Sincopation

06B - The Whispers of Time

"Nadia?"

She was turned towards me, but her eyes were unfocussed. It was more that she was staring into me, rather than at my face. Often, when pausing at the occasional reflections you found in a place where mirrors were absent, I could sympathise with her. I didn't particularly like looking at me either. I mentally punched myself. Such frivolity, even only in my mind, was wrong when someone was... doing whatever she was doing.

"Nadia, are you OK?"

She nodded, but her head moved slowly, the up and down movement taking three times as long as it should. I moved closer to peer into her eyes. She seemed... absent.

"Nadia, what's wrong?"

"N o t h I n g. W h yyyy?"

"You're acting strange. Like going slower."

"I' m n o t. D o n't be silly. Are you making fun of me?"

I moved away and frowned.

"What just happened?"

"I don't get you. Nothing happened. We're just here talking."

"Yes, but you started talking really slowly. Moving too."

"Are you taking the piss? I did no such thing."

She crossed her arms and I could tell she was angry, but I pushed the matter.

"I'm telling you, Nadia, you were speaking in slow motion."

"I wasn't," she insisted. "I was talking just like I am now. If you're just going to make fun of everything I've told you, we'll end this here. I won't bother you again."

"Nadia, I wouldn't do that. You know me better than that."

"You don't think..."

Her hand went to her mouth as shocked recognition, of what I didn't know, widened her eyes.

"Nadia?"

She put her hand on my arm and then stood.

"I have to go," she said.

"What? What's wrong?"

But she was gone. There were few places one could go in the asylum, and none meant you were alone, unless it was either in your cell at night or in Room 101.

Nadia chose the latter. I saw her walk up to Jason, one of the orderlies, and say something. He shook his head and she slapped him. I started to rise from my seat, but it was too late. Jason had her in an arm lock and was marching her away.

I swore under my breath, but there was nothing I could do except wait.

What had just happened? She'd accused me of making fun, but was she doing it instead? Though I doubted her story of a mischievous Time playing with our lives, she'd been so convincing. She had no such reservations, that was clear.

Perhaps she'd had what Jeremy liked to call a 'brain fart'. A blip in her mind that made her stutter. Except it wasn't a stutter. She'd decelerated. The brakes had been put on and her words and movements had slowed as a result. Whatever it was, she'd realised something. I wouldn't be able to find out what that was for a day or two, until she was released back into the general population.

Three days, it seemed, was the sentence for striking an orderly. Three worrying days during which I revisited both her story and our chat. Time as a being was absurd. Time was something we'd made up to be able to divide the day so events could be placed in it in a meaningful way. It was a line we'd divvied up into bite sized segments and one we all travelled at the same speed. The sense of days dragging or speeding by was purely a mental illusion based on what we were doing at that moment. Waiting for someone. Enjoying something.