When Jenny awoke she was standing back out in the hallway, surrounded by her fellow travelers. “How did I get back out here?” she asked.
“You walked out the door,” Josh said, looking at her with a concerned expression that she found oddly pleasing. “Don’t you remember?”
“I don’t remember anything after — oh wait. I learned that time is just another dimension, if you know how to look at it.”
“Seems like today is a real banner day for higher dimensions,” Charlie said. “My head is starting to hurt.”
Sid laughed. “Maybe you’re just outa’ your depth.”
Jenny looked puzzled. “Am I missing something?”
Josh explained. “Before you came back, Mr. Symarian was explaining to us how there are more dimensions than the three we can see. Is that right?”
“Yes, quite correct,” the teacher said. “But I believe Jenny is speaking of something else entirely.”
“Yes,” she said excitedly. “Time is something like Mr. Symarian’s extra dimensions, but it’s also different. The past and the future don’t have to be strung out on a line, like the way we think about it. They can all be together, like when you look at a painting.”
“Cool!” Josh said. “Does that mean you can tell the future?”
Jenny thought for a moment, then shook her head slowly. “No, I don’t think so. It’s not something we, um, humans can do.”
“Why not?” Josh asked.
“Well, maybe you could know the future, but I think that even if you did know it, it wouldn’t matter anyway. I mean, once you know all the things that haven’t happened yet, you start to think differently, and you stop caring about words like ‘before’ and ‘after’. And then it turns out you can’t change anything at all, because to do something — anything — you need to decide what to do, and you can’t decide what to do if you don’t have a before and an after. So basically, having all time mushed together in your head would make you crazy, and you can’t do anything about anything if you’re crazy.” She stopped, realizing that the others were all staring at her. “Does that make any sense?” she finished weakly.
“Yes, that makes perfect sense,” said Mr. Symarian.