You could look ahead to the future, or back at the past, but the present moved too quickly to absorb. And, in the end, there was only the present; that, so the saying went, was mankind's greatest tragedy. 

Finn often considered that the old adage was wrong; if indeed time was merely a series of slightly altered presents, stretching back and forth into eternity, then it seemed to him that, contrary to moving too quickly, the present… something. He never managed to come up with the right word. 

Of course, such meaningless philosophizing was all well and good in the relative safety of the classroom; on the absurdly chaotic streets of Chicago in December, Finn barely managed to keep upright as he struggled to convince himself of the truth of his professor's insistence on the ultimate order inherent in humankind.

"Watch it!" 

Finn bounced off the other man, concentration shattered, mumbling an apology.

So much for control.

He ducked into an alley and closed his eyes. Breathed in, out.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

Time was a funny thing; like a river, as the tired old cliche said, that swept all things inevitably On.

After what seemed like a lifetime of training, Finn had realized that time was not a river but an ocean; deep, unfathomable, chaotic. Currents ran one way one year, and a different way the next; giant plugs of plastic waste gyrated gently on its surface; an earthquake on one end caused a devastatingly huge wave on the other.

Unpredictable. Dangerous. Malleable. He snapped his fingers.

Finn opened his eyes, and walked out of the alley. He walked past the woman with the cellphone, mouth frozen in an "oh" as she put the sharp end of her left shoe down in a gutter. He walked past the still man, past the taxi he was hailing, past the bicycle that hung weirdly suspended in midair, past the car that had clipped the bike at just the wrong speed, past the frozen crowds on the other side…

Eventually he came to the apartment complex. He unlocked the door, stepped inside.

Then he turned and took one last look at the city, blissfully frozen in the present present. 

He snapped his fingers.

Life… happened.

Nooooo!  Oegr means "Oregano!"  Spammy wants me to post here!  So I will!

You could look ahead to the future or back at the past, but the present moved too quickly to absorb.  Folnia sat huddled, shivering under the bridge by the marlet.  The rain drizzled gloomily onto the cobbled street.  Her stomach hurt from hunger.  She felt that if she wasn't soon warm and dry and fed, she would die, there on the street.

She remembered the day she had had to leave home.  "You're a big girl now, Folnia, you're fifteen," her mother had said.  You're old enough to take care of yourself.  I can't feed five children.  But if you can feed yourself, I'd have enough for the other four.  Aye, that I would."  Then, with tears rolling down her cheeks, she had kissed  Folnia on her dirty forehead and sent her into the streets with a loaf of bread wrapped in a napkin, and a slice of cheese tucked in.

That was three months ago.  The bread and cheese were long gone, gone before the first two weeks were out.  Folnia had carefully rationed it to herself day by day.  At the last both were moldy, but by then she was too hungry to care.  She pumped water from a public pump and drank it.  Often she had wished to bathe, as she was covered in dirt and filth, but she couldn't do it modestly, and shame and pride prevented her.  Now the napkin, her last trace of a mother's love, was wrapped around her head as a covering, protecting her a bit from the November frigid air.

Folnia had tried to find work, first in an inn, then in a pub, but she had met with uncouth men who looked at her slender and well-formed figure more than the food she brought them, and she quit form fear.  She was reduced to begging for coins, and buying bread from cheap market vendors.  She wondered if her mother had sent out any of her siblings also into the cold and wet.  She eavesdropped on marketgoers' conversations, and learned that economic times were getting worse.  She knew what that meant.  Things would cost more.  People wouldn't give as much to her, and even if she got in one day an amount comparable to what she used to, she wouldn't be able to buy as much bread.  The thoughts swirled around in her mind, faster, faster.  There was nothing new.  Any coin was a prize, the bigger the better.  She prowled the market long after dark to find dropped coins.  She ran and hid from policemen who would tell her to leave.  She sought out warmer places and learned to see in almost pitch darkness the difference between a prowling, untrustworthy man and a gentleman who might give her a coin.  She was a wraith, unclean, and starving.  There was only one thing she refused to stoop to, and that was stealing.

Starving.  A new thought entered the whirl of her mind.  She tried to push it out.  If she thought about it, it was worse.  She chose to remember instead her home, her family.  Her mother washing laundry for a living.  Her father helping on weekends, making soap, and on weekdays driving a cab, until the day he died, at home, from a horrible fever and chill.  She would have wanted to be eith him in his last moments, but her mother wouldn't let her, or any of her siblings, for fear that they would catch it, and die, too, destitute and quietly, without making the least difference to anyone.

Starving, starving.  No, don't think about it.  Think about little Sarah and young Edward.  Martha and... Robert.  Robert who was only a year younger.  Robert who had been just about her best friend.  Robert who would be next in line to leave home when the economy was worse.  She sondered why it was worse.  That's right, she thought.  There's a war.  It's us against the presumptive Americans, who don't like us and want to leave.  Well, let them leave.  I need to eat and they want to leave, making a war, so I can't eat.  But we do want the Americans.  They send us tobacco and cotton.  More memories came to her mind, of her mother dying cotton cloth and sewing it by candlelight to make all her children's clothes, even the ones Folnia was wearing, torn to rags, thin and threadbare, worn and no longer so warm.  The woolen knitted shawl her mother had given her.  She was wearing it, had it wrapped around her whole body, as she sat in the street with her knees pulled up to her chest.

Starving, starving, starving.  There was no escape from thinking about it.  The wind was bitter and chill.  It pierced her thin garments, and she cried out, quietly, very quietly.  She would surely catch a horrible chill, and die as had her father.  She didn't mind that anymore.  She had known for months it was a possibility.  She had given in to what must happen.  It had to happen.  She must die, she must meet her father in heaven, where she would be happy.    Where she wouldn't starve.  She shivered in the wind.

"Folnia!" cried a voice, softly, as from far away.  Folnia lifted her head and looked around.  Mother?  Robert?  Father?  Martha?  No, she must have imagined it.

Be brave, my daughter, my love, my pride, my joy.  She heard the words in her head.  She thought she had surely imagined it.  It was maybe her father, breathing peace and strength into her from above.  Be brave, be strong, my Folnia.

"Folnia!"

There was no question about it.  That was real.  That was near.  That was Robert.

She summoned her last bit of strength and staggered to her feet.

"Robert?"

Her voice was weak, thin, hoarse.

"Folnia!"

Robert ran down the street towards her, clutching a napkin filled with something.

It was bread.  He had been sent out too.  He had a job.  He could get a room in an inn.  They would take care of each other.

And as Folnia wept happily on her brother's shoulder, she felt that whether or not there was bread, she had already gained back half her strength.

Hey, I have a question. Can I change the sentence a little so that it makes more sense in my story?

That was fun.  Please post your own thingie!  And here's a sentence from me:

"Why do grownups always talk in riddles?"

If you recognize THAT from a book you read, you win.

Top, please?

"Why do grownups always talk in riddles? Especially the wisened old crones who are supposed to help you with your almighty Quest,"

 Because you need to learn how to do things by yourself.

 "Well, do I have to learn everything by myself?"

 For your Quest, yes.

 Madi groaned; she was tired of arguing with her Inner-Self.

 "Stupid old wizard," Madi muttered, thinking of the man who had awakened her Inner-Self.

 Do not call Alphaez stupid, chided Madi's Inner-Self, or he'll set the Reapers on you.

 "I don't care about the Reapers!" Madi cried. The people around her looked at her strangely; they couldn't hear any Inner-Self other than their own.

 You should.

 "Then too bad, my Inner-Self," Madi said under her breath, so no one else would stare at her. "I don't care about Alphaez or anyone else from that "other" world."

 What if one of the Reapers followed you here and is watching you at this very moment?

 "I would tell them to go away and find someone else to stalk."

 There was silence, and then an eerie quiet sound of a trill.

 "Are you laughing?"

 Maybe--Yes. Considering that there's a Reaper that actually followed you here and is watching you at this very moment.

 Madi craned her neck, looking for an arm or bald head branded with the familiar Grim.

 On your left,

 Madi looked in that direction and saw him immediately; he stuck out like a sore thumb in the crowd of New Yorkers.

 You should run,

 Madi nodded subtly and began to walk faster and faster.

 APC says madi. Thanks for giving my MC a name! 

Now he says vimy.  Sounds a bit like Vinnie.  Tommorow I'll post a story about Vinnie.

I'll try!  I'm gonna use my own sentence, though. 

*grabs a cookie and The Amanda Project*

Okay, Spammy says dreu, so my character is named Drew.

"Closed," repeats the voice, and now I can see it is emanating from a tall black woman standing at the back of the store. "But Galli and I have to get Halloween costumes," I say. "Drew," the woman warns. "But..." I protest then realize something, "How did you kow my name?" The woman steps out of the shadows and I notice it's Kora, my teacher Mrs. Filson's daughter. Kora and her mother are not women to mess around with. Galli droops like a wilted flower. This was her first Halloween Boo Bash with a date and she wouldn't even have a costume. We walk away.

TO BE CONTINUED...

I changed the tense of the first sentence to fit with my story.

Oh... Oops, I didn't read that thoroughly.  "with the same sentence".  Completely void my last post.