Cassandra in Reverse

by Holly Smale

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

Because if things can be broken, then things can be changed; and if things can be changed, then it stands to good and logical reason that they can also be fixed.

Time is the invisible thread that weaves our stories together. And sixty seconds can change everything.

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. It’s

suddenly realize: I’m not traveling through time to undo the things I’ve done wrong or the decisions I’ve made. I am trying to undo myself.

Emotions are confusing, people even more so,

The full truth is not easy or comfortable; it is often far safer to construct an alternative that keeps everyone happy instead. Especially when it’s the story we’re weaving for ourselves.

That’s the thing I’ve never really understood about emotions. We’re given unhelpful words for them—sad, happy, angry, scared, disgusted—but they’re not accurate and there never seems to be anywhere near enough of them. How could there be? 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.

There are infinite things you can do with time. You can save it, spend it, stitch it, kill it. You can beat it, steal it and watch it fly. You can do time and set it; you can waste it and keep it; it can be good or bad, on your side or against you. You can have a whale of it; be in the nick of it or behind it; you can have it on your hands.

Memories are time travel, and so are regrets, hopes and daydreams. When we die, the people we love carry us forward into it.

“Nope. People think autism is some kind of error, and it’s not. You’re not broken or ‘disordered,’ or whatever they say on their little bits of paper. That just means ‘not exactly like me.’