“82 hours”

This Take Ten to Write story was submitted by E. L. Stew. Happy reading!

I was tired from travelling today. That normally happens to me on long-haul trips. I hadn’t seen anything but the inside of this maintenance closet in 82 hours. I was beginning to go crazy.

Food was running low but I had an infinite supply of water here. Perks of a maintenance closet, even on a ship.

I was so bored. Bored out of my mind. Yesterday I had kept myself entertained by trying to count backwards from ten thousand, while speaking the words backwards. I only got through it once completely, the second time I stopped on “neves dnasuoht ruof derdnuh dna ytfif-xis,” before giving up.

I was used to travelling as a stowaway on most cruise lines. It was just so much cheaper to travel this way. I could move countries fairly easily. If only I could figure out how to move forward in time. Skip through the racism and sexism of the 1920s. I mean I had managed to skip back in time, surely it had to be possible to go back. Right?!