Not another class

[Nicola Christine]

What is time? An artificial system of measuring the duration of events? An entity? A dimension? AA paralell stream of consciousness? Sciencentists in physics, maths, psychology and philosophy have debated, considered, researched and questioned this topic since centuries. Possibly they just asked the wrong people.

Elias Greene defintely thought so as he looked down onto his physics assignment entitled "Time as a fourth dimension - where physics and philosophy meet". What would Mr Deren, his physics teacher, say if he told him in his essay about the enjoayble afternoon he had spent in 1666 France yesterday? Or the fact that he had finished his German homework whilst following Immanuel Kant down the road in Koenigsberg? He most likely would be committed, after his parents would have been called into the principal's office. His parents, who currently resided in 1860 Washington making sure that the inexperienced outsider Abraham Lincoln got nominated for the presidency and not one of the favourites. So it was absolutely unpredictable if his parents would impress teh principal with their commmon sense (of which they had little) or be committed to the loony bin alongside him. Better to stick to the commonly accepted perception of time, then. Fleetingly, he wondered why no time walker ever became a physics teacher. Possibly it was just too hard to sort truth from fiction.

With a sigh Elias faced the hallway teeming with students and his walk to his next class, history. Another class in which he had to supress outbursts of truth. It is hard not to correct your teacher if you have just lived through the event they describe! He pushed his way through the clumps of little, well-behaved automatoms his fellow students were. Most moved out of his way. He was the bad boy. The plague to be avoided less he infect the little minds. When he had decided to make use of the Goth image he had not predicted the success this would have. Since he chaanged his wardrobe to black leather, black shirts, and multiple piercings he was mainly left alone. Some of the girls had inexplicably found a liking for him but he had taken care of that quickly with a few snarls. Now he was able to move through the school, the schoolday and his life mostly unencumbered by human interaction. Even most teaachers avoided interaction wwith him. Mission accomplished - now he could avoid the world of normal humans and concentrate on his training as a time-walker.

He had almost reached room 345, the location of the hour long torture that was commonly known as history class, when the world shifted. He stumbled and had to catch his balance withe one hand on the wall but instead of the smooth texture of the institutionally green wall he touched the pitted surface of crumbling mortar. He wipped his head around and was shocked by the image that presented itself to him. He could still see his fellow classmates hurrying along the hallway but superimposed was the image of women wearing white aprons and caps, carrying bowles and linen. Across the hallway an almost transparent man in striped pajamas leant on crutches. Elias had to hold on to the wall not to fall on his knees. The overexposure, the double vision, teh double noises almost brought him to his knees. And he was the only person to see it here, to feel it. Him - and whichever rogue time walker had just grabed teh fabric of time and yanked. And he had no idea who that was.

[Lichterzählerin]

It was a day like any other. School. Boring, annoying and stressful. It was recess and Amalia was just about to pack up her books in her locker, when suddenly the whole world blurred and she became giddy.
She clutched herself on the locker to avoid falling over. What the hell was going on here?!
Desperately she closed her eyes and wished to stop it. Something ripped and tore at her. Then it stopped. But when she slowly opened her eyes, the only thing she could see were woman in white dresses with aprons and caps.

She pinched herself in the arm and winced as she felt the pain. So this wasn't just a daydream.
Take a deeeep breath, she said to herself in thoughts. Ok, think, Amalia! There were 3 possibilities. First possibility: everything was just a really bad joke. Second possibility: she was in a different time, or the third possibility (and that would be the worst): she went crazy.