I was going about my business when I slipped through a rip in space and time. I remember this because it was a Tuesday.

 

I fell into darkness.

 

“Hello?”

“Oh, sorry, girl. Let me enlighten you.”

 

A light blazed from a lamp on a desk further ahead. Sitting on a chair by the desk with her boots upon it was an old woman smoking a pipe. “You probably have a few questions. Come closer, and I’ll give you a few answers.”

 

I obeyed.

 

“Now, young ‘un. I am what’s known as your life-time coordinator.”

 

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I’ve summoned you through a split in your personal reality dimension to have a bit of a review.”

“A review?”

“Yep.

 

“Is that a good or a bad thing?”

“Look there and I’ll show you,” the woman pointed a remote control into the darkness and clicked some buttons. Shimmering portals began to appear.

 

“Wait, that’s me!”

“Observant little troublemaker, aren’t you?”

 

I looked and saw myself at different ages within the portals.

 

“Claire Maloon, this is your life.”

 

I observed the glimpses of my existence. My birth. My growth. My many mistakes. All the way up to the day when I ended up in this place.

 

Beyond that, the portals were covered in fog.

“Erm, why is my future so unclear?”

 

My life-time coordinator gave me a hard look. “Why do you think?”

 

“Is my future not yet written?”

“Ah Claire, the geek I know you to be, you’ve brushed up on your sci-fi, haven’t you?”

 

I didn’t answer.

 

She groaned, stretched, and took her boots off the desk. She then leaned forward. “The answer, is that either you are exactly right, or who knows, maybe it’s best to keep it a surprise?”

“What, you don’t know?”

 

Her lips curled slightly. “I don’t know everything about this job. I just, kind of fell in to it.”

“What is it you are, exactly?”

“A life-time coordinator. I’m employed by the Social Order to observe my various cases and, from time to time, give reviews to the individuals and let them have a choice when they get here.”

“Where is here?”

“It’s one of the many pocket dimensions the Social Order has purchased, linked quantumly to the flow of individual timelines.”

I paused to think about this, then asked, “You mentioned a choice?”

She sighed, looked upward, then stood up from the desk. “Walk with me, Claire. Walk the walk of your lifetime.”

 

We marched beside the shimmering portals, each one either causing me to cringe while also flooding my brain with nostalgia.

 

“These portals contain links to key moments in your timeline. There’s the day you decided to pretend to be ill to stay at home, missing out on vital education. Here’s that day you ran over that pheasant on your motorbike. That’s the day your boyfriend decided to break up with you after a few weeks, because he found someone better—”

 

“The highlights, I see.” I said sarcastically.

 

“The point is, Claire, you can return to any of these points in your past. You will return to the age you were then, a sort of quantum-empowered leaping, if you will. But this time, you will have the knowledge of what you know now. And this foggy future…” she gestured to the further portals with her pipe, “may be brighter.”

I looked over my life. The emotion I felt the most, I can only describe as grief. For time already spent.

 

“Can I think about this?”

“Take all the time in the world. We are, after all, between time. Choose your tomorrow.”

I studied each portal. I saw only a failure. A loser. A person always making the wrong choice.

 

“Why the long face?”

 

I looked back at her. “Well, what would you have done if you were faced with the disaster of your life?”

“Me? I laughed. I hadn’t ever seen such a mess.”

“So what did you do?”

 

She frowned. “I can’t remember. I’ve been in this job too long.”

 

“Oh. Ok.” I turned again to the reflection of my turmoil.

“Although…” She said. I looked at her, and she smiled. “It might not hurt looking again. But just a little… differently.”

At first, I didn’t know what she meant. Then I took another look at that person who led that life. And I worked it out.

 

“I choose today.”

“Today?”

“You can do that, right? Choose the day you took me out of my stream?”

“Why ever would you do that?”

I looked at her, smiling with defiance. “The person I was made mistakes. But It made me who I am. For better or worse. A diverted journey carries even more risk. And whatever future, I must go forward in it.

"Just you watch!”