By Kris Faatz

Time is like a book’s pages. Most people don’t know you can flip back and forth whenever you want. You can’t teach someone how to do it: either you know, or you don’t.

A while ago, I flipped the pages back. Took myself to the time before I lost my treasure.

Here in Other-when, I watch Other-me. She and her husband laugh lots. She sashays around the kitchen, cupping her hands under her big belly. Her husband holds her and they sway together, feeling the future quicken between them, that heartbeat-glimmer in the dark.

I want to tell her, sit down. To say, don’t count your chickens. She wouldn’t hear. 

If I flip forward again, I’ll see her belly slack, full of ache. But in Real-when, my husband sits in our empty kitchen. I shut my ears and still hear him calling.

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Kris Faatz’s short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in journals including Atticus Review and Rappahannock Review, and most recently was longlisted for Wigleaf’s Top 50 2024 stories. The American edition of her second novel, Fourteen Stones, was released in June 2024 by Highlander Press. Her third novel, Line Magic, was shortlisted for the Santa Fe Writers Project’s 2023 Literary Awards and is forthcoming from Highlander Press in 2025. Visit her online at krisfaatz.com.