up with her--I’m not so great at walking.

“And why always to the ladies’ room?” her eyes lock on to mine.

“I sneezed, okay! You know how hard it is for me to control it. That arts class went on for hours. The breathing technique you showed me can only do so much.” It isn’t my fault, but somehow I am always to blame.

She stops beside our car in the parking lot and sighs. There is no one about as she says, “Okay. Let’s try something new. Move yourself. A centimetre to the right.”

“What?”

“A centimetre to the right. Come on, quick. I want to see how it looks.”

“Right here? Right now?”

Her head tilts in one direction. “Duh.”

“Okay...okay...”

Now, this is new. I’ve always moved to locations far off, but just a centimetre?

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

Blink.

I open my eyes. I am now standing near the trunk of the car.

“Too much. Focus. Remember to breathe. Just a centimetre.”

What did she want from me? Moms can be so overbearing.

I take another deep breath. In. Out. Mom always says, leave the air behind, maybe it doesn’t want to move with you. Inhale. Exhale.

Blink.

I open my eyes to see her smiling. “Perfect,” she says. “No one will notice. It felt as if I had blinked.”

“But how does this help?” I am still confused.

“Whenever the urge to move comes over you, move a centimetre in any direction. Your body will be displaced, and no one will be the wiser.”

I grin, opening the door of the car. “How do you even come up with these things Mom?”

I get into the car, but not before I catch the sad smile on her face.

She gets in and starts the engine.

“Okay, Mom. I’ll see you at home.”

“Don’t you dare--”

Blink.

And I am home.
 

***
 

The grass sighs underfoot, the sky overhead is a lawn of winter. I’m walking. Each step in pace with my ragged breath. Each one taking me closer to the place I’d hope to never return.

How is it that the things we try to outpace catch up with us when we aren’t looking? Here I am now, walking back to the place I’d run away from so long ago.

I’m walking. I’m walking back home.

People say home is a place, a specific space. People will also tell you how home can be found in other people. Some might go so far to tell you that home is in the great outdoors, in abundant space.

It’s all true.

Home can be found in a space, but people always forget about time. Time and space are linked. Sometimes, home is found in a space at one particular time and when the time passes the space isn’t home anymore, no longer the place you knew and loved. Home ceases to exist, as does that moment in time.

For me, home is only a memory.

I’m walking back, walking back to the same space my home occupied, so long ago, when it ceased to be my home.

But the memories, they exist inside me still.
 

***

“You missed a spot,” I yell up at my brother who is fixing the shingles. A broken piece comes hurtling my way as a response. I easily blink out of the way.

“You’ll have to do better than that.”

He says something, but I am too far to hear. I love supervising him. He is an easy tease, especially when he’s the one who broke the shingles.

When mom found out, she wasn’t pissed at him like I’d hoped. She simply made sure he is the one who got up there to fix them, said it built character. Maybe she is right. He’s one character for sure.

The grass is soft and cozy, the sun warm on my face, and I lay on the grass, sipping the cool juice lazily. I yawn. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see my brother. He is standing on the roof now, stretching his back. Poor kid, he’d been hunched over working on that roof for over an hour. I should call him for a break I decide, when he, still leaning back, slips, rolls over the newly placed shingles right off the edge.

I react. Blink.

I hover between the ground and roof when he comes tumbling into me.

Blink.

We both stand on the grass, safe--gravity’s effect nullified. My brother slumps to the ground, dizzy and disoriented. I realise this is the first time I’d ever taken him along.

He opens one eye to find me over him, checking his pulse.

“You alright?” I ask him.

He nods. “You...are a superhero.”

I grin at the thought, imagining myself standing on the roof of the house with my cape billowing in the wind.

If only I could fly as well.

 

***

Remembering should be a crime. It’s almost like killing the person you are right now. Back then it was a simpler time, everything could be made alright. Mistakes only led to your mother’s scolding, nothing else. Nothing disastrous.

 

Unless, you have the ability to breach space.

 

***

“Let’s just call this an experimental flight,” I tell my brother. He yawns at me.

It is 6 am as we sneak out of the house. The day has yet to begin, and the sky is clear of clouds.

“How high can you go?” he asks me, the morning air waking him up a bit.

“I’m not really sure. I think as high as I want to, but let’s start small.”

The sun is rising at the borders of our sight, an orange tinge promising warmth from the cool night air that lingers on our breath.

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale.

“Come on!” my brother eggs on.

“Yeah, just...”

“Quit stalling. If mom wakes up...”

I gulp.

“Okay, then. Here goes nothing.”

Inhale. Exhale.

Blink.

The ground beneath me disappears as I feel the tug of gravity acting on me like a vengeance, pulling me back to the ground I left only a second ago. I fall, faster than I’d ever imagined myself to fall. My breathing falls to spurts and gulps as the wind tears at me from all sides. There is nothing to hold on to, nothing to grab, to orient myself with: only naked air. The wind holds me in its clutches, playing with me like a rag doll, up and down, round and about till I lose all sense of direction and the sky and ground have exchanged places several hundred times. The whooshing sound grows louder, the only indication of how close the ground really is.

I squeeze my eyes shut--and move.

Gravity loses its hold, the wind stops blowing in my ear and I open my eyes to see the grass beneath me, inches away, waiting. I fall into its embrace with a thud.

I hear footsteps, but I don’t move.

“That was awesome! You went up so high, and you fell like they do in cartoons.” I can feel the excitement in his voice.

I just lay there, happy to feel the ground beneath me again.

“Let’s go back now. Mom will be up any second.”

“You go,” I growl. I plan to never move again. The ground is solid and firm and safe.   

 

***

Memories are a time travel in their own right. It’s because of them that we stick to the past so hard, carrying it with us, inside us, keeping it alive. If we forget, would the past cease to exist?

I have gone back in time, through my heart and my mind. Each step I take, takes me back. The scenery, the fields, they haven’t changed much. I remember, I remember it all.

But I can’t. I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t. Hadn’t I promised myself I won’t return? Can I face it all again? My feet are frozen still; they want to turn around and run--to blink, to disappear. Did something go wrong with my father too? Did he ever think like this? Is this why he never returned?

 

***

“How does she raise two boys on her own? I’ll never understand,” said a voice from the store front that made me stop. I am safe, out of sight behind the counter, munching on stolen fresh sweet buns from the bakery.

“She should find a man for herself, before she loses out on those looks. There are several eligible men in town,” said the other voice.

“Oh, I don’t think anyone would want to father those two bastard children. And that older one keeps causing trouble, I’ve heard. Even their own father was in the right mind. Left, before it got too hard.”

“Oh, that man was up to no good either. I hear they weren’t married either. I wouldn’t be surprised to find his headshot on a wanted poster one day.”

“You watch too many westerns movies, you know that.”

“Ooo, have you seen this one with--“

I hear the baker’s footsteps coming closer to my hiding place. Time to go.

Blink.

Home.

As always, I find Mom in the kitchen preparing dinner. I realise, looking around the old house, that there are no pictures of my father. I don’t even know what he looks like.

Mom turns, sensing me as she does, smiling, but frowns as soon as she sees me. “You’ve been to the bakery, haven’t you?”

I wipe the breadcrumbs off my face with a guilty hand. “He’ll never know it was me. I was out before he could see me.”

“That’s not the point.” The pan on the stove is steaming slightly and she gives it her attention. “I don’t want my son to be growing up to be a thief like...”

“Like dad?”

She freezes.

Her silence, her stillness forces me into action.

“Tell me, Mom. Where is Dad? Why did he leave? What was more important to him than his own family? Than his own home? Was he a thief? And why aren’t there any pictures of him? I want to see him, so when his picture comes up in the news, I’ll know that’s him.”

She turns to face me, head down, a tear falling gently down her face. Her carefully constructed composure cracks and I flinch when a whimper escapes her lips. The guilt of my uttered words engulfs me as I reach out to her, pulling her into a tight embrace. She feels frail, weak, like a rag doll, a doll I’d break if I pressed too hard.

With her head on my shoulder, she weeps. And I let her. The sizzling from the stove brings her back and she brakes out of the embrace to attend to it. With her back to me, she says, “He looked a lot like you.”

That is the only thing I know about my father.

She turns to face me, smiling despite the tears. She puts her hands on my shoulder, squeezing them tight. I’ve never seen her like this--she is my symbol of strength, my home. This feels all wrong.

The confines of that space between mom and me presses hard. I take a step back.

“I’ll go get ready for dinner now.”

Blink.  

 

***

I never asked her about him again. Memories have a way of inflicting pain. I understand now. I buried all thoughts of my father. It didn’t matter. I had my family and I could jump anywhere. I could almost fly.

Life was beautiful, the way it was.

But nothing is built to last. The world has always seemed like a small place to me, I never could grasp the immensity. I’ve been walking and walking and walking and the road doesn’t seem to end. Or am I the one who doesn’t want it to end? Wishing it, forcing it, stretching it on and on?

Why would I even return? Was it necessary? Blank words on a blank note. I pull out the crumpled piece of paper. The words in black stand out still:

“Your mother is dying. Go home.”

There was no name of the sender, nothing. And I left, acting on instinct alone. I did not blink--no, I still dare not--I walked. Walking back to a home that has not been a home for years. Ever since that night.

 

***

A stormy night. The skies are dark, thunder laces the sky, lightening slithering through first, silently, like a snake in the grass.

“I wonder what they would look like up close,” says my little brother out loud. I look over the top of my book to see him sitting at the windowsill, gazing up at the trembling heavens.

Blink.

I stand behind him, following his gaze. “We could go up there. Have a closer look.”

He jumps.

“Don’t. Do that!”

I grin. “Sorry. You know how much I like my silent approach. But, what say? We can go all the way above the storm clouds and see them from the other side.”

His eyes light up. “Are you serious?” He looks back out the window as if to reconfirm the clouds were still there and then back at me as if his little brain cannot comprehend the offer.

“How will you control yourself in this wind?”

“I’ve been practicing.”

“What about Mom? She’s forbidden you to do those flights?”

“Little brother,” I said, placing my hands on his shoulder. “I am going to impart brotherly advice to you tonight. I think it is time. You have come of age. It is this: Mother has weak bones. And she isn’t as young as you or me. During an electrical storm, such as this,” I point out the window to demonstrate, “her bones ache and she stays in bed. She barely moves, no, she rarely moves. And it is at such times that you and me, her faithful sons can act a little...unfaithful.” I smile. He returns my smile. “I see you understand the implications.”

“Okay. Got it. Let’s do it,” he said, smiling his best wide-eyed smile.

 

***

I stop walking. I have reached the edge of town beyond which my house is half an hour away by foot--or so I’ve heard them all say. I don’t know. I’ve never walked this way before. Never needed to.

I take my face in my hands, and I find it moist. Tears are flowing down as this walk re-awakens those memories of a time best left untouched. What is it about moving from place to place that gives rise to such thoughts?

It is easier to move. Your goal just a blink away. But here I am now. Walking through space, not like a ghost, but a solid being, spending time to move.

I’m on my way--a state I’ve never been in before. Or have I always been in that state? I’ve always been where I wanted to be, except that night. And now, here I am, going to the exact place where I hoped I’d never have to go. I’m on my way.

 

***

His hand is in mine. I squeeze it in return.

Blink.

We are falling, straight down, looking at the dark clouds from the other side. The stars twinkle with all their delight as we speed to a world below us, twisting and turning, armed with lightening--the kind of world you’d see on TV telling you how uninhabitable it is.

My brother is fascinated. He points at the various cloud structures, yelling out their names--all of which escapes into the wind. I don’t hear anything, nor do I want to. My brother, in his excitement, has left my hand and inches away from me is descending faster, eyes glued to the clouds.

I want to grab him, and blink before we hit the clouds. The lower we get, the faster and fiercer the winds get.

Several feet above the clouds I yell out to him, reaching out to grab him. But the clouds below decide to send a jolt of lightening, so bright and so intense, the very air around me cracks and evaporates in the heat. The wind rushes in to fill the hollow the lightening left in its wake, and I find myself helpless like a falling leaf in a gale.

Somewhere, I imagine, I hear my brother’s name. The wind has him, and if I don’t move, it’ll have me too. On instinct, I do the only thing I can.

Blink.

 

***

I never did find him. I looked and I looked and I looked. My little brother, blown away in a freak storm. But unlike me, I knew deep down, he would not reappear.

These memories cascade around me. Time. That’s whom I blame. Memories are created in time, and now, as I walk back, I have the time to remember.

I’ve never known this form of remembrance. Such thoughts. Walking, running, going places physically was never the way I’d imagine my life to be. But losing my brother changed everything.

I left home. I’ve lived a busy life in small boxes in the city. There is no time there, none to remember, only to forget. I even forgot how to blink.

I knew no one would find me. The road is treacherous. But I never thought I’d walk it back, walk it back to go home.

 

***

I recognise her chappals, but I am too numb to get up from the ground.

“Why are you kneeling out here? And why are you all wet?”

I don’t dare look up at her. I can’t.

“What happened? Why are you crying?” She bends down bringing her face close to mine.

How do I tell her? How?

“Listen, you’ll catch a cold like this, sitting outside all wet. Come on, get up, let’s go. And where is your brother?”

She feels me tremble. I look up at her, my eyes red and tear stained. Her eyes grow wide with shock.

“Where...what have you...WHERE IS HE?”

I shake my head in defeat. I point up at the sky and let my hand fall down the path we would have taken.

SLAP!

The force of the blow sends me back to the ground. I don’t get up. I don’t want to.

She calls out to him, shouting-yelling-pleading him to come back. My brother, my little brother...gone.

I don’t know how long I lay there. I don’t remember when my mother returned. We wept, holding on to each other, the last remnants of our home.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, meaning it.

She pushes me, surprising me with her strength.

“Why aren’t you there where you’re needed the most? It’s all because of you.”

That’s all she says. That’s all she needed to say.

She gets up gingerly, and walks back home. I’m to blame. She’s right. I know. But hearing her say it out loud...how can I face her again?

I cry, and in my tears, swims the face of my brother. He had the brightest smile of anyone I’d ever known.

And now, he is gone. Because of me.

I get up, my eyes drying. I have to go. I bring nothing but hardship. My superpower--my curse--is mine to bear alone. I have to go.

I blink--for the last time.

***

I haven’t moved through space since. Teleportation is what they call it in the city. They wish they could do it, but they don’t understand.

As I reach the fields of my old home, I wonder if I still have the right to call it home? The grass is taller, the weeds have grown without supervision. The gardens, the farms are wild with growth and vegetation. Nature took up residence after I left.

I walk on. I can see the spot in which Mom held me and cried.

It’s because of you.

Instead, I focus on the sound of my feet as they crunch along the semblance of a path toward the old house. Nature had not been kind, but the house still stands, bowed, almost broken. The windows are empty, a few boarded up; the paint peeling off in layers; the shingles meaninglessly scattered over the roof. Water stains the walls of the house almost as if its face bares the tears of the passing years.

It’s funny, how in the sunny days of my childhood, the old home stood bright and cheerful ready to welcome you in, and here I am now, an adult, broken beyond mending, and the house feels the same way.

I climb up the porch and ring the ancient bell. It does not ring. I hesitate. I try the door. It is not locked; in fact, there was no latch and the door creaks open.

A harsh voice rings out, “Who’s there?”

My voice chokes up. I do not answer. Is that her? That voice--a grunt? It couldn’t be her. I don’t want to go further in. I want to run, to blink, to disappear. I tremble as my body wishes to move, but I hold myself in check. I take a deep breath of stale air and step further into the gloom.

I know the way around, even in the semi-darkness. There are some memories that are within your body, those you can’t forget. I make my way to the little bedroom down the hall; it had always been Mom’s.

I pull open the door. A face, one I do not recognise, appears before me. Gaunt eyes, and a huge nose ring with more wrinkles in the metal than the skin surrounding it looks back at me. She is shorter than me, but her aura makes up for her size and she fills the entire doorway.

“Who are you?” It is the same voice, the same grunt.

“Where is my mother? Who are you?” I am a little afraid now, a little confused.

At the sound of my voice, I hear the rustling of sheets from within the room.

“He has returned. I told you he would.” Her voice is weak. The melody is gone. But it is still her. I’ll know it anywhere.

Pushing past the lady with the nose ring, I hurry to the bed, where she lies, shrivelled and tiny, raising her head to look for me.

“Mom!”

“I hear you. Come…let me see you.”

I am a six year old boy again at my mother’s side. She looks so pale, so weak. “Mom, what…happened to you? How did…” words seem to dissolve on my tongue. I hold her hand, but there is nothing but dead skin and brittle bone.

“You’ve grown up. Your father looked just like you,” she smiles. “He kept his hair the same way when I first met him. A dashing young man. You must be driving the girls crazy.” She laughs, but ends up in a fit of coughs.

The nose ringed lady is on her other side--almost as if she had blinked--one hand under Mom’s head raising it softly, the other holding a cloth to her face. I glimpse the blood. She guides Mom to tilt her head to the other side and my mother spits out mucous mixed with blood.

Mom takes a deep breath. “Sorry you have to see me like this. Old age is an incurable disease. We all have to face it sooner or later.”

The nose ringed lady forces a glass of water into my mother’s hand, but she pushes it away. “Tell me, how is your life? What did I miss? Tell me, tell me everything...”

The nose ringed lady shoots me a look of pure venom. My mother looks so old, so tired, but her excitement hasn’t died.

What do I tell you Mom? I’ve been running all this while, from the memories of what I’d done; I live like a nomad, without blinking, without moving through space like a ghost; finding frugal jobs, and even begging on days when I can’t. Is this the future you’d hoped for me?

And even after all these years, without me saying a word, she reads me like only a mother can.

“You must learn to forgive yourself. What happened was not your fault.”

“How can you even say that!” I explode. “If I hadn’t… he’d still…he’d still be here...we’d be together.”

She smiles sadly, a thin line moving on her thin face.

“Today we are. That is what matters. Forgive yourself, as I have forgiven you.”

Her bony hands reach up to touch my cheek. Tears fall down my face and I cannot find the strength to forgive myself for the death of my brother. I clench my fists, the ball of paper, the note, crumbles within.

“I see you got my note.”

“You sent it?”

“Your father left it with me. Gave me instructions and an address to send it to.”

How did he know? “I don’t...understand.”

“Have I told you about your father?”

I look up at her, her face glowed like I’d rarely seen before.

“He was a grand man, your father. He had the same ability as you.” She smiles at my confusion.

“Yes. That’s how I first met him. He appeared out of nowhere in front of me, wet and shaking, his hair a brilliant silver. I helped him up, nursed him back. But he kept disappearing in the nights. The nights that he stayed, he mumbled in his sleep ‘In time...in time, I’ve lost him in time.’”

Smiling sadly she looked away. “I loved him. I know he loved me too. He once told me, ‘Home is not in a space, nor in a time, not even in people. Home is what you build in the given space and time, with people.’ That’s when he brought me here, to this house. He looked at it and said, ‘This is the one. Let’s build ours.’ He knew things. I trusted him.”

She looks away into the distance, seeing things that are not there, but not necessarily aren’t real.  

“He never told me what he was looking for. I didn’t know his past, he never spoke of it. He kept disappearing, always looking, always searching. He became obsessed with the past. He went on trips with archaeologists to find…find what, I don’t know. ‘Somewhere in time…time’ he always said. And then one day, while I was pregnant with your little brother, he told me he’s going to a place from where he won’t return. He looked at you and placed a hand on my belly and said I will never be alone. That’s the last thing he told me before he went into the past.”

“What…what do you mean?”

She smiled her weak smile. “Your ability to traverse great distances is not limited to space. Space and time are bound together in ways I don’t understand. Your father could travel in time--only to the past. Never to the future, he said it wasn’t fixed, in flux…”

“Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?! I could’ve…I could’ve met him…I…” realisation flared into my mind as I understood. “I can save him, I can go back to that night, prevent it all from happening!”

Her gaze is steady. “You cannot change the past. You can visit it, understand it, but what has come to pass is set in stone.”

“Mom…”

“Don’t go trying to change the past. It cannot be altered.”

“I’m going to try! I’ll bring him back and we’ll be a family again. We’ll have our own home.”

Her gaze did not falter. Her bony hand reached up to my cheek. “Don’t carry the weight of the past. It’ll carry you down with it. I wish you let it go.”

“Mom…how did you let father go?”

She looks away, half smiling, tears falling from her eyes. She coughs, a rattling sort of cough. How long does she have?

“Love is all about letting go. Not of the other person, but letting go of yourself. Allowing yourself to not stand in their way. He needed to go back. He would have been miserable if he’d had stayed.”

“I’m going to save him, Mom. I promise. I’m going to find them both and bring them back. We are going to be a family again.”

She half smiles. “Time is a funny thing. I’d hoped I’d never have to face this again, but here we are, the cycle continues...go son...think back to the time, that night of the storm. Remember it. Let it fill you, the sounds, the feeling of air on your face. Remember what it felt like and force yourself on that space. Force it and blink. Don’t open your eyes until you feel it again.”

She places her other hand on me.

“You are a lot like your father. But your brother was different. He had too much of me in him. Save him, and you will save a part of me.”

“I will,” I promise. “I’ll be back.”

She smiles again, that knowing smile. “We’ll meet again, in a different time. I know it.”

I shut my eyes and bring back the memory of that night. It’s easy. It lingers at the edges of my mind, and today I let it fill me. I force myself back there, I push hard into that mental landscape I can see so clearly in my head. It is slow, but I feel myself shift, as if I am standing on wet sand, sinking, sinking…

I open my eyes and the storm rages around me.

I stand atop my home, on the slippery shingles my brother had repaired so long ago. I look around and I spot myself with my brother standing in the field in front of the house, both looking up into the storm.

“Stop! Don’t do it!” I yell, but in the gale, sounds are nothing but ants.

They take each other’s hands and vanish on the spot.  

“Nooo!”

Blink.  

I am at the right place. Muscle memory, perhaps. Just a moment too late. I can see myself and my brother falling underneath me, hands held, gazing down at the oncoming storm. I fall too, the wind blasting my face, clutching it. It is exhilarating to fly again.

My younger self lets go of my brother’s hands. I yell, but in vain. It was me! I am to blame. A young man, unable to comprehend the ferocity of a storm whose winds are capable of blowing away a young boy.

The process is gradual, I see it unfold before me. My brother shifts away from the younger me, slowly, slowly, ebbing that much further. My younger self realises this but it is already too late. I can almost see the sinister wind reach out like a clawed hand, whisking my brother away.

But now, from my vantage point, I can see where he is headed. My days of experimental flights come back to me, and my body responds--muscle memory. I tilt my body and dive, splaying my hands to guide myself. I won’t lose my brother this time. This time, I’ll find him.

I dive headfirst into the black clouds and in bits of grey and colour I find him. I reach out and grab him bodily, pulling him closer to me. I do not wait, I do not hesitate.

Blink.

But fate has a funny way of dealing with life. At the last second, as my body shifts, thunder strikes me and my brother, and the jolt pushes us deeper and I’m sinking again...

 

***

It’s cold, and I wonder if this is what dying feels like. Cold and alone. But if I am dead, why do I have these thoughts?

I open my eyes to find a hazy world. I reach out with my hands--where is he...where? Where is he?

I try to push myself up, but my body quakes.

Footsteps.

I need to hide. To jump. To blink.

But my body refuses. After all these years, when I want to move, it stays. I need to go, find my brother.

“Hello? You’ll catch a cold like that. Why are you all wet! Look at you, you’re shivering. Let me help you.”

That voice. I know that voice.

Warm hands grip my side and the owner of the voice lifts me enough to slump against the wall. I keep my eyes shut, hoping to blink out of there. I need to disappear.

Her hand touches my forehead. “At least, you don’t have a fever.” Her hands, soft and warm, run through my hair. “You’re so young to have white hair, but it suits you.” I can hear the smile in her voice.

The world is still hazy, but I know who she is. It’s her. I can tell. Her own words come back to me, ones she had uttered so long ago now, ones she is yet to utter to me.

Don’t go trying to change the past. It cannot be altered.

I blink again, hoping to move. But I can’t. A part of me wants to stay.

She’s talking again. I focus on her words. “...you live? I’ve never seen you around here before. Where is your home?”

Home? It’s right here. With you.