I dedicate this book to all girls who, for whatever reason, remain unnoticed, yet deserve to shine.
GIRLS, TIME and SPACE
Three Sci-Fi Stories:
Don’t Cry Girl
Dare Say My Name
Galaxy in The Cup
As I wrote in this scroll, Girls, Time and Space is very important to me. For a long time, I wanted to write a book dedicated to girls of all ages who live in the shadows of patriarchal cultures, hypocritical systems, sick ideologies and backwards societies. Girls who might have spread their gentle and powerful wings to reach for the stars. Girls who might have dreamed, created, discovered, travelled, enlightened, built, cured, and a million other things, if only it wasn’t for that heavy shadow.
Many wonderful girls and women have supported and helped me throughout my life. They guided me towards a better version of myself. They showed me a world full of colour and kindness, while their own remained a sea of grey.
I am alive because a woman saved my life when I was a child. Three times.
I knew many girls who dreamed. I saw the spark in their eyes as they imagined how they might shine, until the heavy shadow smashed their wings. The shadow makes girls disappear, strips them of their voice, and condemns them to remain unnoticed.
Forever.
A woman without the spark in her eyes is a collapsed universe.
Girls, Time and Space is my attempt to fight the shadow and help girls rediscover their spark.
Each girl in this book carries the spark of many incredible girls and women I have been lucky to know. The girl from Galaxy in The Cup was inspired by my dear friend Mandie, who passed away fighting cancer — just a few days before the book arrived.
If you know a girl who feels unnoticed — this book is hers. It’s a gift.
Just get in touch.
Excerpts
Don’t Cry, Girl
A broken girl.
A failing warping module.
A countdown she can’t stop.
She straightened the photograph of herself holding a PhD certificate in Time and Space Warping—a male-dominated field, with her being the only, and likely the last, woman within it to have earned this title. She had gone through hell to earn it. And no, she had never used the bed as a stepping stone, though many liked to suggest otherwise.
She glanced at the photograph where she stood next to her baby—the time machine prototype—taken about a year ago. She frowned and straightened this one, too. She had achieved what no one had ever even dared to dream of. She was the first woman—the first human—to attempt to build a time machine.
She recalled overhearing those academics sneering and laughing behind her back in the university corridor: “And her rural accent,” “A peasant, a cowgirl,” “She’s only good at swearing,” “She spent more hours on her back than in the lab.”
She had walked up to them—head thrust forward, eyes wide and unblinking, jaw clenched—and killed their laughter in an instant. Their eyes had darted away, avoiding hers, as they’d edged back. She hadn’t stopped, closing the distance, facing them head-on.
“Do I smell rat faeces here?” She’d smirked. …
Dare Say My Name
Too young.
Too brave.
Too late.
“Such a silly phrase.” Her mum took an egg. A decisive tap of the spoon cracked its shell.
“Last week you used a weird expression too.” The cup reached her dad’s lips.
“That’s right!” Mum looked at her husband, then at their daughter. “What exactly was it?”
The girl reached for another egg, but her hand froze. A sigh escaped as she lowered her gaze and slipped her hands under the table. She had thought they’d forgotten about her slip the other day. Now she’d done it again, letting herself become dangerously careless.
“Well, C7A?”
“I said…” She hesitated, her eyes meeting her mother’s. “The sky… wept all night.”
“Yes!” Her dad’s hand jolted, and a slice of cheese slid off his sandwich. He picked it up and binned it.
She wanted to say, ‘It’s a waste, Dad,’ but checked herself against another slip.
“I told you to stop inventing that sort of nonsense.”
“C7A.” Her mum touched the girl’s shoulder. “You know the sky can’t weep.”
She wanted to scream, ‘Of course it can!’ But instead, she squeezed her eyes shut and tightened her jaw. Her thin hands curled into fists hidden beneath the tabletop.
“Yes, Mum. I’m sorry.”
“You must not combine words like that to make silly sentences,” Mum said.
“Your mum’s right. Otherwise, the corporation might think you’ve been getting ideas from non-digital sources, that is, illegal sources.” Dad tapped his lips with a napkin. “And rightly so.”
“And you could be taken away.”…
Galaxy in The Cup
They ran out of time and hope.
They followed their hearts.
Straight into the trap.
She had just finished adjusting the neck gaiter when the emergency announcement broke for the fourth time.
“All red-pass holders, proceed to designated evacuation zones immediately. The security gate will close in fifteen minutes. I repeat…”
She clamped her hands over her ears. “I know, I know… shut up, you—”
Another coughing fit struck, but luckily, there was no blood this time. Her hand still shaking, she washed the red patches from the sink.
Tugging the hood over her head, she looked in the mirror. Only a narrow strip of forehead and eyes remained visible to the world. Her thin fingers patted the red cat stitched into the gaiter, its white cartoon eyes aligned with her mouth. She kissed them gently, tied the hood strings, and stepped out of the bathroom, straight into the chaos of the departure hall.
The crowd in the hall thickened. It surged forward and crashed against the glass barrier. Her heart sped up as she took in the human sea of desperation and anger. Getting through it would be like cutting rock with a fork. People shouted and cursed.
She swallowed.
She drew a long breath and gave the red cat a gentle tap. Then she began squeezing through the crowd towards the heavily armed guards, their tall figures marking the evacuation gate.
She was only a few steps from the rifles aimed at the crowd when a strong arm swung around her neck…
Soon available in my Store