The Pages of Time

by Damian Knight

  Sam shook his head. His memory of the crash was weak at best, and he didn’t yet have the strength to open the lid on that particular box and go sifting through its contents.

  Hinds took a business card from her pocket and leaned it against the jug of water on Sam’s bedside table. ‘Here’s my number, office and mobile. I understand it must be difficult talking about what happened, especially in light of your own injuries. I had reservations about contacting you so soon, but I’m afraid we had no choice. You’re the only witness we’ve got.’ She stopped at the door and looked back over her shoulder. ‘Oh, and my condolences for your loss.’

  7

  Sam sat for a while and stared at the wall opposite his bed. Thoughts fizzed through his head like a shower of shooting stars, each lasting for only a moment before being replaced by another. The crash was no accident. That meant somebody was responsible for destroying his family.

  Anger gripped his body, blasting away the remains of any exhaustion. He wanted revenge. He wanted justice. He wanted to get out of this damn hospital and take care of himself rather than having to call a nurse every time he needed the toilet.

  Sam kicked off his sheets and started rocking from side to side until he’d built up enough momentum to swing his legs off the mattress. The pain was so great that he had to bite down on his knuckles to stop from crying out. On the third attempt he managed to shift his body around so that he was facing the door with his feet dangling over the side of the bed. He sat still for a few seconds to catch his breath, then wriggled slowly forward, his feet inching down until his bare toes brushed the floor.

  Now for the moment of truth.

  Sam grasped the frame of the bed and, using every last bit of strength he had left, pushed himself onto his feet. He stood swaying, drenched in sweat, hardly noticing the pain anymore and grinning from ear to ear as a rush of mad euphoria swept through him.

  Then, without warning, a memory slotted into place, an image floating up from the shadowy depths. It was a face: a man with a smile that looked out of place, more like a wolf baring its teeth.

  It all came flooding back, the truth collapsing over Sam like the bricks of a demolished building. He remembered the flight and he remembered the passenger who had been taken ill. He remembered the man and his smart phone. He remembered the engines dying and the plane starting to fall.

  Sam reached for the business card that Inspector Hinds had left and realised he was shaking all over. Again, the strange, sweet smell of burning caramel came. The world seemed to pulse; a bubble expanding and then contracting. A bead of sweat ran down his forehead and rolled to the tip of his nose, where it gathered, gaining weight, and then dropped. The hall outside fell oddly silent. He looked down: the droplet of sweat hung in mid-air, suspended at the level of his waist. It was as if someone had pressed pause on a recording, leaving Sam standing in a snapshot of the moment.

  Then things got stranger still. Without deciding to, he turned and climbed back into bed, his muscles going through the motions outside of his control. The bed sheet leaped back and wrapped itself over his legs like a living thing. Sam tried to shout for help, but found he had no voice. He was locked in, viewing the last few seconds rewind before his eyes.

  The door stuttered open like movement seen under a strobe light; a string of still images shown one after the other, each connected but separate. Hinds walked in backwards. Her twitching moonwalk was like a drawing in a flipbook played back to front. She turned to face Sam, scooped her business card from the bedside table and put it in her pocket. The images gradually sped up, the gap between each flash of the strobe shortening until they blended into one. Hinds’s mouth moved up and down impossibly fast, her spasmodic gestures a blur. After a while she turned and reversed out of the room. Mary walked in, also backwards. She began to speak, her lips fluttering up and down without a sound, and then she reversed out too.

  Sam was alone again, but still unable to move. The sky outside the window brightened, clouds casting jerky shadows across the walls. Eventually Mary returned, back to front again and dragging a wheelchair. In one disjointed movement she heaved Sam out of bed, spun him into the chair and reversed into the corridor, pulling him behind her. People flew past on either side, all walking backwards, their limbs twitching like malfunctioning windup toys.

  They reached Sam’s mother’s room. Mary scooped him up, dropped him roughly on the floor and knocked the wheelchair over. The room started to spin faster and faster until it became a blur, and then he blacked out.

  8

  Sam came to lying in a twisted heap on the floor next to his mum’s bed with his arm bent painfully under his body. A beam of fading sunlight shone through the blinds, highlighting particles of dust dancing slowly through the air. The wheelchair was on its side next to him, one wheel slowly rotating. Sam’s head screamed as if his brain had blown a fuse. He sat up and rubbed his shoulder, relieved that he could finally move again.

  Mary was standing over him, her face lined with concern. ‘Heavens, dear, are you all right?’

  ‘What’re you talking about?’ he said. ‘You just dumped me here. What did you do that for?’

  She frowned and righted the wheelchair. ‘Now why would you go and make up a thing like that? I only left for a few minutes, like you asked, and when I came back you were on the floor. You must have fallen out of your chair. Come on, dear, let’s get you up.’

  She lifted him under the arms and eased him into the wheelchair.

  After Mary had taken him back to his room and helped him into bed, Sam sat thinking for a while. He couldn’t make sense of what he had seen. It was as if the flow of time had been temporarily reversed, but such a thing wasn’t possible. Even so, what it hadn’t felt like a dream or hallucination; the images had a certain quality, as though a filter had been lifted and for the first time he had seen the world as it truly was. Or maybe there really was something wrong with his brain after all.

  Dusk began to settle outside the hospital. Streetlights blinked on in the car park far below the window and it started to rain. Sam wanted to eat, sleep and put an end to this horrible day.

  After a while there was a knock at the door and Mary came back in. ‘Hello again, dear. How are you feeling now?’

  ‘Tired and hungry,’ he said. ‘When’s dinner?’

  ‘Not for an hour or so yet, it’s only just gone five thirty. There’s a visitor here to see you―’

  ‘Chrissie?’

  ‘No, a lady I’ve not met before. She looks very official. I told her you need your rest, but she was very insistent.’

  Sam had a strong sense of déjà vu. ‘Inspector Hinds again?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, so you know her already,’ Mary said. ‘In that case I’ll show her in.’

  He sat up and rubbed his eyes, wondering what Hinds could be doing back so soon. At least it saved him the trouble of having to phone to tell her about the man he remembered seeing on the plane.

  After a minute or so the door opened and Hinds strode into the room.

  ‘Hello Inspector,’ he said, ‘good to see you again.’

  She stopped, a puzzled expression on her face. ‘Have we met before?’

  ‘Yes, of course we have. You left your card here, remember?’ Sam looked across but the business card was gone. It had probably fallen down the back of the bedside table, or been blown under the bed by a gust of wind. ‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘I’m glad you’re here, actually. I was thinking about what you said earlier, about me being the only witness and all, and I think I’ve remembered something that happened on the flight. There was a man who sat next to me. He had some sort of fit and medics had to carry him off the plane before we took off. He had this smart phone…’

  Hinds looked as if she had just swallowed a piece of chewing gum. Her stiff posture gave way and her arms slumped forward, reminding Sam of a wilting flower in urgent need of watering.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he asked.

  ‘Huh? Yes, yes, fine. Did you
say something about a smart phone?’

  ‘I was telling you about the man I saw on the plane. He left his phone in the seat pocket next to me. The thing is, I remember finding it just before we, you know, went down. Do you think that could be important?’

  ‘Important? Yes, it could be.’

  ‘Good, I want to help any way I can. Was there anything else?’

  She stared blankly at him for a moment, then reached into her pocket, withdrew another business card and placed it next to the jug of water exactly like the first. ‘You’ve been very helpful, Mr Rayner,’ she said. ‘I’ll be in touch. Oh, and my condolences for your loss.’

  She left the room shaking her head.

  9

  In spite of how tired he felt, Sam found it hard to sleep that night, and when he did finally drift off his dreams were riddled with nightmares. He saw his dad at the end of the bed, raggedy clothes hanging from his battered body and his hair stuck to his face with dried blood. A part of Sam was relieved, even though he knew it was a ghost. He climbed from bed and went to hug his father, but the ghost began to fade, breaking up like wisps of smoke until Sam was left standing by himself in the dark.

  Then he was at his mum’s bedside, holding her hand. He stroked her hair, watching the rise and fall of her chest with each assisted breath. All of a sudden her arm moved and her eyelids fluttered opened. Hope bubbled up within him; after everything that had happened, this was a sign that things would work out in the end. His mum removed the ventilator, but as she opened her mouth to speak the rhythmic beeping of her heart monitor suddenly changed to a dull, continuous tone. Sam looked at the screen to see the repeating peaks and troughs replaced by a flat line, and when he turned back she was lying motionless in her bed. Mary and Dr Saltano rushed into the room. Sam yelled at them to do something, but Mary wrapped her arms around his waist and dragged him away, muttering, ‘It’s too late, dear. It’s too late, she’s gone.’

  Next he was back on the plane. The passenger in the next chair shuddered and shook, his nose pouring blood. Just as the medics arrived, the man opened his eyes and, staring at Sam, drew his finger across his throat like a knife. Sam shouted to the other passengers, desperate to warn them. He tried to unbuckle his seatbelt, but it wouldn’t budge. Suddenly the engines roared into life, the cabin vibrating as the plane trundled up the runway. He glanced down at his hands and saw they were covered with dried blood. When he looked back up, every other seat was occupied by a corpse, their clothes tattered and torn, rotting flesh drooping from exposed bones.

  Sam woke with the end of a scream on his lips and his heart hammering in his chest. Dr Saltano was by the side of the bed, peering over the top of his glasses. For a moment Sam wasn’t sure if he was real or another ghost.

  ‘You were talking in your sleep,’ Dr Saltano said. ‘Bad dreams?’

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘Well, I have some news. The results of your MRI are back.’ He transferred a steaming paper cup from one hand to the other and opened a brown folder on the bed. It contained several photographs, each showing cross sections of a skull from different angles with various areas shaded in different colours. ‘This, as you may have guessed, is your brain. The scan indicates several regions of abnormal structure, particularly in your Parietal Lobe and Basal Ganglia,’ he pointed to the prints, ‘here and here.’

  ‘I don’t get it,’ Sam said. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘In itself, not very much. It’s likely these abnormalities are the result of scarring caused by the foreign material we removed, however the human brain is an incredibly complicated organ and medical science is only at the beginning of understanding its complexities. There may be profound side effects, but then again you may be able to live a relatively normal life. I’m afraid there really is no way of telling at this stage. All we can do is wait and see.’

  Dr Saltano returned the photographs to their folder and lifted his cup to his lips. Suddenly he cried out in pain and dropped the cup to the floor, showering his trouser legs with coffee.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Sam asked.

  The doctor produced a handkerchief from his pocket and began dabbing the stains. ‘They really should do something about that machine. The coffee is always ludicrously hot. Don’t worry, I’ll send a cleaner in shortly. Now…what was I saying?’

  ‘You said I might be able to live a relatively normal life. Does that mean I can go home?’

  Dr Saltano pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and nodded. ‘You’ve made extraordinary progress over the last couple of weeks. We’ll continue to monitor you closely, of course, which will mean regular checkups and continued physiotherapy, but, short of any unforeseen complications, I’m happy to discharge you. The best place for you to continue your rehabilitation is at home. How does that sound?’

  This was the best news Sam could have hoped for, but something didn’t feel quite right. ‘What do you mean “unforeseen complications”?’ he asked.

  ‘As I said, there’s still a lot about the brain we don’t understand. Why, is anything the matter?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Sam said, wondering how to explain it without sounding like a nutcase. ‘Something happened yesterday after the police lady came to see me. I must have blacked out, I think. I know it sounds weird, but it was sort of like time got scrambled and when I came round it was earlier than before, like everything I was seeing had already happened.’

  Dr Saltano gave him a long, hard stare. ‘Is this the first time you’ve experienced anything like this?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I see. Well, there’s an established link between traumatic brain injury and the onset of epilepsy, especially when the patient has experienced bleeding within the brain.’

  ‘I might have epilepsy?’

  ‘It’s hard to say. The condition itself is associated with multiple fits or seizures. For all we know what happened could have been a one-off, a consequence of the stress you’ve been under. I’ll arrange for some blood tests and an EEG to monitor your brain activity, but until we can get to the bottom of this I’m afraid I need to take back what I said about discharging you.’

  ‘Please,’ Sam said, ‘I just want to go home.’

  Dr Saltano shook his head. ‘Sorry, but it looks like you’re going to be here a while longer.’

  10

  Sam nodded off after Dr Saltano left, but this time his sleep was numb and dreamless. When he woke Chrissie was in the chair next to his bed. She had dark circles under her eyes.

  ‘You look like crap,’ he said.

  She gave him a tired smile. ‘You’re one to talk. Just feeling a bit under the weather, that’s all. A stomach bug or something. How are you?’

  ‘Not good. They’ve changed their minds about discharging me. Dr Saltano says I might have epilepsy.’

  Her smile wavered for a second and then she shrugged. ‘If you do, you do. Whatever happens we’ll deal with it together, as a family.’

  ‘But Chrissie, I want to come home.’

  ‘I know,’ she said, ‘and believe me that’s what I want too, but only when you’re ready.’

  Sam studied his sister’s face. There was something different about her, something he couldn’t quite explain. ‘The police came to see me yesterday,’ he said. ‘They think the crash could have been part of a terrorist attack.’

  ‘They spoke to me as well,’ Chrissie said. ‘I know there’re some crazies out there, but seriously?’ She pinched away a tear that was building at the corner of her eye. ‘I don’t get how anyone could do that. All those innocent people. Mum. Dad.’

  ‘I didn’t remember before, but something came back to me about that day. There was a man on the plane who was taken ill. I think he might have had something to do with it.’

  She narrowed her eyes. ‘And you told the police this?’

  ‘Uhuh.’

  ‘Then I’m sure they’re looking into it.’ She reached down and took Sam’s hand. ‘Listen, there’s some
thing I need to tell you. I spoke to the doctors on my way in and they’re releasing Dad’s body from the morgue today. Once I’ve signed the paperwork, he’ll be moved to a funeral home.’

  ‘Oh,’ Sam said.

  ‘The thing is, we have to move quickly. I need to start making arrangements for a funeral. It looks like I’ll have to book something in the next week or two.’

  ‘But I’m still stuck here. You can’t do it without me.’

  ‘We may not have any choice, Sam. They can only keep the body for so long before, you know, nature takes its course.’

  He jerked his hand away. ‘I can’t believe you’d even think about this. I need to be there. I need to say goodbye too.’

  She pushed her chair back and stood, her lips squeezed together in a thin line. ‘You think all this is easy for me, do you? You think this is all just a walk in the park? You might be stuck in here, but I’m the one left picking up the pieces. I’m the one who has to sign the death certificate, I’m the one who has to look after Grandma and Grandpa and I’m the one who has to arrange this bloody funeral. You can be so selfish sometimes, Sam, you know that?’

  ‘Chrissie wait,’ he said, but it was too late; she’d already left the room.

  11

  Chrissie was right, of course. Sam had been so caught up in his own problems that he hadn’t even considered how the crash might have affected her, as though he had the exclusive rights on grief. He was sorry for that, but it didn’t mean he had to accept missing his dad’s funeral.

  It was his own fault, he now realised. Dr Saltano had been about to discharge him before he’d opened his big, stupid mouth and ruined everything. In fact, when Sam really thought about it, the whole thing was his fault. If he hadn’t been back late from Eva’s that night then he might have been home when Chrissie called to break the news of their grandfather’s stroke, meaning his family could have caught an earlier flight.