An excerpt from... Pictures from the Elsewhen

by Kathleen Clauson, Copyright, 2006
published in Time Intertwined, Kerlak Publishing

Katie smacked the back of my head.  "Honestly Joseph, where do you get such ideas?  I'd believe you more if you said you could predict the future using the stains left in the bottom of Mother's coffee cup," she said, frowning.

"Everything that isn't in the past or future is in the Elsewhen," I announced.  "I read about it in one of Father's old physics books in the library."

"You'd better show me right now or I'll box your ears," she snapped.  She followed me inside, face defiant her arms folded tightly in front of her.

We slipped inside, quietly peeking into the kitchen to see what Mother was doing.  She was busy, wearing a red and white gingham apron, decorating the top of a beuatifully frosted coconut layer cake with glassy candied cherries.

In the library, I climbed up on a cane-backed chair and pulled out a thin blue book with a damaged cover from the shelf.  I opened it to a page showing a diagram of the past, present, and future, sliced into thirds like one of Mother's layer cakes.  Dotted lines split up the present, representing different planes or dimensions.

"That's ridiculous,' said Katie.

"Won't you, at least read it first, Sis?"

Katie read the passage that I had discreetly marked in pencil.  It explained that time isn't necessarily on a straight line like we think; perhaps instead, it moves along a winding road in two-dimensions.  On the page facing the diagram was a picture of a man riding a horse in all directions at once.

"It's impossible," she scoffed.  "Just stupid, really."

"How do YOU know?"  I slammed her fingers in the book and ran back outside.