''Eske! What the fuck! Turn that off!''; yelled a firm, male voice from the other side of the apartment.


    Eske opened his eyes and punched the alarm clock beside his bed while trying to open his eyes.


    ''You have to stop this! It is insane!''


    ''I''m sorry, I need to study.''; shouted Eske back.


    ''Eske, it is three in the morning.''


    ''Three fourteen in the morning.''; Eske corrected, rubbing his face against his palm.


    Robert entered his room and started pacing in front of him with his breeches unbuttoned and his naked torso. ''Eske, this has been happening every night for the last week. Is everything all right?''


    He didn''t answer for a while.


    He met Robert on the very first day when he landed in 1957. Robert was a tall, muscled guy with a funny moustache but mostly a friend now who, like him, got lost in this timeline after a long journey travelling time.


    ''I just need to study. Sleeping is overrated.''; Eske tried to joke.


    ''Are you having nightmares because of the cat again?''; Robert sat next to his friend on the bed. ''Eske, I''m here if you need me. I think if anyone can understand it, it would be me. Wouldn''t it?''


    It had been more than three years since they met each other. Robert found Eske half-dead, lying in a dirty alley behind the pub near his building. He took him home, tended him, and from the tattoo on his arm, he realised that Eske could not be from this timeline. Like him, he would have travelled through time without understanding how it works. They now shared the same misfortune and a flat near the university campus where Eske would attend. And Robert, as a doctor, gave private home consultations. Both of them had busy lives with secrets that ordinary people couldn''t understand. But Ecke''s past was too much for any human being to bear alone. ''I''m fine. I just need to study. That''s all.''


    ''I don''t think you''ll have any problem with the exam.''


    ''I know, I''m not worried.''


    ''So what is it? What are you keeping so tightly to yourself that you can''t sleep?''; asked Robert with a genuine, concerned gaze.


    ''Nothing,'' said Eske. ''Just..., did you ever forget things from a past timeline? Like faces? Names? Things that were important?''


    Robert nodded. ''I hope I remember what matters. But after living so many different timelines, I must admit that probably something was left behind.''


    ''What can you do to not forget faces?'' asked Eske, feeling a pit of guilt and sorrow boiling in his chest. He wouldn''t understand.


    Robert smiled and patted his face gently. ''A lot happened. You should take care of yourself. Forget about her.''


    ''I know,'' said Eske. He sighed and closed his eyes. ''I can''t remember what number nine looks like. It is driving me crazy.''


    ''Forget about her. Do you have a death wish?''


    Eske looked away, unable to look at Robert''s concerned expression. ''Don''t worry. It is not like I will cross paths again anytime. What would be the probabilities of that?''


    ''You made the math, didn''t you?''; said Robert smirking.


    ''0.0000000001%, those are my chances.''; said Eske while leaving the bed.


    ''It is still a chance.''


    Eske took a deep breath: ''It is closer to nothing than to something.''


    ''Just don''t bring her home. I don''t want to have tea with dooms day lady.''; laughed Robert.


    ''Shut up!''; Eske hit Robert''s shoulder. Then Eske turned and walked towards his closet.


    ‘I’m serious. Let her go. We know nothing about her or even if she’s real.’


    Pretending is just another day, 1961.


    For someone who woke up every day at three and fourteen in the morning, Eske was always late for classes. He had to run down the stairs two by four, or he''d never make it on time! But even when his feet were moving fast enough that they felt as though they might fly off into space, he failed. And would feel everyone''s eyes upon him once he stepped inside the threshold of the classroom.Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.


    ''Schrodinger, happy to see you decided to join us.'' the Professor looked at him like a cat watching an insect crawl across its paws: ''It is so good of you to honour us with your majestic presence.'' His gaze flicked away. ''Please take a seat!''


    Eske hid on the second line and noticed the Professor was new on the campus. A tall, slender man with wavy hair and hazel eyes: ''Good morning, class, my name is Delbert Whiterabbit, and I will be your Quantum theory professor for the semester.''; he went to the board and wrote his name Delbert Day Whiterabbit.


    ‘How did he know my name?’; thought Eske with a tingling in the back of his mind.


    ''Today''s theme is something that is very personal to me and to any of you. The question of existence itself. And how do we quantify the same? What is time?'' He scrutinised the auditorium and finally asked: ''Who wants to go first?''


    One hand raised first. Eske couldn''t see the student who dared to speak before anyone else: ''Time is a dream, of course. It changes depending on who we are. It checks. It changes depending on your mood. Checks. It changes depending on your health. Checks. It changes depending on what you did yesterday? Checks. It changes depending on whether or not it knows that you''re looking at it? Also, checks. It''s a ubiquitous dream, one that''s quite useful. But it''s a dream. Proof, when we wake up from it, it ends.''


    A silence waged the auditorium for seconds until the Professor asked: ''It is an interesting perspective, so your wake-up would be death?''


    The same voice replied: ''Potentially. I have never died, not that I''m aware of anyways. But considering subjective time starts after birth, it might be safe to say that subjective time also ends when we die. Suppose we have other means to measure time besides clocks and calendars. For example, time as a straightforward stream. The way a clock ticks along, the way the dates pass by in the calendar. Easy to visualise. But what if we instead start to measure time by the position of the celestial bodies and the position of ourselves on Earth? Would we instead begin to experience time as a place? A relationship between incomprehensibly huge things floating around us, isn''t it confusing? In time, we are right where we are, and landmarks are moving through the sky around us. As we keep moving, the place moves, and so do we. Does time still move straightforwardly, or do we now move forward in time? Time is so subjective that it''s impossible for me not to call it a dream.''


    The Professor interrupted by saying: ''Interesting perspective. You might be on something, but let''s be more tangible and less ambiguous, shall we? Next!''


    ''Art is how we decorate space. Music is how we decorate time.''


    ''Jean-Michel Basquiat, very nice, Miss Abby. Would you like to clarify?''


    ''Precision measurement of time is relatively recent in human history. Pre-industrial civilisations used clepsydra, water clocks, and sundials. Foucault''s Pendulum can be used to track hours and days. So it can be difficult to measure and track time. Civilisations have to agree on a universal method, and only then can that be the basis for scientific experiments.''; she explained in a low tone. Female students were rare on campus, especially in science. And the few that ventured into this department tried to be as discrete as possible.


    ''Who wants to go next?''; the Professor called out, almost as ignoring the girl''s reply.


    ''Time is the sequence of memories to be made.''; said another voice lost in the crowded room that Eske couldn''t identify. It was interrupted by a young man''s voice at the front line:


    ''Time is like a personal river, how I look at it. Some move faster, and others slower. When there are lots of things happening at once, we can feel like things get out of our control and a flood occurs. Other times it feels like a drought, and we wish a sudden rain would come to move things along. The rivers can also connect, supporting other rivers, tagging along with them or disrupting their currents. They also come in different sizes, depending on how many things one can handle simultaneously. And we are always pressing forward until we either reach our goals or dry out. I''m pretty sure it''s common to compare time to the current we travel in. I just like to think that everyone has their own currents which interconnect.''


    ''Thank you, Mr Taru, good point. But let''s try to be less poetic next time. Who wants to go next?''


    ''Me! Here!''


    ''Let''s hear it.''


    ''Time is a tower, and you are standing on its peak. Not merely by your own merit but because you were brought here by your forebears with the necessities to experience this: A consciousness that is aware of its own existence at this moment. Memories to recall a past are ever elusive and a mind to dream of and fear the dawning of a future that will never be. There was only ever this moment. There only ever will be. When our journey through this universe has ended, time will cease to be. No one remembers the past. No one to think of a future. It will be born anew when someone else reaches this peak. Aware of life and its frailty, measuring the spectre of time in fragments of a finite life.''


    ''Well, this class is full of poets. If time is only a perception, what are we doing here today? If it''s a dream, why are you here? Literature is on the other side of the campus.''


    ''Time is a four-letter word in English. Time is spelt t-i-m-e. Time the word also exists in other languages. That is Time, a word.''; the auditorium stormed in laughter.


    ''Okay, okay, very funny. Ah-ah. As I said, poets. Any other poet in the room?''


    ''Time is an ever-branching tree of possibilities. Every present has many futures, and every present also has many pasts! So, time is a web of branches ever joining and splitting.''; the answer came from three seats on Eske''s right. A redhead with her eyes hidden behind big glasses.


    ''Your name?''; asked the Professor, also intrigued.


    ''Penelope Bonheur, Sir.''; she replied. She was sitting straight. Eske wondered why he hadn''t seen her earlier, perhaps she arrived late too, but he didn''t know much about her. ''And let me add, another thing that messes around with time is whether things are deterministic, probabilistic or other. If X influences Y, you mess up when you return. If an action causes the timeline to branch out, you are essentially creating a multiverse. An alternative and similar approach would be to say everything is happening till it happens. Some things are more likely to happen. And some possibilities die after an action is taken. Worth comparing the Copenhagens approach and Einsteins approach. Just saying.''


    ''It was so far the most interesting approach Miss Bonheur. The most by far. What about Mr Schrodinger, Any suggestion? ideas?''


    ''It''s a virus, or it behaves like a fungus. A fractal, as a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is, at least approximately, a reduced-size copy of the whole. So using the virus or fungal example, it eventually has a core, a center, and will spread to other cores leaving residues of itself aloof. But still connected. Which creates, as others suggested, alternative timelines. Because we are creatures who perceive only in three dimensions to the best of our abilities, we measure time poorly with metrics and devices that don''t make any sense. The first is just wrong. The rotation of the planet over the sun and the solar system flying through space cannot be measured as we do. Second, the mass of the equation is not the same. We are all different. Not only superficially but genetically and mentally, each cell of our being is not the same as the other, which means that the perception and experience of time are different. The impact I have on a timeline will be different on another. It will create another line. And so on for everyone. As time spreads through the universe, it gets corrupted. The information that it inherited from his core is no longer there and starts to die in itself. And time doesn''t stop existing because I die or lose conscience of time. It will continue to spread as cancer. I''m just no longer part of the equation.''


    ''And how would you solve this?''


    ''Aren''t you dying to know?''; Eske gripping his table, not understanding why he didn''t trust Professor Whiterabbit, but the numbers he could hear didn’t add up. Did he forgot something?