As she sat on the couch, her aunt continued to watch the soap opera in front of her.
She asked her aunt hat had happened. “How did I lose three hours of my life then?”
Aunt Katherine, eyes glued to the TV, responded without even turning to look back. “You used the hourglass of course. You twisted it too hard and thankfully, your house acted like a black hole and kept you in the same spot and only shifted you three hours forwards.” She sipped her martini and then smiled as she picked at one of the olives and ate it.
“How could I possibly dash forward three hours? That is impossible.” Amaretto frowned at her aunt.
Her aunt sighed again and then said, “I say again, you used the hourglass. That's what I've been trying to tell you. You seem not to be able to grasp this concept. Can't we just figure this out when my soaps are off?”
Amaretto frowned and then spoke. “No, I need you to tell me right now!”
Katherine frowned and then placed her martini down and said. “All will be explained again at promptly...” she pulled her palm pilot out and then said, “At four twenty-seven and zero seconds.” As she said this, she picked up her martini again and began to sip from it.
“That still does not necessarily make any sense.” Amaretto was beginning to get agitated, however, her “faerie” godmother was not to be bothered. She sipped at her martini and then muted the TV.
“We have commercials on at this moment so I'm gonna make it quick.” She put her martini down and picked her palm pilot back up again. She then began to read off verbatim what was written on the small screen.
“Well, it appears that at 1:27, you made a 6,660 degree turn of the hourglass, in an unknown effort to see the glass turn. You then jumped forward three hours in which you had already returned to be hiding behind the couch while I once again explained what happened to you for the second time.”
Amaretto interrupted. “A second time?”
“Yes a second time. This would be the first time that I am telling you.”
Amaretto nodded again and then apologized quickly and then allowed for her aunt to continue with what it was that she wanted to say.
Katherine nodded and once again started to read again what was on her palm pilot. “I had the second you go into the kitchen and make me a martini. I then explained to you how to use the hourglass. Which I then sent you back with, however, we got off a little bit and I wound up not sending you back far enough and you appeared at one thirty nine and thirty-two seconds, with my martini in your hand. You handed off my martini to me and then you tripped over your own feet and then hit your head and the glass twisted only twenty-two degrees and you jumped forward a minute and five seconds. That was when you crashed on the couch.”
“I crashed on the couch?”
“Yes, you fell on the couch and fell asleep for only a few minutes. You then woke up and became belligerent.”
Amaretto frowned and then said, “I am not belligerent.”
Katherine put her palm pilot down and then frowned as she picked up her martini. “You make an excellent martini, but a horrible liar. Don't worry, your mom won't be home until after you come through a second time at around four thirty.”
Amaretto nodded and then said, “What time does mom get home?”
“Around Five.”
“Then we have enough time to truly explain what it is that you gave me.”
Katherine shook her head and slowly turned up the volume. “My shows are back on. Wait till Four thirty, you'll hear the whole explanation.” Katheinre sipped at her martini and then looked as she realized that she finished it. “Could you be a dear and make your aunt another one?” Katherine held out her martini glass and Amaretto rolled her eyes.
“Thank you my dear little Ama.” Katherine smiled and Amaretto took her glass and then walked to the kitchen and made her another martini. Amaretto took the Belvedere vodka and poured it into a shaker with ice and then poured vermouth in as well. She then shook it until the shaker frosted and then poured it into the tall martini glass over three olives on a toothpick; just the way that her aunt liked it. She picked it up and then walked out to the living room where her aunt was now screaming at a new couple on the television.
They sat and watched television that included Oprah and then Katherine's palm pilot suddenly began screeching an alarm. Katherine looked surprised and then put her martini down and then picked up her palm pilot. “Oh! Apparently it is time for you to go hide behind the couch against the wall.”
Amaretto frowned and then said, “When did you program that in there if you didn't know that it was going to happen?”
“I don't think I programed that,” Katherine looked confused and then put the palm pilot down. “Hurry up and get back behind the couch, I think you only have a minute left.”
Amaretto scrambled behind the couch and then there was a resounding pop. She peeked over the other side of the couch and then saw herself looking around rather confused in the middle of the living room. Katherine blinked and then spoke out loud. “I see, so there you are. I've been expecting you.”
Amaretto's double from the past looked around and then spoke in a slightly panicked voice. “Where am I? What happened?”
Katherine picked up her palm pilot and placed the martini down. “In that order, you are in your own living room and you turned the hourglass a total of six thousand six-hundred and sixty degrees. In full disclosure of Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, time does not move at a fixed rate. For example, cocks that are in motion, appear to be ticking more slowly than their stationary counterparts.”
The second Amaretto blinked and then said, “What?”
Katherine waved her hands in the air and then stood up. “When you add gravity to the theory, spacetime tends to bend.”
Amaretto continued to watch from behind the couch as herself from the past remained confused. Her past self spoke, “Wait, why are you trying to tell me something about time and space and... this is all so confusing. I think I have to sit down.”
As her double sat down, Amaretto made sure that she paid close attention to the whole situation. After all, she would soon be forgetting this whole conversation with a quick bump on her head.
“No, there s no need to worry yourself. Just listen to what your Aunt Katherine has to say and you will be right as rain.” Katherine managed to pick up her martini in her other hand and then took a sip. To the Amaretto seated on the living room floor she began to talk.
“The gift which you have is actually called an Hourglass, or a Glass for short. It has the property to alter time, or more actively, allow one to relocate themselves through theory, or more accurately, to travel across the multitudinous worlds that spawn our very fabric of existence. It works on a principle of inevitability and necessity. It's all really complicated and I'm not quite sure how it is supposed to work, but it works is what matters.”
Amaretto's other self remained seated on the floor, absorbing all the information in that their shared Aunt Kathrine was giving to both her and the one who was hiding behind the couch. Katherine slurped at her second martini and then frowned. The martini was almost empty. She placed it down and then picked the stylus out of the palm pilot and began to poke around the screen with it.
“I know that this all must seem horribly out of place for someone like you and to make absolutely no sense at all, but I promise if you just listen to me and pay attention that you will know what is going on.” The second Amaretto from the past rolled her eyes.
“I already know that it can jump me through time, I want to know how.”
“I'm afraid that the explanation that you are looking for involves higher math, physics, and a lot of talking, all of which I am not up for in anyway shape or form.” At this moment, Katherine picked up her martini glass and sloshed down the rest of it. As she did so, she held it out in front of her and passed it to the past Amaretto. Present Amaretto rolled her eyes at exactly the same time that past Amaretto did so. Some things, even when dilated by time, still did not change.
Past Amaretto moved towards the kitchen and proceeded to make a martini. When she came back, Aunt Katherine was sitting down again, and this time, she appeared to have a handle on everything that she was about to explain.
“Now we don't have a lot of time, so I'm going to explain this to you in a short amount of time, so that this can all be fixed. The Glass can control the flow of how you travel within dimensions and planes and time by spinning the chambers a certain amount of degrees. It's all actually a lot more simple than one can think of.”
“So this hourglass can transport me to different points in time?” Both present and past Amaretto's fondled the hourglasses that were around their necks. Their Aunt Katherine nodded her head as if Amaretto had been told for hours and only now figured it out.
“Yes, what happens is that you spin the hourglass in the frame. Depending on how many times you spin it, you can go almost anywhere in time. However, using it that way uses sand of course. There is always a Timekeeper that you can go to meet and he can always recharge the glass up for you again.”
At this, Amaretto cocked her head and Katherine waved her hand already knowing what her godchild was going to ask her. “Yes, there is more than one glass, you just happen to be lucky enough to be able to have this one.”
Amaretto nodded and then said, “So then how this works is I just spin the glass and I'll be able to go back?”
“Well you will have to do it that way cause otherwise you will have been missing for almost three hours and my past self just can't take it. Please go back and save my mind.”
The past Amaretto, soon to become the present Amaretto nodded her head and then picked up the martini in her hand. “I should perhaps take this back with me as a present for worrying you.”
“Sometimes girl, you are after my own heart with how sweet you are, and you are only eight to boot.” Katherine gave past Amaretto a hug and then said, “Also make sure you remember, there is a catch on the side of the frame so that the Glass does not spin inadvertently when you least expect it, thus skyrocketing you somewhere you don't want to be.”
Amaretto nodded and then smiled as her aunt reached out and tilted the glass so that she could travel back in time. Almost as if with an after thought, her aunt added, “Watch out for your feet!” Amaretto winked out of existence and there was another popping sound. A minute passed and then the Amaretto who was hiding behind the couch heard her aunt say, “Damn, now I know how that martini glass disappeared.”
At this, Amaretto came out from behind the couch and gave her aunt a cross look. “Watch out for my feet? What was that all about?”
“Well, when you make the initial jump, you hand me my martini and then trip over your feet. At that moment, you manage to hit your head and tilt the glass twenty two degrees, which causes a minuscule jump forward which precipitates this whole thing. All because you still have not engaged the safety clasp on your hourglass.”
At that moment, Amaretto seemed to catch on to what her aunt was saying and quickly engaged the safety clasp on her Glass. It was a thin rod that seemed to be an excess piece, but it kept the hourglass in place, and that was all that Amaretto was worried about.
“Is there anything else that you would like for me to explain?”
Amaretto smiled. “Nothing that cannot wait till later on. Thank you for the wonderful gift again this year.”
Katherine smiled, still unknowing that the hourglass that she had given to her godchild was in fact the last one like it. Amaretto thought it nice and wore it a total of five times before she placed it back in the box and then placed the box on top of her dresser, only to be forgotten until Amaretto turned into a teenager.
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