Letters, Lessons and Puzzles Part 6

Nearly there. I am toying with the ending (sorry, not enough words to include it here) so I'm not in a position to fix or explain some of the intentional inconsistencies at the end of this section. Regardless, I hope you enjoy it...

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He looks around in earnest, spinning on the spot to catch sight of grey robes. When he does his relief rises just to quickly sink once more to become a rock in his chest, one his cooling rage is unable to crush.

 

He forces his frozen, leaden feet to walk towards the figure but as soon as he does it begins to move, keeping a distance ahead of him until it reaches a small rise next to a modest memorial where it stops. He closes the distance slowly until he hears the sound of a machine beyond the rise. Thoughts of the figure are pushed to one side by curiosity. What kind of machine works in a graveyard at this hour of a frozen January night?

 

He draws level with his 'guide’, but not too close, veering to the left as he approaches keeping twelve feet or so between them. He tells himself he does but like the look of the shadows around the memorial and keeps his focus on the thing working amongst the modest graves beyond.

 

The machine is complex, some kind of multifunctional beast positioned over the rectangular hole it has made in the ground. It is squat, braced and counterweighted for the task of grave digging. To the front and back, the short sides of the grave, are stowed its tools and to either side are lifting arms attached to tarpaulin slings.

 

My word, he thinks, it is an entirely self-contained interment machine. Ghastly contraption! Who could stand to attend a funeral with that squatting there? Not that I have bothered to attend many gravesites of course.

 

After a moment he realises the machine is not unattended. Someone in thick overalls walks around it to check the contents of one of the slings. Their lower half is illuminated by the working lights off the machine, and when the tablet they are holding is illuminated he sees the face of a woman.

 

“No,” she says in response to a voice probably in her earpiece, “This is it, we're not waiting on anybody.”

 

Her voice is high and clear, carrying easily on the cold air.

 

“We usually get a relative,” she says, shaking her head and adjusting controls on the machine, “Or at least an official. Yes, I can see it's all in order but someone should be here. I'm not here to mourn cheapskates and I'm pretty sure this bloody thing couldn't give a shit if it tried. Fine, it'll start on time, all done. I'm going back inside for a brew…

 

“I've just seen the headstone Rob,” she says with a little surprise in her voice, “I've heard of this bloke. Yeah, really. What do you mean 'and’? And sod him, that's what.” She spits.

 

“Yes I did,” she says, “I'll tell you who he is when I get back and you can come spit on him later.”

 

With that she sets off to the path at the bottom of the slope and vanishes amongst the trees and bushes. Smythe stands staring at the machine as it comes to life.

 

“Who…,” he begins, hoarsely, “Whose grave will that be?”

 

“Will that be?” comes his companions whisper, “Is.” and it points at the machine as it lifts the object in one of its slings and lowers it into the grave. It only takes moments then the other sling tips in the earth. With a few deft movements its tools have made good the surface of the grave and it retracts all but its legs then slowly makes its way down the slope.

 

“Buried alone, un-mourned, in minutes by a machine?” he manages, “Who was that?”

 

But he knows and, solemnly, fearfully, he walks towards the grave to read the headstone.

 

Edwin James Smythe

7 Dec ‘02 - 4 Jan 2065

 

“That's it?” he looks at the robed figure which has followed him silently and now stands only a few places away, “Hardly striking the fear of God into my heart.” Although my damp palms and dry mouth say otherwise.

 

“Your end is as lonely as your life, Smythe,” this time the voice is a voice and it is coming from beneath the hood. Though it is still a sort of coarse whisper, he somehow recognises it.

 

“This is a trick,” he says, but he cannot think how to go on.

 

“No trick,” comes the voice, a little stronger, “Our future.”

 

He stares at the shadow under the hood.

 

“Our future?” he manages, “Who are you? Come now, this joke was stale long before I opened that first letter and it stinks to high heaven right now. Tell me, who are you and what is this?”

 

“I am you,” his companion pulls back his hood to reveal his own face staring back at him, “Or rather you will be me.”

 

Smythe feels a scream build in his chest. He clings to the only thought he can summon that can drive it down and forges it into a mantra. This is a dream, it must be, none of this can be real, none of it! This is a dream…!

 

“Oh, and this is most definitely real,” says his other self, as if reading his mind, “And we are here to make sure it never comes to pass. This can be changed, it will be changed and we shall do it now!”

 

Smythe can only stand and stare at… at himself…

 

“You look like me, exactly like me,” he stammers, panic and confusion pulling thought upon thought, “How? What exactly are you doing? What are you trying to make me believe? Am I supposed to think this is something you're doing with time or illusion, or both maybe? What are you trying to do?”

 

“I'm trying to convince you of something, but I shouldn't need to convince you that this is time travel. Surely that is obvious?”

 

“Well, I don't believe you! Even if that is the case, then I know I have not been you, so you are supposedly from the future; you're my future. If that is the case then why are you not older?”

 

“Oh, I am older,” Smythe's doppelganger replies, “Much older, although not that old,” it gestures to the fresh earth.

 

“But I saw that very face in the mirror earlier,” Smythe shouts, “You can't be that much older! And time travel is decades away.” He subconsciously waves at the headstone in a horribly vivid 'not in my lifetime’ way.

 

“Oh, once again I assure you we are experiencing time travel right now,” his future self begins to walk slowly around the grave, “I won't bore you with the details but one cannot truly interact with the future, only observe. The boffins I employed found that out first, long before they solved anything to do with looking at the past or traveling backwards. Whilst they ground their cortexes and several valuable machines into the dust I commandeered their forward-viewing to spy on rivals’ future efforts.”

 

“Ludicrous! The oldest line in the book! ‘As soon as I invent a time machine I'll send the plans back to myself!’" mocks Smythe, "Even if in this case you've tried it by stealing plans from the future, it's a terrible joke and you are making it an unconvincing lie, whoever you are.”

 

“Oh, come now, did I say that? No, I said spying on rivals. I went far enough each time, forgive the pun, to give my team a leg up. Now I have this fantastic device and only one thing to do with it.”

 

Smythe realised he had been slowly releasing his breath in an angry hiss and drew it back in, shuddering as he did.

 

“You want me to ask,” he said, “So go on then, what? What is it, this thing you have to do?”

 

A smile. A fidget with the sleeves of his robe. He is at the foot of the grave, a mere eight feet from Smythe.

 

“Why, change my life of course.”

 

They stand and look at each other in silence. It feels like everything has been said, he thinks, and if this were a negotiation Smythe would have called a halt, a break to rest the eyes and consider the facts. But it is not a negotiation, I am the mark, the rabbit in the headlights and I must find my legs. Or my teeth.

 

“You mean my life,” he manages, “Your life by extension.”

 

The smile does not change.

 

“Not exactly.” There is something in his right sleeve.

 

“So this plan of yours,” let's talk, thinks Smythe, talking is good, “It didn't work, why not?”

 

The smile begins to fade.

 

“Time is tricky, fickle, like an animal,” future-Smythe sneers, the smile an unpleasant memory, “I put one foot wrong on my first journey and the beast has not let me forget it, thwarting my every move since. It will not best me this final time.”

 

He's lost his mind, our mind, in this endeavour, thinks Smythe, keep him talking, find this plan of his before it's too late. He suppresses a smile at being too late when time traveling.

 

“What did you do? Step on a butterfly?” damn me, stupid man. But his future self does not notice.

 

“I wanted to see it, to witness the past as I have the future,” he says, “But I didn't realise the past can see you, hear you.”

 

He is angry and begins to move round the foot of the grave towards Smythe once more.

 

“I was there and like a fool I forgot myself and called out…”

 

“Where?”

 

“At the accident of course. I knew he had fallen and struck his head but I didn't know about the bike, or that I would be heard. I saw the bike mount the pavement and I went 'Oi!’ or something crass like it and that changed it all. My uncle, our uncle if you like, heard and turned so he fell sideways, banging his head on the curb. As I recall it he fall backwards and struck his head on one of those studded slabs. The latter was fatal; he should have died and you should have found the letter but you didn't and this whole mess started!”

 

“But you still left the letter,” he replies.

 

“I had already done that!” his future-self barks back, “That was the bloody easy part! I didn't know I'd buggered it all up until I came home and saw the paradox, or whatever they call it.”

 

“So the next letter…” Smythe begins to move away from the grave.

 

“The letters failed!” bellows his likeness, stumbling against the headstone, “Forget the bloody letters! You didn't get them and nothing changed, nothing got better. That's why I figured this out, that's why I worked out how to bring us both here!”

 

“To scare me? That was your plan?” spits Smythe, forcing himself to be more angry than scared, “I'm in a graveyard in my slippers! Next to what might be my grave and a man from the future, who looks like me dressed up as a monk, is monologuing!”

 

Too late he realises he has mixed too much bravado into his act and actually advanced towards this other Smythe. But the mirror image of his face was no long twisted in frustration but instead sporting the begins of a new, leering grin. He feels the knot of frozen anxiety in his gut he had used to fuel his courage melt and travel, quite vividly, downwards. Suddenly something flashes towards his head, missing by millimetres then clumsily swings back, missing again. The torch, until now forgotten in his hand flashes up reflexively in response. It is a flail, not a genuine attempt to strike but it causes his doppelganger to flinch backwards.

 

“You have fouled up our life, never taking the opportunities to change!”

 

“What opportunities?”

 

“You never even saw them, you never will!”

 

“I can, this whole thing is my lesson, correct? I realise now!”

 

“It doesn't matter, you are here now and you will not return to foul it all up again!”

 

“What…? You can't kill me, not if this is all the future, if you're my future…”

 

“You won't die, I won't kill you. I will become you and I will live my life once more.”

 

You're insane, Smythe thinks, and he thinks it has come out of his mouth but it is irrelevant. Again the blur comes towards his head and he cannot raise the torch fast enough. This time it clips his temple and he reels back. Without waiting for the backswing, he just runs.

 

Headstones flash by at thigh-height, threatening to end his flight at any moment. The path seems to recede rather than get any closer. I'm in bloody slippers, he thinks, the bastard's right behind me.

 

By some miracle the expected blow to the back of his head does not land. He can hear the sound of running from behind him mixed with ragged panting.

 

Of course, he thinks, I'm unfit but however much he looks like me he is older, I hope much older…

 

After an eternity, his chest and thighs burning, Smythe reaches the path. His knees protest as he hits the solid tarmac and he slides pathetically trying to change direction. Still he stays ahead, curses filling the air behind him.

 

He can feel his strength leaving him as the small gate and guard hut come back into view. The woman they had seen earlier is checking her tablet, her back to him as he approaches, the dark form of the grave digging machine is powered down a short distance away. The gate is barely twenty yards away. He begins his dash to freedom, wherever or whenever it may be.

 

Somehow the woman notices him, makes a kind of surprised bark and turns to block his path but he barrels past. As he reaches the gate he hears what he assumes is the attendant and his pursuer colliding. He glances back, afraid it will cost him valuable time but unable not to look. The attendant is on the floor, clutching her head, but to his relief his doppelganger has fallen foul of his robes, literally, and ended up in a flailing heap.

 

Smythe takes the opportunity with both hands and sprints away, but his unfit and frankly unused body betrays him. He crosses the road through sheer force of will to a row of houses and folds himself into the shadows by some bins.

 

He must have seen me, he thinks, just please, let him be as knackered as I am.

 

He looks back and to his surprise he is not looking at a dark looming figure but instead he sees an argument. The woman has recovered, his pursuer is rounding on her, a black truncheon-like object in his hand. In any other circumstance the armed man would have the advantage, but if this man is my future self he is as much of a physical coward as I am, thinks Smythe.

 

True to his expectations, as unlikely as it seemed earlier, the man backs off as the woman screams at him, clutching her head and threatening him with the authorities. Smythe sits, panting, watching the surreal scene seeming to grow distant and blurry. The only thing clear is the gate to the graveyard and the path beyond.

 

I have to get back, he thinks, without that madman. Retrace my steps, find the way back.

 

He cautiously re-crosses the road and sneaks through the gate, leaving the argument behind him and painfully running back along the path. He looks up the hill, trying to see where he came from. Eventually he spots the memorial and climbs the slope towards it. He wants to keep running but all he can manage is a stagger. With effort he passes the grey stone thing and reaches the top of the slope, his legs finally failing him as he falls into the floor of his own hallway.

 

I am here, he thinks, I am home.

 

But... it's​ not right. The rug, the pictures, missing. Upstairs, the library.

 

He climbs the stairs like the side of a cliff, clinging pathetically to the banister. At the top he sees the welcoming light of his bedroom seeming to blink on and off.

 

The library, he thinks, that's it.

 

He staggers the last few yards, opens the door and falls to the floor… but he never makes it there...