Cassandra in Reverse

by Holly Smale

Too much emotion in one go and my brain experiences a power surge and sends me to sleep

I wish people would just tell me what it is I need to say to make them happy with me instead of constantly expecting me to guess.

You have an extraordinarily beautiful face, Cassandra Penelope Dankworth.”

You’re whip-smart and so gloriously weird. I genuinely love hanging out with you.”

There needs to be a word for both heartbroken and humiliated. Heartiliated, maybe.

“I’m all for equal opportunities and box-ticking and disability acts and shit, but I feel like you should have told us Cassandra was on the spectrum before we signed with you.” I briefly picture myself sliding down an iridescent rainbow.

Time is the invisible thread that weaves our stories together.

I’d say it’s destiny, but if the last forty minutes have taught me anything, it’s that fate is an entirely made-up human construct, like weddings, gender reveals and birthday parties.

I don’t think we talk enough, as a species, about how ridiculously difficult it is to make basic conversation. People act like it should be fun, but it isn’t.

Was it simply an exchange of irrelevant data, the way conversation so often is?

My beautiful—mainly vintage—clothes are all arranged chromatically, like a rainbow,

am certain that Barry has a list of corporate jargon stuck to his wall that he studies on a daily basis, because

I’ve heard humans talk before and this isn’t

“Date?” Sophie asks as I turn my computer off. “Seventh of June,” I reply,

I’m basically a mushroom.

Iris is the goddess of rainbows: the human personification of the spectrum, who uses the symbol of the rainbow to link the gods to humanity, sky to earth.

Will is in the past. He’s just in the present, and maybe the future now too.

romance is yet another arbitrary human construct I don’t entirely grasp,

Kissing is so weird: we’re literally testing each other out to see if there’s a fit, trying on genes as if they’re jeans.

Emotions aren’t binary or finite: they change, shift, run into each other like colored water.

They are layered, three-dimensional and twisted; they don’t arrive in order, one by one, labeled neatly. They lie on top of each other, twisting like kaleidoscopes, like prisms, like spinning bird feathers lit with their own iridescence.

Time is fragile; for every sweep of the broom, there are consequences.

I guess it just felt a bit like you were weighing me up and...finding me lacking. I mean, when you laugh—the entire room lights up. You make me feel like I’ve won the lottery.

I hope you’re not hooking up with him, because he’s the human equivalent of the spit dregs at the bottom of a pint.”

Memories are time travel, and so are regrets, hopes and daydreams.

I’m not a predator or anything. I’m just playing around.”

Exactly What a predator would say

“Derek.” With a flash of bright purple, I stand up. “Keep your fucking hands away from me, you rampaging dickface.”

“You will not touch me ever again.”

“You will not enter my bedroom. You will not make inappropriate comments. You will not gaslight me ever again. The next time you do, I am going to rip your fucking fingers off and ram them, one by one, down your throat.

am not who they thought I was. I am more than they could ever have possibly imagined. I am Cassandra Dankworth: goddess of time travel.

I did it. I used time travel to take me to a happier place, and I’m so incredibly grateful for it—so thankful to the universe

It’s something I have but will never use, like one of those gadgets that turn zucchini into spaghetti.

her colors are the saddest I’ve ever seen: grays, silvers, blacks, all spiky and sharpened.

My little sister stares at me with wet eyes like a pavement after it’s been raining.

My face crumples, so I wait until I can speak again.

“I’m not going to cry.” “You’re already crying.” “I’m just a very watery person. Continue.”

Because the whole truth is overwhelming, but sometimes you have to be brave enough to look it straight in the eye.

Autism is just a different wiring.

mythology makes me so ridiculously happy.

But life isn’t like that, so books are dishonest. Maybe that’s why humans like them.

When I move, it will be a last-minute swear-fest of chaos and plastic bags that break under the sheer weight of all my jewelry and dream catchers.”