Author: Alexander Fawn

The taxi driver put on a pair of dark glasses and a peaked cap, pulled down.

He could see that his next customer was a woman in a state of panic. Holding her swollen stomach as she struggled into the rear seat for more room, she explained that she needed to get to the hospital quickly. He said that he understood and would get her there as quickly as possible. She thanked him and sat back, trying to remain relaxed. She began taking long, calming breaths. The traffic was fairly light that evening and he got her there in good time. With some effort, she pushed her arm between the front seats, handing him the fare, before clambering out. She thanked him and waddled off towards the main entrance.

Halfway there, she looked back to give a quick wave. She hesitated for a moment before making her way in. With the front of the building lit up, he realised that she may have recognised him, but it wasn’t likely. They had only met once and that had been for less than an hour.

He, on the other hand, remembered her the moment he picked her up. It was at a friend’s wild birthday party, around nine months ago.

It is fair to say that the young man’s luck changed big time with his new job.

Well, job isn’t really the right word. It was more of a business; a registered business, in fact. It had begun when he was unemployed and his uncle had asked if, for a small gratuity, he would give him a hand one weekend to clear out his shed. Although he was supposed to be helping, it soon became a case of his uncle giving occasional assistance. It was in a really bad state, with most of it being junk. As they pulled stuff out, he initially created three basic categories of things to keep, things to sell or give away, and rubbish for the local tip. It was so successful that the work was finished in less than a day. Afterwards, they sat drinking coffee and congratulating themselves on a job well done. It was then that his uncle had suggested it. He pointed out that he’d seen adverts in the local paper where people were charging a fee for sorting out people’s sheds.

That’s how it started. With his own regular advertisement running in local newspapers, and being proficient in the way he operated, in only a few short months he was doing better than he could have thought possible. In fact, by the end of the year he knew that he was in a position to consider retirement as a definite option. His ongoing gains shedding any worries he might have had about his future.

The clincher came one afternoon, during a particularly large shed sorting job. He was going through old paint tins when he discovered it. Being careful to do no more than gently blow the dust off the lamp, he found a piece of cloth and, again being careful not to rub it, wrapped it and placed it in his lunch bag.

That night, when he got home, he went immediately to his own back garden shed. After spending several moments opening the complex digital padlock, he went in, closing the door shut behind him. He switched the light on and gingerly unwrapped his find.

Holding the lamp by his fingertips, ensuring that it wasn’t rubbed, he approached a metal cabinet. Using his thumb on the touch ID reader, he opened the door.

There, he placed it carefully, alongside the others.

The washer felt a slight movement.

It needed to tell wingnut about it. Wingnut would know what to do. It would wait until the machine was switched off. Then it could report what was happening. It was sometime later that this happened. The noise and the vibration stopped and the workshop fell silent. Moments later, the large shed went completely dark and the sound of the door being locked could be heard. Soon after this, the washer spoke up. It told wingnut of its concern.

“Are you actually rattling?” asked wingnut.

“Not rattling, no.”

“I really wouldn’t worry about it,” said wingnut.

“Should I tell bolt about it?”

“No. No need for that.”

“Surely, he’ll need to use a spanner to fix us, sooner or later.”

“Spanner, you say? No need for that either, I do have wings.”

“Oh! Yes, of course, sorry.”

“I can be tightened by hand quite easily. When you start rattling, I am sure to be made tight again, but thank you for letting me know.”

“OK. You’re welcome.”

He was driving home, late in the evening, thinking about the argument.

Thinking back, he knew it was a mistake to rub the man up the wrong way. He had no idea who the man was. He had caught site of him in the city a couple of times and although he always looked well-dressed, he felt there was something shady about him. That morning he’d been parking his car when the guy in an expensive sports car had blasted his horn, trying to park in the same spot. Thinking back, he was sure he had begun backing into the space before the other man. Anyway, what followed was an almighty row. He was within his rights on the matter and wasn’t in the mood to give in to the man’s bullying and arrogance. The incident had played on his mind all day in the office…

Parking at the rear of the apartment block, he took the lift to the third floor. Entering his unit, where he lived alone, he made straight for the kitchen and put the kettle on. Making a strong coffee, the thing that usually calmed his nerves, he went through to the lounge to sit and relax with it.

It was there, laying on the floor… a handgun!

He couldn’t believe his eyes. He had never owned a gun. Never felt the need. Maybe it was a toy, but he’d had very few visitors of late. He picked it up. Turning it over in his hands, it was surprisingly heavy. It certainly was real. He began to look around. If someone had broken in and left it, had anything been taken?

He began to go from room to room, looking for signs that he’d been burgled.

He was doing this when the front doorbell sounded. He wasn’t expecting anyone, at least, not this late. It could be his neighbour, wanting to borrow something again. Slipping the gun in his pocket, he made his way to the door.

As he did, he hardly noticed the blue light flashing in the street below.

The man opening the door for him was a complete stranger.

As they entered, the man pressed a button on his small, handheld ticket machine. Looking down at the number, the newcomer couldn’t help wondering what it meant. Something told him that his destiny was in some way linked to the number. Without speaking, the door attendant pointed down a long, narrow hallway. He only nodded and pointed again at the newcomer’s questioning frown. Although not well lit, he could see that the passage was very long; in fact, he wasn’t able to make out its end. Still in a daze from the impact and the ear-piercing sounds of the crash, he began to walk forward. He knew this was what he was supposed to do; he just didn’t know why. In truth, he had no proper understanding about any of it. After just a few paces, he found a door on the right. It had an illuminated number on it, but it was not the one on his ticket. He looked back, but the attendant had gone.

Pausing to gaze down the passage, his eyes now adjusting, he could make out a series of glowing numbers on either side, in a staggered formation. Moving on, he found the next door on the left was also lit with a number, but not the one he held. Walking much faster now, he worked his way along for several minutes, checking numbers. Then, with a strange sense of unexpected relief, he finally came to his appointed door. Before entering, he stood for some time trying to remember exactly what it was that brought him here. It was all a blur. There was a great deal that he didn’t know.

He opened the door and walked in…

Everything before had gone. In that moment everything changed. He had changed. Now, small, naked and emerging, he would never have cause to wonder how the usual missing nine-month period had been skipped, or how the timing of it could have possibly been managed.

He would never remember what had gone before, nor would he remember the squeals that he makes.

Sounds both normal and familiar, that now echo through the maternity ward.

He was famous for putting on the most lavish parties; money no object.

Always looking for a different theme, he found himself perusing the second-hand shops, party hire stores and even the occult emporiums. In fact, it was while looking around in one of these last places, that he came across the mirror. He couldn’t see why such an ordinary looking thing was there, among all the surrounding really bizarre paraphernalia that was on offer. A small label stuck on the corner of the ancient-looking frame read; Travel Mirror (5C). This made him even more curious. He couldn’t imagine anybody wanting to take something like this when they were travelling. As he looked around for assistance, he became aware of the fact that he was the only person there. He went to the counter and rang the bell.

After a short wait, a very old woman, dressed in black and moving very slowly, parted the curtain. She gave him a weak smile an asked, “Can I help you?”

“Yes. I’m curious about the small mirror over there.” He pointed.

“Oh! The travel mirror, you mean?”

“Yes. I can’t see how it could be used.”

“I can explain, if you like, it’s only for the inquisitive, really. However, I should tell you; it is rather expensive.”

He shrugged. “If I like it, I’ll buy it.”

She smiled. “It’s a 5C. It’ll only go back five-hundred years.”

“Go back? What do you mean?”

At this point, the old woman came out from behind the counter and made her way to the mirror. She said that a person could travel back to see what they were like in a past life! He was told how it was used in great detail. He thought it would be really great at parties. Despite the exorbitant price tag, He bought it.

When he got home, he put the mirror up and stood in front of it. The old woman’s instructions were very clear. Once positioned on a wall at face-level, the traveller needed to stand before it, then closing their eyes, they needed to call out a year. Any year within the last five hundred. On opening them, the traveller would see themselves as the person they were during that lifetime. This would definitely be a showstopper at the next party he threw.

He started to calculate. He was 25, the current year was 2020, with him being born in 1995… anything before that would do. He did some quick maths in his head again to confirm it, then, wondering about his life immediately before, he came up with the year 1990. He called out the number, “1990”.

Opening his eyes, he found himself looking at an elderly Chinese woman.

After the initial shock of seeing this, he relaxed a little and began calling out numbers in a random fashion. Apart from the occasional repeats, the whole thing was truly fascinating. So many different images; reflections of himself in past lives. Yes, this was going to be the party to top all parties!

This went on for a while until he called out, “1936”.

At this point, Adolf Hitler stared back at him!

He thought, OK, I’ll have to come up with another theme, as he smashed the mirror and dropped the pieces into the dustbin.

Looking at the day’s takings, he realised that he’d taken on the right man for the job.

Business had never been so good. He’d been running guided tours through the caves for over twenty years, but the number of visitors had been dropping off. His previous guide had quit, saying he was fed up with the job and he wasn’t all that comfortable dealing with the public. The new man had been recommended by a friend. He wasn’t at all sure at first because the man applying was a deaf, mute, but with perfectly good eyesight. His friend had rightly suggested that, as a guide, he would be perfect. He indicated that he would need to show them the placard that told them about his condition before the start of each tour. He said the punters would love him.

He went on to explain that from that point on they could take in the sights without any drooling on with superfluous chat about temperature and humidity and how these large, underground chambers take hundreds of thousands of years to form. They’re there to see the place, nothing more. He pointed out that after all is said and done, it’s all in the brochure, anyway. So, no knowledgeable banter, just a walk through the crystal caves.

With numbers going up, it was obvious that for those who could talk, word was getting around.

The age reversal device would take the world by storm, once the wrinkles were ironed out.

It was, in fact, this business of ironing out wrinkles, something the elderly gentleman’s late wife would so often wish for, that got him started on the quest in the first place. As a result, the somewhat eccentric inventor had spent a great number of years working on the development of this very thing in his basement. The aim was to get the entire working model into a small handheld control. However, the first stage of the project, which involved the building of the working apparatus inside a large metal cabinet, had proved very successful. The dish that emitted the actual frequency, what he liked to call the rejuvenation ray, was at that time mounted on the top. Back then, much encouragement had been received with his very early results, when several fully grown chickens had been turned back into chicks!

The years of arduous work and late hours that followed, saw him working to reduce the whole thing down to something not unlike a small tv remote controller. When this was finally accomplished, all that remained was the development of the software that would determine both the degree and range of the age reversal process.

In practical terms, the device only had two controls; a dial for setting the degree of age reversal and an on-off switch. The dial was designed to be set in units of years, from one to fifty. It had been the writing of the computer program that would enable the central processing unit to execute those instructions necessary to control the degree of reversal, that had taken a great deal of time. This was finally completed and at last the point had arrived for him to test his invention.

Knowing that the Japanese Koi fish had an expected lifespan of around 40 years, or even longer, he set about acquiring one that was in its old age. The pet store manager, where he bought it, said it was the oldest one he had, and didn’t expect it would last another year. This he brought back to the basement in a glass fish bowl and placed it on a shelf against the wall. He set the handpiece to twenty-five years, carefully took aim at the moving target and pressed the on switch.

The two events that followed could not have been easily predicted.

The first was that the beam failed to reach the creature, but bounced off the curved surface of the glass instead. The second was that after it went ricocheting around the walls of the basement it hit the controller, causing it to shake violently. This made the old man drop it and stand back, while the device almost instantly changed into a large metal cabinet that had a dish mounted on its top.

He had always been fascinated by magic spells.

His longtime hobby had been to research the possibility of using them. This intense exploration into the little-known subject had finally paid off when he discovered a website that dealt specifically with such things on the dark web. His wife, on the other hand, had considered his spending so much time on something so trivial and nonsensible, said it was a complete waste of time, and had often said so. It was because of this that he had been pottering about in the garden for so long, going over a recently discovered enchantment that he could use to show her how very wrong she had been about his investigations into the subject.

It was almost dark when he came in from the garden.

“You’ve been working out there for such a long time, dear,” she said, as he came through the back door.

He nodded. “Yes. All done now.” He grinned. “I think I’ll just get changed into something more comfortable,” he said.

“OK, dear,” she said and turned to leave the room. As she did, she heard a loud pop. She looked back, just in time to see a cloud of blue smoke where, moments before, her husband had stood.

In his place, there was a large, comfortable armchair.

She began to scream.

His eyes opened and he spent time looking around, taking in the strange surroundings.

He seemed to understand everything he was seeing. This sense of newly found enlightenment was, he thought, perfectly natural. It seemed to be quite obvious that it had been given to him to know that human studies had shown that in the light, rats tend to sleep with there eyes closed. He wasn’t sure how he knew that; he just did. He knew a lot more than this. He knew that the small bowl of water and the bowl of seeds, nuts and green scraps beside it, had been placed there. In fact, the environment itself was not at all normal, but artificial, constructed, prepared deliberately. He knew all this. Moreover, he could see that this entire setting was enclosed in a glass tank.

Scrabbling closer to one of the glass panels, he could see several papers on the benchtop beyond. The heading on one clearly read Artificial Intelligence Programme. There was nothing unusual about the fact that he was perfectly capable of both reading and understanding what this meant!

He was turning his situation, and the part he was playing in it, over in his mind when a much greater source of light, beyond that of his tank, flooded the room. This was followed by two men, wearing white laboratory coats and carrying clipboards, who approached the tank with great interest.

After looking over the notes in front of the tank and referring to their clipboards, they discussed the project’s progress briefly before leaving the room. He understood everything they were saying. They seemed to be very happy with the results. They both agreed that the serum that they had created was most successful. All up, they really were very excited about how it was all going.

After this, he watched them go.

They were absolutely right, of course.

However, he was left with the nagging thought… how could they possibly know?