Every day. Every second. Every moment. There is a story behind it. A meaning behind it all, and it follows the universe for eternity. It never fades, like a simple memory, permanently carved into existence. It is still as strong as the day of its creation. Make your mark. Send us something Timeless.
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Michaela Horan has written stories since she could talk, her parents writing down every word she said while she dictated it. Michaela enjoys sharing stories in any way she can. She’s the author of the Rolling Hills series, the first of which as published in 2021. She has a love for writing music, which she shares on her YouTube channel Michaelagracehoran. She also loves sharing stories through acting and has done theater since her drama club in the fourth grade. She recently became the IMTA award winning female teen actor of the year. You can follow along on Instagram @michaelagracehoran
Ashley Hajimirsadeghi is an Iranian-American multimedia artist, writer, and journalist. Her writing has appeared in Barren Magazine, Hobart, DIALOGIST, Rust + Moth, and The Shore, among others. She is the Co-Editor in Chief at both Mud Season Review and Juven Press, a contributing writer at MovieWeb, and Programs Assistant with New Perspectives Theatre Company. Her work can be found at ashleyhajimirsadeghi.com
The archives were laden with dust. Undisturbed and deathly still, they almost felt like a morgue rather than a home of knowledge and living, breathing, growing history. Amaya’s skirt stirred up the tide of muck on the ground, letting it muffle her footsteps as she pulled off her gloves, tucking them into her jacket pocket. She felt like a phantom exploring these abandoned halls.
Or a spy.
Or a lost princess.
She could be anything in the archives: an explorer, a treasure hunter, a hero. Surrounded by history, by these tomes of legends and of life, she had nothing but inspiration for what she was going to forge herself into. Gaslight danced across the filigree titles, and Amaya placed an arm over the light as if to protect the stories from the harsh flame. She could pretend to be anything, but she had been given a very important job, too.
The past was precious. It was her job as the new Archivist to protect these stories. Amaya strolled past the case with Jason’s original accounts of the journey of the Argo, King Arthur’s own seal, and a proud glass box boasting a mess of wax and feathers. Icarus’s very own wings.
Amaya would not make a mark on time in her own life, but that was alright with her. If she could protect these legends, then that was her mark. Legends never die because there must always be someone to keep them alive.
She craned her neck to examine the endless labyrinth of artifacts, manuscripts, and letters. Her life would be spent spreading the word of each and every one of these.
She blew out a long breath. “Time to get to work.”
The end of the world came about slowly. It didn’t turn into a free-for-all in a cityscape, a race across a scorching stretch of desert, or a social experiment for the rich where the rest of us scrambled about like drugged rats.
It turned into us sitting, knees tucked to our chests, chins cradled in scarred hands, gnarled from ancient burns. It turned into us together, back to back under a metal slat positioned high in the trees, looking at the remnants of nature that ran along a mountain face, red rock cutting through granite like scar tissue. Even nature shared our burns. Acid rain pelted our metal shelter with a quiet tap tap tap, hissing in indigniance at the barrier between it and us.
Civilization tried to adapt, but the rain decimated our resources. It corrupted the aqueducts we tried to build, ate through power lines, and killed our livestock. People painted murals to praise humanity’s strength, but they never lasted more than a day before the paint dripped off. The real important people got to go underground. The rest of us, well, we got to be here; twenty feet off the soaked ground, living as far from the ground as possible, working with our network of houses that looked primitive for their year, watching the distillation process do its work.
We were the only ones left, but we made the most of our situation. Once we got used to the rain, it was almost relaxing. Like a constant lullaby, urging us to lay down our will to survive and sleep. We weren’t sure what kept us going—maybe it was grit, pure stubbornness, or the whisper of hope as we flicked through silent radio stations that we’d hear music again.
That was what we missed most. Songs. We could sing acapella, but God knows we were scaring off any remaining animals when we did. So, in between filtering rain water and playing our umpteenth game of tic-tac-toe, we would go to our old radio and flip through the stations, always met with silence. It seemed truly miserable. Music had been around since the beginning of time, and it had abandoned us at the end of it.
We did the same today, but as we turned the dial, we were met with the faintest static. We paused, and turned back, waiting for the noise to return. Static. Followed by a few haunted keys on the piano.
Perhaps time wasn’t over yet.
Time has weaved itself in and out of constellations for eons, since deities took the strands of existence and set it across the loom, stitching in wars and plagues, but also songs and harvests. Ballads and screams served as spare thread, being pulled through taut into this plane of existence, meticulous, every stitch rife with intention. While all these things break, one thing remains constant.
The stars are precious gems pulled through the loom, constant, durable as diamond. Eternal, permanent through all the bumps in the tapestry. Working, turning, staying as the loom is turned and the fabric is pulled through. Codependent in an eternal dance, bright and burning.
