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Well, hello. I’m still testing this.
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Angel Feathers #1103625 added December 14, 2025 at 6:15am
Restrictions: None
Timewarp
I stared at Kevin's tacky holiday doormat, where my unopened box of magic lay with a neat bow. I made a face at his Ring doorbell, grabbed it and ran off. If he didn't want to take my gift, fine! I could do it without him, even if it meant getting locked into a timewarp. I grumbled all the way into the Deep Woods, where I plunked down on a mushroom to size up the situation.
How could I retrieve my phone? I must've forgotten it as we wandered across time zones. Kevin knew how to manipulate time like an otter knows how to swim. I loved hanging out with him. But we'd had a dumb argument, and he'd cancelled me. I couldn't retrace my steps, except by jailbreaking time, a feeble attempt at doing what Kevin did so effortlessly.
I tore open my box and unwrapped my multicolored magic pebbles. I held them close, envisioning time as a winding trail I could move backwards on, picturing the place I'd last been with Kevin, at a Christmas ball in Dickensian London. I tried not to think of the potential craziness if one of the era's mad scientists discovered a smartphone. Being lost in the past, it could distort the future.
I squeezed my eyes shut, clutching the pebbles. The air changed around me, from the cool, damp rustling of the woods to arid and eerily still. I opened my eyes. Sweeps of sandhills rolled blankly all around me. The clear night sky was speckled with stars brighter and more glorious than any I'd seen before.
This was no Victorian England. Now I'd never get my phone back! Where was I? It looked like a shapeless desert. Better question: when was it? My steps crunched in drifting sand. Topping a rise, I paused to scan the view. Below me, a limestone house stood in a hollow, palm trees scattered around. Sheep grazed near a well. A faint warm glow emanated from an open window.
I rushed down the slope, disturbing the sheep. I knocked shakily at the door, my heart pounding in my chest. If only Kevin was with me! He would have handled it with finesse.
The door scratched open. A young man looked out at me. His dark eyes twinkled like the stars overhead. A gentle smile graced his scruffy features. He wore rough linen robes like he'd walked straight out of a nativity scene.
“It's a little boy, Mother,” he called to someone inside. To me, he asked, “why are you out? Do you need help?”
“I – I lost something,” I stammered. “May I come in, please? I'm afraid I'm lost now, too!”
The shock of being somewhere utterly foreign, without any knowledge of how to get back, was making me tremble with a deep sense of something akin to terror. The man pulled the door open and waved me inside with a hand on my shoulder.
“Sit down and have something to eat. We'll help you figure out what you need.”
At the table, his mother sat, wearing faded blue robes covering her hair. She smiled and handed me a cup of water. We ate figs and rough brown bread dipped in honey. A clay oil lamp flickered on the windowsill. When we finished, the young man turned to me.
“Now, tell us everything.”
He was hardly more than a teenager, but his eyes met mine with a solemn, quiet wisdom, mature beyond his years. I squirmed in my seat; something about the way he looked at me made me feel both perfectly welcome and accepted, yet simultaneously grubby and unwashed. As if he already knew everything about me and loved me anyway, which made no sense.
I spilled out the whole absurd story, expecting them to recoil in shock. They listened attentively. The man shook his head, a slight frown wrinkling his brow.
“Only our Father in Heaven knows and inhabits time backwards and forwards. Anything else is a dangerous hoax from the enemy.”
“Yeah, I think I can agree. I really need to get back home to my family. But I can't leave my phone lying around in an era it doesn't belong in!”
“Is this what you seek?”
He pulled something out from under his tunic and set it on the table. The sleek black glass of my phone looked utterly anachronistic, but there it was! I snatched it up, stuffing it in my pants pocket and resisting the urge to light it up and check it out. He seemed unfazed, but I think his mother would have been frightened.
“Wow! Thank you! How'd you do that? Where was it?”
“Our Father helped me. Now, would you like to return home?” He stood up and led me to the door. “When you step outside, our Father will ensure you are in your own time and place. I would highly recommend you withdraw yourself from the use of magic from now on.”
I was beginning to understand why I felt so unclean. But I also felt love like I'd never had before. I almost didn't want to leave. I clung to his tunic.
“Who are you, sir? What era am I in?”
He smiled and patted my shoulder with a deep sadness in his eyes.
“My name is Yeshua. The new moon tonight marks twenty-five years since I was born. You are not meant to stay here. Your life is waiting for you.”
“But… Will I ever see you again?”
“You'll search for me and find me in the eyes of the brokenhearted. Someday you'll understand.”
“Thank you, Yeshua. Goodbye… And happy birthday.”
I clutched my phone and crossed the threshold. Just like that, I was sitting on a mushroom in the Deep Woods, phone in hand, magic pebbles scattered across the ground. I buried them in the mud of a riverbank. I remembered how Kevin cancelled me, and I chuckled. My quest to find Yeshua could do without him and his cheap magic tricks.
Notes ▼
Words: 1000.
Written for " The Bard's Hall Contest" 
Prompt: You wake up and find yourself stuck in Christmas past. It could be 100 years or longer into the past ...YOU choose the era.
Go back into history and make a story suited to the time you desire!
You have flexibility on how to end the story.
Do you stay in the past? We'd love to know!
And also for " Starting Stories"
Prompt phrase highlighted in blue.
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