Tempus Genesis
Page 8
Oliver did have a fantastic night. He did let himself go and was wilder and more out there than he had been for many years. He got very drunk. He just about avoided indulging in stimulants that came in pill shapes with smiley faces. Oliver declined to entertain Mary’s suggestion that he perform falatio on one or two guys. He did kiss and dirty dance with girls from the coach trip, as well as get close and hot with others from around the bars and clubs of Brighton. Oliver was surprised that once he had got his head up and noticed his surroundings, how successful he could be. He was being told by many how good looking he was. This was something he had forgot, lost touch with.
By three in the morning the gang and associated men and women from the day and night out, had taken refuge in ‘Fat Fred’s’ a seafront vegetarian café, open twenty four seven. Halfway through the meal, which was being eaten amidst loud and continued raucous behaviour, Oliver slipped out of the café into the cold night air closing the door and moving from surround sound noise to a virtual silence. As the effect of the days drinking had slowly begun to wane, along with the reducing influence of the single ecstasy tablet he had taken, he had felt compelled to take a walk. He would not be missed.
Oliver walked away from the seafront towards Brighton’s old town, up into the towns’ heart, until he found the lanes. Now almost deserted, he looked down the south lanes and then up through the north lanes. The Lanes were Brighton’s oldest section of the town, a warren of narrow streets preserved from the past and providing a Jacobean townscape. A web of inter-twining lanes, intricate to navigate with bars, restaurants and shops of all imaginable types. Approaching four am the lanes were now empty, no cars could access the narrow alleyways. The lanes dated back to the seventeenth century having become increasingly compact as the town built up, away from the seafront and the centuries of defence against the invasions of the French and Spanish.
Oliver left North Street and into the tightest of the alleyways and walked towards Brighton Place, deep within the complex of streets. Vibrant and bohemian by day the lanes now hosted the deepest of shadows and overflowing solemnity within the silence of the night. Whilst very drunk, around twelve hours earlier, Oliver and Minnie had careered their way through the shops and bars of the Lanes. Oliver had stopped briefly, squinting at one shop in the distance, which displayed a word he had once been very familiar with and now rarely, if ever, came across. Curious as to how such a word could be presented in the window of any small business, his curiosity had sobered him enough to make the return walk.
Oliver felt conflicted, he was fearful, not from the shadows and silence, but at the prospect of seeing the word once again. He reminded himself of his treasured paper inside the door of his wardrobe and its connection with this word. Oliver stopped as he neared the end of the narrow street he was in, standing at the junction with Brighton Place. Opposite him, but still a short walk away was the shop he had seen earlier that day, No.5 Brighton Place. Above the small Tudor window, sculpted from iron the shops name hung; ‘Other World’. He had stopped to take in the shop from a distance because against the darkness of all the other closed business Other World stood out, its lights were on and it looked open.
Oliver approached the shop until he was facing its window, with its haunting lights twinkling over a display of gothic jewelry, angel figurines and small pocket books on tarot reading and psychic investigation. They were all presented on a cloud of cotton wool bathed in shadows and light from the shimmering fairy lights. Oliver smiled at the type of shop this was. He then read the ‘offers’ the shop presented etched on its window, in a calligraphy script;
Psychic Healing
Tarot Readings
Rune Stones
Colour Healing
Raiki Counseling
Group TA Therapy
Then Oliver read the word he knew so well, he read the fancily written word, etched in a script that presented the word in a unique form he had never really considered seriously before. It was being offered as a therapy, this in itself was curious. He studied the two words together;
Regression Therapy
Oliver did not see the face within, beyond the display, basking in the shadows, staring at him. Her face was pale, ghost like with translucent skin, she had almond eyes and fine blonde hair. Her dark brown eyes had emerged from the darker recess of the shop and drew closer to him as she watched Oliver read and re-read the ‘Regression Therapy’ sign.
Oliver focused on the words, he did not see the pale hand, the spindly thin fingers stretch from within the shop and over the display towards where his eyes studied the glass. With two sharp taps she struck the glass.
“Jesus” Oliver recoiled in shock and fright, he moved back three steps and was gripped with fight or flight when he saw her face. He saw her pretty face smile, place three fingers over her mouth in an ‘oops’ gesture. She called from within the shop.
“Would you like to come in, we are open?” she asked in a manner more 4pm than 4am.
Oliver studied her, her invitation was both innocent and intended. He nodded and approached the shop door. The apparition of a pretty young woman floated across the shop, for she was as graceful as a ghost, and opened the door as he raised his hand for the door handle.
“Hi,” she whispered, “I’m Jenny, welcome to Other World.” Jenny beckoned him in.
Oliver entered, the shop like the display was a bizarre of contrasting light and shadow, it had cloth, jewelry and artworks hanging from the ceiling. To move through the shop needed care and attention.
“You open long hours,” Oliver commented as he looked around, “Is that usual?”
“No,” She answered smiling, watching him, “please do look around.”
Oliver did, he looked and touched, everything was soft or smooth, fine and delicate, he felt enveloped in the shadows and kissed by the light. The scent was violet and the experience of this shop at this time, surreal. He knew she watched him intently and occasionally he would return his gaze to the words, now written in reverse;
‘Regression Therapy’.
Oliver moved slowly around the shop he was minded of something futuristic, a scene from a movie he couldn’t quite recall. A moment of poetic calm tainted by a modest foreboding. His curiosity with the word regression overcame any slight unease he felt and Oliver allowed himself to drift around the articles on display.
Jenny spoke softly to him, “All those memories will be lost in time, like tears in the rain.”
Oliver looked at Jenny for a moment, then the light came on, “Blade Runner,” he acknowledged the line.
“Lots of people are reminded of that closing scene in the Bradbury Apartments, when they come in here.”
“Especially in the dead of night?” Oliver smiled at Jenny.
“What’s your name?” Jenny asked with her head cocked to one side, she didn’t look unlike a naive ‘replicant’ herself at that moment.
“Oliver, it is, um, atmospheric, is that deliberate?”
“Not really, it just reflects me, I’m here and not here, if that makes sense?”
“Kind of, you said we, ‘we are open’?”
“Me and the cat, if I’m honest, that’s the we in Other World.”
“Do you mind me saying I’m not sure it’s wise being open at this time?”
Jenny smiled, “Maybe not, but I thought you would come back.”
The direct comment made Oliver stop his circling of the shop, “I’m sorry,” he said, “I don’t think we’ve met before, have we?”
Jenny laughed, “No, I just thought you would come back, you looked in the window yesterday, you were very drunk.”
“I’m wondering if I still am. I looked in the window?”
“Yes, you traced your fingers over the word ‘Regression’ in Regression Therapy, nobody has ever done that before. You looked so curious I thought you’d come back, read the word again,” Jenny smiled at him.
“And here I am. How did you know?”
“I just know thin
gs, read people, but rarely do people fix on one thing here, psychic people are a broad church, you are just interested in that,” Jenny pointed to the words on the window.
“Very perceptive, I am, well was, interested in regression, but never really looked into it too much as a therapy. The stuff I read about the therapy bit, couple of things I looked into, seemed, well, a bit charlatan to be honest.”
“Many people see it that way but for many more accessing a past life can be very,” Jenny breathed in, “healing, empowering. Understanding what has gone before can help bring closure in this life, it can be, liberating.”
“I guess it could be,” reflected Oliver though not quite getting the point.
“And your interest?” Jenny asked.
Oliver felt he had been drawn here for a purpose and a new chapter in his life was opening, or he was returning to a half read book, he wasn’t sure which it was.
“I used to study regression, not the therapy but the possible science behind it, whether there is any actual biology to explain or inform how people access past lives through regression. Whether it is an actual memory, a connection with the past or just another psychic trick?”
Oliver stopped short he hadn’t said that much about regression since last year, it was a subject that now left him tongue tied.
“I can tell you that for a few it is no trick Oliver, believe me,” Jenny had a more earnest look about her, “I know that for a fact.”
Oliver studied her, she was beautiful he thought but you wouldn’t know it unless you were this close, she had an energy that radiated through those near her, who she allowed this close.
“You can regress?” Oliver asked.
Jenny nodded and stepped back away from the limited light in the shop, retreating into almost darkness. She lifted up her arms, palms facing towards Oliver and closed her eyes. Her smile relaxed and her face acquired a look of concentration. She took one last look at Oliver and closed her eyes. The shop was warm but when Jenny exhaled a cold blast of air left her mouth, the noise a hiss.
Oliver took a short step back, he had lost track of how long he had been there, but it was only a short time he thought. Yet in those brief moments this weird, yet wonderfully quirky woman had held him spellbound.
He was not prepared for the sudden crack from her every bone, like splinters of glass onto a stone floor as she suddenly arched and her graceful body extended and stood erect, her body tensing. Oliver watched as she almost appeared to levitate, tendons in her neck played like piano wire.
Oliver drew in breath and his heart quickened, Jenny did not present any threat but she seemed to posses a power Oliver had never witnessed. This was no trick.
Jenny’s eyes opened, but only the whites revealed, she was held in a self-induced trance like state.
“Are you curious Oliver?” she whispered.
“Very,” Oliver replied in a quiet tone.
Then, most amazingly of all, Jenny closed her eyes and arched back her neck, blue white static energy began to build up around her face and shoulders. Swirling, fizzing it danced upon her translucent skin. Then it stopped.
Jenny relaxed, her body returned to its normal state, one of grace and she opened her beautiful brown almond eyes. She smiled.
Oliver wondered if a bad pill was playing with his brain.
“I never regress all the way with a guy on the first date,” Jenny said, her wit breaking the moment that had engulfed them. They both smiled and then laughed.
“I really should close up the shop now,” Jenny said.
“Right yes,” Oliver studied her then checked his watch, “Shit, I should go too, I have a bus to catch, that was, amazing.”
Jenny smiled and for a moment he wanted to hug her, as he thought it she raised one eyebrow, one knowing eyebrow. He sighed and smiled and turned and opened the door.
“Look there’s a party next week in London, would you like to come?” Oliver asked.
“I’d love to,” smiled Jenny, she took a business card from her counter and handed it to him, “I’d love to go to a party.”
“Great,” and he turned and left. As he walked away down the lanes he kept looking back, twice Jenny waved. On the third occasion Oliver could only see a feint blue light deep in the shop.
8.