The Meadow Annual Literary Arts Journal 2022

88 The Meadow “Look.” Amanda looked up. Stars clustered together--old friends delighted to reunite. She felt she could have dipped her hand in the Milky Way’s white band. The stars drew closer together, into a single point, snuffing out every light in existence. Amanda gasped, but nothing came from her mouth. She floated in warm emptiness. And like a bomb bursting and throwing the old world down, the stars exploded out again--at her, around her. Burning through her body. Frying her hair and turning her skin to boiling parchment. Their heat and energy tore past her face; her skin bubbled and fell from her skull as she screamed. She sat in the canoe again, whole, unhurt, looking up at the stars in their places. Firm, solid as if ground to stand upon. “My first clue was the person we saw after starting out,” Bailey said later. They sat at the edge of the lake. The stars expanded and coalesced without pause in an hours-long rhythm, and when they gathered to a single point both women looked away. “The report from decades ago mentioned two people in a canoe on the river. It’s why we thought it was a joke. I didn’t expect the river to go back so far.” Amanda whispered. “Doctor, will we be able to get back?” “I believe so,” Bailey said. “We’ve tracked our progress.” She closed her eyes. “The difference was small at first--just twenty years. We went past the bombs--to when the trees stood--and back farther and farther. We’re far before them, now.” “Doctor, the river...how?” Bailey shook her head. “We might never know. If we can harness it, we can do incredible things--stop the bombs, help the past, prepare for the future.” They rested for the night. That’s all it was there. Night. While the stars expanded out around them, Amanda took pictures. The glittering balls of fire kept her attention as she lowered the camera, and she sent her thoughts out among

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