by Alex Boyd
“Either for scientific use or because some bastard enjoys it,” Victoria added. “Or both,” Aldman said. “I think the incredible winds are because a safety feature has been removed,” was all I could think to add, but suddenly I was frustrated with our useless speculation and felt a hard kernel of anger within me. Rising to my knees, I felt Fernando and Aldman reach out to grab my arm and belt, but I was too busy pulling together my thoughts and directing my voice at the hateful red eye. “Who are you? By what right do you do this, coward? And for what purpose?”
There was a long pause and I began to assume I’d get no answer when a voice said, “As you’ll all find your way through the far door sooner or later, it doesn’t matter if I tell you. Paul is my name and I’m working to give people what they want: enough data to know exactly how to change the past. Your friend had a curious personality.” I don’t remember what I said next but I certainly stammered and screamed and told him he wouldn’t know how to live a good life if his life depended on it, before the urgent, pleading hands of my friends successfully brought me back to the ground to quietly talk of escape.
In the morning we moved slowly, crawling to try to reach the food and find anything in the room we could use to our advantage. The furniture was bolted down, which was why none of it had moved when Carl was taken from us. Closer to the door, Maddy and I discovered a heavy, plush chair that was loose with a couple of the legs partially unbolted. I tried not to think about how many people had tried to hang on to it before they were pulled to their deaths. “A pocketknife?” Maddy requested. Fernando crawled over with a knife that belonged to Aldman. I left Maddy and Fernando to work on prying loose the remaining legs so we could use the chair to try to smash a window on the far side of the room by the double doors and the endlessly watching, tedious eye.
I was moving to check on Ferah when Julien half-stood and knocked a platter of food to the ground. The door pulled open again. Julien resisted, but our patient enemy had excellent timing and Julien was jerked back in the direction of the door. From my position on the floor I watched, horrified as Victoria stood and reached out to him in a snap decision that cost her everything. He reached out to her too, but only pulled her off her feet and the door took them both.
For a long time we lay still, and then I began to move back toward Fernando. “Keep going,” I said. “Lift your head and continue to work on getting the chair loose.” Hours passed, but when the chair was loose we did our best to drag it along the floor without standing. Fernando raised himself up a little and the door opened so that again the furious wind arrived. Acting on an impulse, I turned my body and kicked the chair so that it bounced once, and went through the open door.
The wind stopped instantly and white flashes of light pulsed a strange rhythm. Whatever shifting, translucent images we could see through the door drifted into nothingness. The doorway settled back into a simple door but remained open. I thought I heard a dull explosion from behind the wall. A light twist of smoke made its way into our room. A man emerged, whom I could only guess to be Paul. He was a tall, pale creature with wisps of black hair clinging to the side of his head. Using one arm to cover his face and eyes, he cried, “I’m blind!” In a string of curses and half-finished sentences, he made it clear our chair had destroyed a system designed only for organic life.
A sleepy, computerized voice was trying to sound the alarm. Using the name Maddy had entered, it kept saying, “Warning: Nobody has caused an overload and uncontained fires.” By now we were all standing, and to our astonishment, saw that the main entranceway behind us was open. Paul must have thought to try and make his way out to seek medical help but only worked his way over to a wall, helplessly feeling around as we backed through the now open door. Fernando made a move toward him, but I held his arm and announced to Paul, “You deserve nothing less for all you’ve done. Tell any poor fool who will listen that Oliver took his payment for the loss of his friends.” I wanted him to know my name while he lived and suffered, though even as we made our way out to spill into the street, I regretted having given it to him.
17: Athena
Dr. Waters could never hide his emotions. When he returned to work after his son was blinded, his body wore his anger like a flag. I heard his angry cries, muted only slightly by my office window, and eventually learned the details. Waters wasn’t terribly clear at first, only saying that his son had been injured somewhere in the past, where he had been engaged in his own research. It must be a strange thing to have your son injured before he was even born, a time that had previously been only a quiet stretch of history for you. It was one of the curious impossibilities brought to our lives by the discovery of time travel, that a father can find out his son was injured or killed in the past, and didn’t just worry for the future. It became another wrong-headed undercurrent in our lives, as quiet and disturbing as the buzzing of a hornet in the next room. Lives that could be eliminated in a nuclear flash, lives not based on clean energy. Each challenge never anticipated, more pervasive, more complicated.
I eventually learned from someone else on the project that Waters was after a traveller named Oliver—otherwise my reaction might have betrayed to Waters that I knew him. Waters reassigned people to track down Oliver and his friends with little care that they had suffered losses of their own. But I found them first. Feeling they should move again, and to try and take their minds off their losses, they went to Siena and the Piccolomini Library to see the frescoes. They spoke little and sat eating in the square, forming up into a neat pile of umbrellas, the only ones under a drizzle of rain and a muted sun veiled by mist and cloud. Next, they decided to take the train to Rome and as the trees and countryside passed, Maddy joked, “Our travel days are always brilliant. It’s as though a visit to a train station stops the rain.” It was an attempt to lighten the mood but it had failed. I saw the expression Oliver wore as he looked at Maddy leaning into Aldman. I know he was trying not to feel jealous of the comfort they could give to each other.
In Rome, men dressed as gladiators stood outside the Colosseum and posed with tourists. Oliver seemed impressed with the broken remnants of history everywhere—ruins and semi-pillars. They split up to explore different parts of the city. Oliver was sitting in the Pantheon with Fernando when a man of about sixty spoke to them in Italian. He had a pleasant, lined face and thinning grey hair. Oliver said, “Non parlo italiano,” and the man smiled gently and spoke in slow English, “Welcome to my country in this place.” He showed them around the city for hours. They stood in front of fountains and Oliver learned he was a sculptor and that he had a daughter in Ireland married to a composer. They stopped for coffees. Oliver went out of his way to scramble for money and pay for them before the older man could. “I will remember this night!” said the man with a pleasant smile and walked away, nearly bumping into someone on the street. He simply smiled again, gave another little wave and went on. Oliver and Fernando strolled around, and Oliver said he felt lightened to have met a good soul.
As a group, they were now much more cautious. Maddy and Aldman had seen a poster for a resort and volunteered to visit it the following day in advance of everyone else, to be certain it was safe and to see if they might stay. It was an old, stone house surrounded by wide grounds. They passed a gate of polished stone. Carved into the stone, wolves and lions lay on either side of the path and caught small pockets of sunlight to spin gently around and release. Inside, impressive topiary met them as they followed the path to the house. A squirrel the size of a dog sat sculpted into one bush and a bird the same size sat on the opposite one. “I hope we aren’t getting into something odd,” Aldman said.
Catherine answered the door: a striking woman with long red hair that moved in waves and green eyes. She smiled as she greeted them, much warmer than any tired traveller could have expected from a stranger, saying, “Come inside and add your happiness to the world.”
She led them to a comfortable dining table and her s
taff brought cheese and wine, and as they talked and ate, Maddy and Aldman found their will melting away into a relaxed state like none they had ever known. Reality mixed with illusion, and Maddy imagined the polished stone wolves and lions coming to life to lie at her feet and nudge her hand. Drugged, they became extremely susceptible to suggestion, and when Catherine tapped them on the shoulder saying, “Now, go and fill yourself,” they obeyed without hesitation. Leaving the room, they entered the grounds. They found scattered others feasting, drinking and following all other instincts.
During this time, Oliver remained with Ferah and Fernando. They sat for hours, becoming more and more tired until dusk and rush hour arrived. Finally, Oliver announced, “We need to follow them and try to discover their fate,” but I couldn’t let him approach that same house and fall into the same situation. I worked with several close and trusted colleagues to borrow images of a man throughout the years. Nobody famous. In life, a businessman and father of two. His name found its way into a newspaper once. We took him from among the millions of overlooked and used his image: a tall body, dark eyes and sharp features. He lived a long life, and there were many images of him lifting a child or squinting into the sun. His name was Herman. We gave him peace and our words. He was a man made by others from everything we knew of him, a temporary man as they all are.
We arranged for Herman to be on a particular street corner so he would meet Oliver. It was a busy corner but a hurried crowd so indifferent it may as well have been a private conversation. Herman stepped in his path, raised a hand to stop him and said, “Athena sent me.”
“Athena? Really? How is my old friend?” Herman replied, “She is well, though she risks much in bringing you this, an antidote to the drug your friends have been given.” He held up a small vial and offered it to Oliver, who took it before Herman added, “Catherine owns the place your friends have visited and will greet you warmly but serve drugged food that induces a desire to stay forever in comfort. If you take the antidote first, you’ll be able to greet her and eat the food, but stay alert and catch her by surprise.” Herman then stepped away with the rush-hour crowd. He fell into the corner of an eye, the back of a mind.
Oliver seemed a little taken aback, but after walking a few blocks he smiled a little and I could only assume he felt reassured by help from an old friend. I was relieved to see him open the vial and drink the contents as he passed the stone gate and the growing shadows of dusk. When Catherine answered the door, Oliver appeared struck by her beauty and warm smile, but he also appeared to check himself, pausing at the door to glance around and no doubt remind himself this woman held two of his friends. She led him to the same dining area as the others were led; wine and cheese were served and she asked him about himself. Oliver ate and offered little conversation, instead pushing for Catherine to speak. She said, “My land here is a resort, that’s all. It’s dedicated to comfort and the brand of enlightenment people find here.”
When they had talked a while and Oliver had eaten and drank, she stood and went to him to tap him on the shoulder, saying, “Now go and fill yourself.” But Oliver stood abruptly. Anger trickled into his eyes. “Who are you that you need to drug people and keep them against their will?”
“I keep nobody against their will,” Catherine replied and agreed to take Oliver to his friends, explaining that the drugs only made people most agreeable and interested to consume. Oliver persisted, saying he had traces of the antidote left and would go to the police. Passing through the building he saw people eating, drinking and taking each other by the hand upstairs. He followed Catherine out into the open grounds where they found Maddy napping in a patio chair. Next, they went inside for Aldman. Catherine led them up plush, winding steps to a higher floor before she gestured vaguely at a door and said, “Aldman.” It was a white wooden door and Oliver tapped softly a few times before he opened it. Inside, Aldman lay sprawled across a bed with a woman they didn’t recognize. Maddy smiled.
As they descended the stairs Oliver asked Catherine what she meant by all this. She sighed as she gracefully descended the steps, explaining, “Some call this a cult, not a resort, but I prefer to think of it as a temporary station of sorts. Those who want to accomplish little never find the motivation to throw it off and leave, and the world is better without them. Your friends are not shallow and were already starting to show signs of resisting. They’d have left on their own free will soon.”
Catherine suggested, “Stay, and find yourself stronger for having pulled free of this place when you want to go.” She served food free of the drug. In the end, they stayed a month. Oliver called for the rest of the group to join them, trusting the stay would involve no more tricks and knowing the group needed a break. It was only Ferah who stood inside the door cautiously, and when Oliver assured her that all was well, replied, “You said that before and people died.” Oliver took a step but restrained himself, particularly as Maddy and Aldman intervened. “Oliver has good instincts,” Maddy said, “and shouldn’t be faulted for the surprise that overtook us before.”
It was a peaceful and restful time for them. Fernando and Maddy made a short play based on her experience working in a bookstore. It was a comfortable store with wide windows that let in the sunlight and Fernando held hoops that he moved gracefully through the air to represent the movements of the planets. Maddy told about books sometimes falling off the shelf, fluttering to the ground like tired bats. “The books are leaping off the shelf today,” she’d say. The seasons came and went, people who called themselves important struggled for power, but the books remained the same. “There is Dickens, the words curled up like sleeping rope.” Fernando emerged wrapped in newspaper and slowly burst out as Maddy read assorted statements that sounded like headlines but were not.
The time finally came that Oliver felt they’d be falling back again soon. A day later he felt the gathering tides and the slow, oncoming approach of a fall when they lost Fernando. He’d had enough and walked away. They watched him turn and wave, wearing one of his typically colourful shirts and smiling his genuinely warm smile before the curious, displaced feeling met their senses and they slipped away. When they fell back again, Waters found them. I’ll never forget looking over my shoulder to see his expression, very much the way a cat would look before a goldfish bowl.
18: Ferah
Falling back was often uncomfortable. The thick history of people was suffocating but the scenery followed visible patterns, near to each other as subways beneath crowded city streets. This time, however, it was like an angry sea. I watched the translucent image of four middle-aged men playing cards tip and sink like a ship. Images impaled the surface of other images before and after us as though someone meant to churn the waters by dropping events like boulders in an ocean. Cars streamed harmlessly through living room windows and whale-sized pieces of earth rolled like disassembled mountains through skyscrapers. I passed through the floor of a cathedral, so much translucent activity collected in one space over the centuries it was a tidy peaceful sun. Passing through, I could barely discern individual actions or anything in the larger world but felt briefly comforted by its glow.
Maddy cried, “Oh, no,” as one by one we took notice of Fernando lying lifeless on the ground. It looked as though he’d fallen from a rooftop. He didn’t look much older. It seemed impossible all his energy could come to a stop and strange that we’d suddenly see him in a collision of past and future. I don’t know what scent brought him to us or if we were brought to him. Still in shock, we saw him alive again, sitting in a café speaking to a woman who said something about the need for a monument to the unlucky: the girl with angry parents, the uncreative life or a man killed by a piano. The outside wall, booth and occasionally shimmering glass crawled by us as Fernando sat back and contemplated the idea. We cried out and waved but he couldn’t see us. Finally he said, “People are unlucky to go to war, and almost every city has a war monument.” I cried out his name and Fernand
o seemed to hear me. He looked out the window, though not at me and then he passed, sliding from view behind drifting fields, people and trucks that swept over him like an avalanche.
Oliver wasn’t far from me and I knew the others wouldn’t be far from him. I saw his anguished look after Fernando was lost from view, and then his attention seemed to catch on something else. The warmth of a summer day came over us, as sudden as someone turning on a light. A mother and a boy sat in a bright, orange car on tracks that was lining up to burst through swinging doors on a ride. She looked down at him and said, “Isn’t this fun? Aren’t we lucky?” As they were covered in a flurry of activity Oliver turned to me to say that was him, that he was the boy. What sort of ride was beyond the swinging doors? Pirates? A trip to the future? It didn’t matter. What mattered was that he carried gratefulness with him and has never forgotten. He said, “We lost her when I was a year out of university.”
Perhaps it was only that parents were on my mind but in the chaos I thought I saw my father’s thin frame and dark hair. He was a generous soul as well. As a child I had a book on animals with a colour photo of whales that took up a two-page spread in the centre of the book. When I asked to see whales, he seemed to acknowledge and forget, but the following year details of a family vacation began to emerge—we’d go to see whales off the coast of Costa Rica. The lurch and hum of the boat unsettled my stomach and I was sick over the side, finding he and mother had drifted a discreet distance away. They were close enough to help but not close enough to make me feel watched or embarrassed. I was drinking water and feeling better when my father said, “Look, Ferah,” and I turned to see a handful of whales surfacing like a new set of slim islands. It was as though they bumped aside the old me and replaced me with someone else, someone with the faith that it was a strange and beautiful world as long as you could see a creature with a heart as big as a car.
