The Thinning
Two lovers take one final journey through time in order to let go of the past—but will the past let go of them?
The ringing of the bell was warped. Its tone tilted as time bent and folded, until the sound was silenced completely by solid ground. I knew where we were — or, rather, when — but once we arrived, I looked only for Ben.
I found him leaning against a building nearby, fingers pressed to his temples.
“I’m… alright,” he said as soon as I was near.
“Do you know where we are?” I asked, a little too urgently. “Do you remember why we came?”
“I said I’m fine,” he hissed, but his expression softened when his eyes met mine. He pulled me closer, and took my head into his hands. “I’m good. Really.” We kissed softly, but it did nothing for my twisting stomach. “You look worried.”
“I am.”
“I don’t want to lose you,” is what I wanted to say next. But I didn’t. I didn’t want to jinx it. This was going to work, and he was going to get better. He had to.
Ben flashed one of his dazzling, heart-fluttering smiles. He pulled me by my hips and pressed his forehead against mine.
“My sweet man,” he whispered. “It’s going to be alright.”
I wanted to believe him. We were wanderers who’d found each other, after all, and that was already something of a miracle. Searching endlessly through the past, he’d been looking for his mother, who he lost when he was just a boy, while I was searching for my brother, who wandered but never returned. Separate pasts, different lives, and yet Ben and I somehow ended up at the same place in the same time, finding new homes in each other.
Stowing his bell and taking me by the hand, Ben led us out from around the building — someone’s house — onto the main road. Everything looked so old, even the asphalt, and I wondered, as I so often did, how this place might look in our present.
We climbed the steps a few houses down, and knocked on the faded blue door.
Ben’s red-haired, red-cheeked mother answered. With one hand on the door, the other bracing the full weight of her swollen, pregnant belly, she greeted us with a smile that was almost identical to Ben’s.
“Hi guys,” she beamed.
We were around the same age as she was back then, but were known to her only as the kind, overly friendly neighbors from down the road.
“Hey Momma,” Ben replied with a grin. “We were out and about, thought we’d pop by.”
“How sweet!” She opened the door wide. “Come in. I was just about to put on some tea.”
Ben let go of my hand as we stepped inside. We settled in the kitchen, as we always did, with its pale yellow paint and sour smell. There were drawings of sunflowers all over the walls, each framed in white, with places where pictures of Ben might eventually hang.
“How are we today?” he asked, leaning eagerly across the kitchen table, his hands clasped.
His mother kept her back to us as she prepared the tea.
“Fine, fine. But — Oof.” She flinched and touched her stomach. “He’s restless today. How are you boys doing? Ready for the move?”
This was the story we’d told her, to explain our coming absence: we’d sold our home and were moving out of state.
Ben’s brow furrowed. “What move?”
His mother and I laughed. She thought he was joking, and I was playing along. She didn’t know that our visits were doing something to his mind, or that the chilling severity had made me stop searching for my brother altogether.
“It’s been stressful,” I said, calm and collected, “but we’re managing.”
We chatted like this for more than an hour, until the golden light of the setting sun made the kitchen glow. It was then that I felt the Thinning, the pull of the present that we could no longer afford to ignore.
Ben and his mother began clearing the table, and I cleared my throat. “Thank you so much for the tea, but I think we’d better get going.”
“Dad,” Ben groaned. “Five more minutes?”
His mother chuckled, but this time I didn’t. The Thinning made it worse. It blurred his memories and made him forget where — and, sometimes, when — we were.
He blinked, then offered me a sad, supplicate look.
“Meet you at home?”
I didn’t know what to say.
“Ben, I—”
“Five minutes.” He started fussing with the dishes alongside his oblivious mother, despite her polite objection. “I promise. Alright?”
I opened my mouth to argue, but I couldn’t. This was supposed to be the last time he ever saw her, so I forced myself to leave them be.
I walked out of the house and made my way back to the place where we arrived alone, a lead ball in my stomach. To my great relief, however, Ben didn’t make me wait long. He showed up like he said he would, only a few minutes later, but something was off.
We were running out of time.
“We need to go,” I insisted, fishing my bell out of my pocket. “Did you get to say goodbye?”
He nodded silently, but wouldn’t look at me. He kept his attention on his bell, which he removed from his coat pocket with trembling hands.
“Let’s go,” he said flatly, swiping away tears.
My heart ached for him. I wanted nothing more than to hold him and tell him it was going to be alright. But the Thinning was making me dizzy, and I knew that we wouldn’t be okay until we were back in the present.
We held out our bells and attuned them together, then started to count down.
My chime rang out, but it wasn’t until I was being ripped away from the past that I realized Ben’s bell remained silent.
Time shifted, unfolding despite my resistance, and I returned to the present alone.
Holding my breath, I waited for him.
And waited.
And waited.