October 14, 1988

16 days remaining

I CAN SHOW YOU THE WAY.

Kenneth Monnitoff stacked textbooks in the dusty light of the classroom windows, shadows billowing in and out of his vision as students got up to leave for the day. A group of girls passed his desk, sneaking looks at him and erupting into giggling fits. "...so cute..." he heard Joanie shriek down the hall. Kenneth didn't look up from his textbooks, but allowed himself a faint glow of pleasure. Not bad for a physics teacher. Smarts, good looks, and a beautiful girlfriend by his side...

"Dr. Monnitoff?"

He raised his head. Saw Donnie Darko standing there, looking uncomfortable. Kenneth smiled reassuringly. "Donnie," he greeted. "How can I help you?"

"Um... I know is gonna sound kind of weird, but... Do you know anything about time travel?"

Kenneth raised his eyebrows. Through the clouded classroom window, he could see a darkened figure standing just outside the door. Earmuffs raised to eavesdrop.

"...a wormhole with an Einstein-Rosen bridge, which is theoretically a wormhole in space controlled by man. So, according to Hawking, a wormhole may be able to provide a shortcut for jumping between two distant regions of space-time." Kenneth leaned on the desk, really getting into it now. He tapped Stephen Hawking's 'A Brief History of Time', which he admitted he used more than the Bibles the school passed out every year.

Donnie picked up the thread and ran with it. "So in order to travel back in time, you have to have a big spaceship or something that can travel faster than the speed of light?"

"Theoretically."

"And be able to find one of these wormholes?"

"The basic principles of time travel are there. You've got your vessel and your portal, and your vessel could be just about anything; most likely a spacecraft..."

Donnie looked excited. "Like a DeLorean?"

Kenneth smiled, shrugged. "A metal craft of any kind."

"I love that movie, the way they shot it. It's so... futuristic, you know?"

The boy's enthusiasm was catching. Kenneth decided to do him a favour. Bent down, rummaged in his book bag. Retrieved a slim volume, bound in red cloth. Leaned forward.

"Listen... Don't tell anybody that I gave you this," he said, lowering his voice. "The woman who wrote this used to teach here. She was a nun many years before that, but then- overnight, it seems- she became this entirely different person. She up and left the church and wrote this book."

He passed it over like it was the Holy Grail. Donnie took it reverently, running his fingers over the gold embossed letters in the cover. "The Philosophy of Time Travel, by... Roberta Sparrow?" Donnie looked up in astonishment. Kenneth nodded.

"That's right."

Donnie flipped the pages in awe.

"Grandma Death..."

"What does philosophy have to do with time travel?" Elizabeth asked flippantly over dinner that evening. Donnie had just finished showing his family the book, but nobody seemed to be taking it seriously. He covered the author's name, daring them to guess who wrote it. Eddie took the volume, stared at the cover.

"Who- Roberta Sparrow!" He let out a surprised breath of air. "Huh! She wrote a book?"

Donnie nodded, more energetic than Rose had ever seen him. "Yep. Grandma Death wrote a book." Almost proud, for some reason.

"Grandma Death is a terrible nickname."

"We almost hit her with the car the other day," Donnie said without thinking. Eddie glanced up from Grandma Death's book.

"She lives up there in that piece of crap house and you know she's loaded," sighed Rose. Shook her head, sipped red wine.

"Yeah, you're right," Eddie added with relief. "She used to be known for her gem collection. Kids used to go up there all the time and try and steal stuff from her. She became a total recluse." He tapped 'The Philosophy of Time Travel' in wonderment. "I didn't even know she was alive till we damn near knocked her down the other day."

Donnie took back the volume and slid it into his backpack. "I guess she just lost faith in the world..." he murmured.