1st 5 Pages June Workshop - Crisci

Name: Kim Crisci

Genre: Young Adult Contemporary

Title: All the Time in the World

Deirdre Lyttle has all the time in the world.

Sometimes, it’s a terrible burden. 

They say time is a relative concept, used to push the world along, a measurement of self-worth and importance. Deirdre closes her eyes, feeling the clock at work.

April 3rd, 2029. 7:20 pm.

She has a day planner, a watch, an alarm clock, a daily routine, all tools to keep her life in order.

Except time isn’t natural. Animals don’t use planners. Trees don’t wear watches. Fish don’t celebrate New Year’s Eve. Only humans chart the days ahead, which means they recognize someday, printed on a distant calendar, that their lives will end, and they’ll be gone.

But the question will remain: Did they make the time count?

Deirdre thinks about her mother, a woman who uses her time well. There’s rarely a moment where Michelle Lyttle hasn’t locked herself in the drafty basement, beneath the light fixtures that blink and buzz, welding panels together, so her exploratory vehicle can withstand Mars’ frigid temperatures without cracking.

Michelle says being a good engineer requires hard work and vision. But to be a great engineer, you need perseverance. And time.

Which is why Michelle keeps busy, making dinner for her family but never eating, foregoing date night with her husband to install new wheel cylinders in her rover, skipping movie marathons with her children or block parties with the neighbors.

And that’s why, when her twelve-year old daughter invites her to a game of chess, Michelle usually declines.

Deirdre has her mother’s ambition, evident by the four dozen chess ribbons tacked to her pinboard.

White pawn is exposed. Black bishop to B6.

The checkered board sits flat against her bed. Deirdre plays on a wooden set, one of those five-dollar boxes you buy for kids who always lose the pieces. Her father bought her a pewter set for her tenth birthday, featuring kings and queens dressed as wizards, pawns wielding shields and a walnut board.

She doesn’t use it.

Take the black knight. White bishop to F6.

Deirdre drags the bishop to its new square, pulling out the black knight. The white bishop is now flanked in both corners by black’s queen and black’s pawn. She picks up the queen, runs her thumb over the coronet. Then she picks up the pawn.

Who should take the bishop? Queen or pawn?

Play the queen, the easy route says. She can do anything, move anywhere. Yet, the pawn can be anything, go anywhere, leave a bigger mark on the board.

Deirdre’s door swings open. She doesn’t look up; she knows who’s standing there. The irregular breathing, the patter of small, hurried feet treading on her carpet, the snort of phlegm tells her more than words ever could.

“Hey, Dee—”

“—No.”

The young boy stops. “I didn’t say anything.”

“I don’t care, Jordan,” Deirdre says to her pieces. “When you want entry into someone else’s room, you knock first.”

“Oh. Gotcha.” Dutifully, Jordan closes her door and taps gently on the jamb. “Knock-knock.”

“You have to leave the room before—ugh, never mind.” Deirdre sets down her pawn. “What do you want?”

“I got something to show you,” he says, round cheeks swelling with cheer. He lifts the paper in his hand.

This is routine with him, barging into his big sister’s room with something he has to show her, the zeal and giddiness moving through him like tremors, eyes gleaming with anticipation. But an eight-year-old’s attention span typically opens itself to unbridled curiosity, and before Deirdre knows it, Jordan has something valuable of hers in his hand, waving it around like an airplane, adding engine revs and gunner noises for full effect.

“I’ve already seen it,” Deirdre says.

“Nuh-uh.” He waves the folded note in the air. “This is new stuff.”

Jordan hoists himself onto her bed, crawling on hands and knees to his sister’s side. The chess set ripples, the larger pieces tipping into their neighbors. Deirdre works quickly to upright the pieces, her teeth clenched in a grimace, body hunched defensively over the board.

Jordan eyes Deirdre’s attempt to restore order. “What’cha doin’?”

“Playing chess,” she answers mindlessly, returning the white bishop to F6.

“Ooh! Let me play. I’ll be the black guys.”

“No, Jordan. I’m in the middle of a game.”

“You’re playing by yourself.”

“I’m playing against myself.”

“That’s dumb. You need another player.” He reaches for the rook at C8, but Deirdre’s quicker on the draw, pulling the piece away with one hand while clasping his wrist with the other. “Hey! Let me go!”

She spots a dark powder stuck between the gaps in his fingers. “What’s on your hands?”

Jordan freezes. “I dunno.”

“Smells like potting soil.”

“I dunno.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know? Were you playing in potting soil or not?”

He averts his gaze. “I tried to ride my bike.”

“Mom said you’re not allowed to practice by yourself.”

“She was busy and Dad wasn’t here. I have to get good before Mason’s party.”

“So why is there potting soil on your hands?”

“Um. I crashed into the plants. Don’t saying anything.”

Mom’s going to notice. She notices everything. “Fine.” Deirdre releases his wrist. “But I’m serious about the chess pieces. Hands off.”

“Come on, let me play. I promise I’ll—” Jordan arm bucks the board. His eyes widen, hands reaching to catch some of the pieces in mid-fall, but they slip like water through his fingers and tumble to their sides. “Oops.”

Sixty minutes down the drain. What a waste of time.

“Great. Thanks, Jordan.” She grabs the box from her nightstand and dumps the pieces with careless apathy.

“Deirdre? Can I ask you something?”

“Hm?”

“Mason’s mom is having a baby,” he says. “If she swims in water, does she turn into a submarine?”

Deirdre pauses. “What?”

“Well, cause, you know, she’s got the baby inside her, and if she swims, it’s like she’s a—”

“—Why are you here again?”

“Oh. I made a drawing.”

Jordan shoves the crinkled paper in Deirdre’s face. Apparently, the bubble rule isn’t taught in third grade. She sets the chess box aside and snatches the note.

Her eyes land on a young boy she knows immediately to be Jordan, from the messy hair colored black, to the triumphant hand-on-hips he does after successfully sliding down the bannister. He’s wearing a mechanized suit, red and gold with stars to emphasize the glow off his chestplate.

“It’s us as superheroes,” Jordan says. “You, me, Mom and Dad.”

Mom’s easy to spot. Jordan drew her with her dark-framed glasses, which makes sense considering he’s rarely seen her without them. She’s wearing an armored red and blue dress with a golden W belt around her waist. Their father, undoubtedly Batman, stands with squared shoulders, a scribbled darkness cast over half his body. Deirdre wonders if Jordan understands the symbolism.

Then there’s her character. Bulky, nearly twice the size as everyone else, with grotesque muscle features. She’s walled in a fiery aura, indicative of an anger featured prominently on her face.

“I’m a monster,” she says flatly.

Jordan blinks. “You’re the Hulk. See? Green.”

“He’s still a monster.”

“Nuh-uh! Hulk’s the only one that can beat Thor. It’s like this. Look—” Jordan rises onto his knees to flex a set of unfledged biceps. He balls his hands into tight fists, then collides them together, knuckle to knuckle. His cheeks puff, eyes catching fire. “Deirdre say don’t touch the pieces! Deirdre angry!”