Margaret, in Lower IV wrote the following piece and was selected for publication in the Young Writers’ Annual Showcase.
The Past is Now my Present by Margaret
As I walked into the cave, swerving around spiderwebs and navigating through carcasses, the smell of dried blood and copper fused in my nose. I touched the wall gently; the eroded limestone was rough on my skin, but I dragged my fingertips along the cracks and crevices anyway — at this point, I was too tired to care.
My fingers eventually slowed down, landing on one piece of rock, an imposter among the others. I stopped in my tracks before bending down and holding this weird-feeling fragment in front of the dimmed lanterns, which were lit around the place. It was a piece of copper. Impossible to find naturally in the walls of a cave, unless someone else had been here before me.
Unable to think, I looked at the floor, and among the descending moonlight, thick shadows emerged, holding copper spears that pointed towards the entry. As I listened closer, the sound of breathing penetrated through the once silent mask, no longer concealing the secrets lurking in the cave. I crept around the corner, carefully angling each foot to match the pattern of falling rocks, stepping slowly and silently towards a hidden block.
While I walked parallel to the wall, trying to stay in the darkness, my foot was raised. I whipped around, my breath getting shorter and quicker with each second, and slowly moved to the edge of the cave, unaware of the danger. Covered with draping green vines, all plastered into different shapes and angles, was a tall, unsteady cliff, stretching for miles around the surrounding mountains. The people’s whispers got louder behind me, and I raced to the edge, debating whether to jump into the rushing current below or continue my path around the mountain.
And then, I jumped. Falling into the river below, the air hit my skin, and I was immediately shocked by the coldness of the water piercing through my body. The current carried me into the jungle, and, with no experience in swimming, I felt myself getting pulled deeper and deeper into the water, rocks and coral simultaneously hitting me.
I finally opened my eyes and reached out in front of me, grasping onto a rock buried deep in the sand.
Digging my feet into the ground, I pushed up with all my strength and finally emerged, heaving in air, my throat making a wheezing sound with each breath. My grip loosened, and I was once again carried further through the trees, thrashing uselessly in the water, trying to resurface. I pushed up some more, my hands flying above the water as countless branches brushed against my fingers.
As I tried to breathe in, my fingers tightened around a group of thin palm leaves, and my body grew tenser as I was continuously stretched out by the quick, rushing current. My feet stumbled recklessly in the water, trying to find a rock but failing, as any air that was once in my lungs began to retract. As my face remained plunged into the grimy sand below, I felt my head becoming light, and my legs started to go numb. I let go of the palm leaves and dropped my hands in the water, and as blisters scraped across my skin, my vision blacked out.
“Where do you think she’s from?” one woman asked.
“I don’t know,” someone said in a faulty voice.
“Oh, the poor thing — you know we found her just in the nick of time!”
“Yes, that’s right! She had swallowed so much water, this one,” another woman chimed in.
As my eyes flickered open, countless women surrounded me, wrapping wet cloth around my arms and legs gently. The scent of sweet hibiscus, citrusy snapdragons, and hints of cinnamon filled the room, the lighting faint as the flames flickered against the stone-brick wall.
“She’s awake!” The women crowded around me, checking my head with their palms and tightening my bandages.
“Where am I?” I asked precariously, gripping the bamboo bed on which I was lying.
“You’re in Babylon, Mesopotamia.”
My mind froze. “I—I’m wh—where? Are you sure?”
They laughed heartily before answering, “Of course we’re sure. That was the River Tigris you got carried in.” I stood up but was instantly ushered down again. “Now, now, be careful, darling — you’ve only just woken up!”
“But, no! N-no! It can’t be! Please no! This can’t be happening!” Was this a dream? How was this real? What had I done? I started questioning everything I had done that day, making a timeline in my head, trying to find a mistake. My face faltered. I tested all the possibilities, eliminating each one with sad realization — this is real, this is happening to me now, and I have no idea what to do.
The women around me sensed my sadness, their smiles fading away as glum expressions appeared on their faces. “What’s your name?” one of them asked, gently sitting beside me.
“M-Maya,” I responded, my voice barely louder than a whisper. I looked at the room around me again, searching my brain for any recollection of this place. Think, Maya, think! The words hammered in my brain, repeating over and over again. “What’s the date?” I asked hesitantly, not wanting to hear the answer. The women looked between each other, laughing nervously.
“What do you mean? It’s 2412 BCE,” the woman replied with a brittle voice.
It took me a few seconds to realize what she had just said. I stopped, my world spinning — my eyes became full of tears, the world around me suddenly blurry. I gripped the bed harder, my knuckles turning white as my breath became short and shallow. Their voices became muffled as the once blissful aroma disappeared. My tongue scratched at the back of my throat, stuck to the top of my dry mouth as realization dawned.
The past is now my present, and there’s nothing I can do.
