by Cour M.
“Yes, she did, sir. Yet let us not lie to ourselves. I know that I cannot lie to myself any longer. I wrote a book that no one wants to ever read and that no one ever really likes.”
Nine pressed her face lovingly.
“I like it.”
Emily Bronte smiled gently as Nine moved away from her.
“Now if you shall excuse me,” Nine said, “if I am not back in an hour’s time, it means that some terrible monster found me and ate me. Sorry if that occurs.”
Nine rushed up to Clara as she grabbed his arm.
“So, where are we going to next?” She asked.
“No, where I go next, I go alone.”
“Alone? What, so you can be eaten by a random alien monster by yourself? I don’t think so, soldier.”
“No, I need your help, Clara,” Nine said, with such gentle sincerity that it affected Clara.
“What do you need me to do?”
“Look at them. Behind you are seven people, out of time and out of place. I always bring a human with me everywhere I go, and it’s not just because I’m lonely.”
“You’re lonely?”
Nine flexed his hand, not understanding why he revealed that aspect about his nature.
“Maybe just a bit.”
Clara bit her lip, wishing to ask him more, but she sensed that it was not the proper time for it.
“But that is not the point. The point is that I always prefer humans to travel with me because you can connect with others, you can sympathize with others in a way that I do not understand. You can reach them, and I need you now, Clara, to do what your species can do best.”
Clara looked at him in wonder.
“You really are it, huh?”
“I’m what?”
“You really are different than us?”
“Yes. Clara, stay here and see if you can get them all to communicate, to co-exist. Connect with them, if they will let you. The more comfortable they are, the easier it shall be.”
“Why not just take them back in time now?”
“Because it’s not their coming here that I am confused over.”
“Then what?”
“It’s why they were brought here. And who is responsible for it.”
“Right. Promise me that you will return.”
“Couldn’t leave you behind if I tried,” Nine smirked and then with a turn of his heel, he was gone from the room.
“Where is he going?” Jeannette asked, “and is he really coming back?”
“I trust him,” was all that Clara replied with.
“Does he really know what happened to us?” Ethel Waters asked.
“I’m not sure that I would go that far.”
Clara and Emily
“I was in the middle of returning home from the school that I am employed at,” Emily Bronte explained when speaking with Clara. “And I had come home to see Anne in her bedroom, weeping. Oh forgive me, Anne is my other sister.”
“Yes, she shall go on to publish ‘The Tenant of Wildfell Hall’.”
“She’s working on it now! Did you read that one too?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Well, her first work, ‘Agnes Grey’ was met with mostly bad reviews, just like my book. While our sister, Charlotte, has also been met with some bad remarks herself, she has been the most fortunate. The world overall likes her book. My sister Charlotte wrote—”
“Jane Eyre.”
“Oh, of course you would have heard of that one. It was the only one of our books that was met with critical acclaim. Charlotte spends a great deal of time actually defending Anne and I from our critics.”
“An ideal sister then.”
“Yes, but I feel bad for her. Two achieve fame and popularity, and to be saddled with two sisters who cannot live up to her reputation. We must be embarrassments to her.”
“I’m sure that she doesn’t think so.”
“Even if she doesn’t, it still is hard. Anne and I never will catch a chance of good fortune, I feel. Yet we got published, and I suppose that is something.”
“Emily, do you really believe that your books are not any good?”
“I used to believe that I had talent,” she shrugged her shoulders, “but when the world is against you enough, you eventually become uncertain on the matter. Yes, I suppose that my book is hardly good literature. And like many of us writers, I shall soon be forgotten.”
“Emily, what if I told you that your books will be remembered? That one day, people will see all the pain, darkness and horror of not accepting someone due to difference will be realized. And your book, it shall really make the world think one day! It shall open up the door for many discussions.”
“I’d say that whatever ink you had sniffed earlier, I would take a whole bottle of it.”
Freedom Fighter or Terrorist
“It was all supposed to be better, you must understand,” Guy Fawkes explained. “During the reign of Queen Elizabeth the 1st, we Catholics were persecuted to no end.”
“Yes,” Clara acknowledged, “I remember learning of this in History Class. Queen Elizabeth was excommunicated by the Pope even. In 1570, right?”
“Aye, and that’s when it got rather terrible. During her reign, dozens of priests were put to death, and we Catholics could not even legally celebrate Mass or be married according to their own rites. She and her sister were opposite sides of the spectrum when it came to their views, but they were on the same side as awful.”
“Like their father was better?”
“True, and I bet that’s where they learned it from. Well, as a result, many of us Catholics had high hopes when King James 1st took the throne upon Elizabeth’s death in 1603. For god sakes, his mother was Mary, Queen of Scots. However, it soon became clear, that James did not support religious tolerance for us. In the year of 1604, he publicly condemned Catholicism as a superstition, ordered all Catholic priests to leave England and expressed concern that the number of Catholics was increasing. He also largely continued with the repressive policies of Elizabeth, such as fines for those refusing to attend Protestant services. We were so close, you see? Has that ever happened to you, Lady Oswald? To be so close to equality and then to be pushed further away?”
“No, I cannot say that I ever have before. Mind you, we all have our hard moments, but your sort is beyond me. That’s what I hated about history. Everyone was bad really. I hate when one’s heroes and villains are quite complicated, because no one is ever one or the other, but both. It can bother us all that life is not so black and white in that way.”
“What do you mean? If you liked either heroes or villains, but not both in one man, then why do you associate with such characters as that friend of yours? He’s a heroic villain if I ever gazed upon one.”
“No, there is more to him, I can assure you.”
“Can you? You have seen him when he looks at me, Lady Oswald. He looks at me with an expression filled with dread, wrath and loathing. I have not known him long enough for him to hate me, so why does he do so?”
“You… remind him of someone. Someone who did something he did not agree with.”
“So he punishes me because of ghosts? Ghosts that he shall not let go of.”
“I suppose that you could call it that.”
“Negligent of him is what I have to say.”
They were silent for a time, but then Guy Fawkes leaned in close to Clara.
“Clara, have you ever heard of the date November 5th?”
“Well, it does exist on the calendar,” Clara joked, hiding the fact that she knew precisely what occurred on November 5th.
“No, what I mean is… do you know about anything in regards to that matter? Have you ever heard of anything that could occur that day?”
Clara looked at the man beside her. The man who would be involved in an assassination plot to kill King James 1st, would fail at it, get caught, then be one of the 13 co-conspirators who would be tortur
ed and hung to death for his actions. The man beside her… it was too horrible to think about. At the time, he was a criminal, but hearing his side of the story, and in always celebrating Guy Fawkes Day on the 5th of November every year in her time, now she could not regard him as such. He was just a man… with complicated intentions.
Therefore, she was torn between two voices that were going off in her mind. One advised her to tell him what would happen if he would join the plot, of its failure, and his execution. Of course she wished to protect him. Yet another voice, the voice that was logical to the point of being unnatural, knew that to tell him would be the worst thing ever. It might save his life, but it would undo time possibly. And the last thing she felt that she had the right to do would be to try and undo time itself.
“Sorry,” she said at last, “But no, I don’t remember anything about that date.”
Guy Fawkes bit his lip.
“Well, I guess that our actions had no effect,” he sighed, “how painful it is, to have no effect. Upon my honor, the universe is a bit humbling.”
The Blues Singer
“Growing up was the hardest and also the best thing for me,” Ethel Waters explained, taking a cup of tea from a server who came in to give them food.
“You’re American, like Jeannette,” Clara observed. “What part of America are you from?”
“I was pretty much raised in the slums of Philadelphia, or near it. I never lived anywhere for more than a few weeks. I pretty much raised myself and I ran wild. Yet, with the hardship that my mother had to endure—and at first I hated how life turned out for me, with my mother not being able to look after me and all, due to reasons… but in the end, it really is true that what doesn’t kill us does make us stronger. We children can rise to the occasion of anything, you see, and are capable of great things. I learned how to look after myself, and as a result, I taught myself things. I was able to learn how to sing and dance, and that was how I got into the entertainment world. In 1917, when I was 21, I entered the black Vaudeville Circuit. They called me Sweet Mama String bean, because I was skinny. Then I began to perform in Harlem nightclubs and I never looked back. I told myself that I would not stop there. You see, that is the beauty of always being out and on your own. You don’t have people ordering you around and always getting away with it. I suppose, that is why I can keep going. I was born having it hard, and so I felt that there was nowhere to go but up. But what about you? Can you sing or dance?”
“Not at all,” Clara acknowledged, “And can you keep a secret?”
“Sure. What?”
“I tried everything. Singing, dancing, music, acting, you name it I tried it. And I was terrible always. At everything that I tried. It was quite embarrassing really.”
“You make it sound like you committed a crime by not being talented.”
“Ethel, you know the way the world is. If you don’t have a talent and you failed at trying to have one, then you committed the worst crime of all.”
Ethel pressed her hand over Clara’s sympathetically.
“Clara, for a time, I was not a good singer. And I had some pretty embarrassing first attempts.”
“Thanks. And if you were lying, then thanks a lot.”
“No problem, and don’t worry, I won’t tell that man you’re with.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I can tell that he’s the one that you don’t want to show how imperfect you are.”
Clara blinked.
“It’s not your fault, it’s just obvious, sweetie.”
“How so?”
“I can see the way he looks at you. As if he expects you to be perfect always. It’s fine and all, just be careful with those types.”
“Why?”
“Because when you finally do something to show how imperfect you are, they look at you as if you betrayed them.”
Epic Errors Wrapped in Rags
“It’s hard, you see,” Euripides informed Clara, “when you start writing something which many before you have already done and perfected. Those writers before you cast shadows on you always. So when you write the play and you thought that you were perfect, you present it to the world and they pick it apart. Always wondering why you couldn’t be as good as the other writer that came before you. They are so busy looking at what you are not, that they refuse to see you for what you are.”
“What do you consider as ghosts?” Virgil asked him, “for I can assure you that you don’t know the meaning of the word.”
“Do I not?”
“Yes, pardon me, but you are what we Romans are always chasing after and failing to aspire to,” Virgil admitted, “we are always being reminded of you, you are referenced and do you know what I was doing before I got snatched up? I was in my chambers, leaning on some parchment and still attempting to write ‘The Aeneid’, an epic that would rival the skill of Homer’s the ‘Iliad’. And as I write it, people look on me with their scrutinizing eyes and wonder if I will be as good as Homer, and they know that I will not. Because they know it, I know it. Picking up my pen gets harder and harder every day. Because I know that in their eyes, I will fail.”
“But so have I already,” Euripides countered, “People look at me and they think of great playwriting giants such as Aeschylus and Sophocles, and they always are mentioning them. I was trying to do something different, you see. I was trying to change the style of how an epic play could be written in Greece, but no one notices.”
“Yes, they do,” Virgil said, “your works live on to my time, and I can hardly say so myself. Unfortunately, well—ghosts. Damned ghosts.”
Euripides looked over Clara’s shoulder.
“We really are in the distant future?”
“Yes, you are,” she answered simply, “Very much so.”
“And I don’t suppose that I shall wake up from the nightmare.”
“You won’t, because it isn’t a nightmare.”
“Well, I wish it were so. And to be here, in this world where women wear the strangest apparel and you can be actors, scientists and writers?”
“Where a woman can do what she likes,” Clara answered simply.
“Indeed, that is quite beyond me,” Virgil said, “and so very unnatural.”
“More unnatural than a Goddess being the God of War,” Clara said, “Minerva is your war patron, so why do you respect her there, but not us now?”
“Minerva?” Euripides asked, confused.
“Oh, that’s the Roman’s name for your goddess of wisdom, Athena. They kind of just took your gods and changed their names.”
“What?” Euripides gasped, turning to Virgil, “You changed our gods’ names?”
“It’s still the same thing though, but we simply needed to create our own world.”
“By using ours as a blueprint? By the green of the olive, what do you name Zeus and Poseidon? And Apollo and Artemis?”
“Luckily Apollo came through unscathed and he got to keep the same name,” Clara noted.
“Yes, he still is Apollo,” Virgil acknowledged, “but Artemis is now Diana, Poseidon is Neptune, and Zeus is Jupiter.”
Pause.
“Those are the most foolish names I have ever heard in my life,” Euripides stated bluntly.
“You’re just bitter that we were more creative than yourselves.”
“Creative is the word you put for such blasphemous titles? By the gods! Zeus is the perfect name and gets the job done. Same with Poseidon. By its very nature it sounds like a god meant to command the ocean. By the hammer of Hephaestus, man! Please tell me that you at least still call the god of the Underworld Hades, right?”
“No, we call him Pluto.”
Another pause.
“Sir, you Romans are a scourge.”
Clara threw up her hands and walked away from them.
The Would-Be Space Explorer
“When my husband and I first met, we were a little insecure tha
t our names were so close together,” Jeannette began after Clara inquired about her, “His name is Jean.”
“Really?” Clara laughed, “I did not know that.”
“Yes, and there’s the amazing thing,” Jeannette continued, “when we women get married to someone, it’s so very easy for us to get our personalities wrapped up in the man we marry. It is always delightful to become one with someone you love of course, but over time that can only hold you over so far before you feel as if you no longer have your own identity. It is so very easy for us women to think the answer is in marriage, where everything becomes clearer, but that’s not always what happens. What happens is that we get further lost, and it’s too late to find out who we are.”
“Is that what happened to you with your husband?”
“No, not at all,” she smiled happily. “At least, not yet anyway. I suppose it was because when we married, Jean had much he wanted to accomplish, but I was able to never lose track of myself. We were both scientists, and therefore we both already came to the relationship with our identities pretty much established. So when he finally got the approval to fly into the stratosphere, then I would stop at nothing to get my license so I could be his pilot.”
“You both traveled together?”
“Yes On October 23, 1934, I accompanied Jean as his scientific observer, and I piloted the Century of Progress balloon to an altitude of 57,979 feet. We flew in a spherical gondola that was a seven-foot diameter sphere, which contained a life support system to sustain them and scientific instruments Jean used to study cosmic radiation.”
“You reached the edge of space around Earth?” Clara smiled.
“Yes,” Jeannette smiled, getting a faraway look in her eye, “going further than any other woman had ever gone. Clara, I cannot tell you how it looked, but it was so beautiful up there. And so very dangerous. Yet that is the way I believe that space shall always be. The more beautiful it is, the more likely it is to kill you. How dreadfully unfair it is. For such a beautiful thing as space and the universe to be lethal to us. And then to come up here and see that we have traveled far, and Jean! He is not here with me. He deserves to see this! And he doesn’t know where I am now!”
