Wormholes

The weather was cold and windy, he looked around for somewhere to light up

He checked the time. He had time for a smoke. His friend would be picking him up in around ten minutes. He was usually pretty prompt. He moved further down the street looking for a spot out of the wind. He turned the corner and found a wall where he could stand. It was out of the weather. He lit a cigarette and leant back against the wall. Only, he didn’t. He fell backwards and scrambled to his feet. He found himself standing in a very large… no that didn’t describe it, in a huge space that had no visible walls. It just went on and on. His nerves were jangling. The cigarette had survived the fall. With a shaking hand he brought it up and took a puff.

A voice said, “No smoking!”

With a jolt, he said “What?”

Suddenly, an odd looking character was beside him, he repeated, “No smoking in here.” He pointed to a disc on the floor about the size of a saucer.

He was a small man, barely five feet high and skinny. He had extremely pale skin and close-cropped, white hair. He was dressed in a white boiler suit with white moccasins. He said, “Drop it in there if you don’t mind.”

Flustered, the man said, “No. Of course, I didn’t know, sorry.” He approached it. “Here?”

“Yes. Just drop it.”

He did, and it instantly disappeared. He stood gazing down at the disc, while the weird little man looked him over, then looked around at what should have been a wall, but was just a light grey mist. “You must have come through here. Not a problem. I’ll fix it when you’ve gone. How did you find it?”

“I didn’t, I was just leaning on the wall when…”

“Ah! Yes. I see now. A wormhole. We must have missed it.”

The man looked around. “What is this place, it’s…

“It’s hard to understand, I know. We do get occasional visitors, not many…” He looked back at where a wall should be, where something would need to be done. “Not many, but it does happen.”

Looking back at the disc, he said, “And that?”

“Wormhole, naturally. A small one.”

“And this place, what is it?”

“Ah! I’m happy to tell you, but you wouldn’t understand. We do get the odd visitor that gets a bit of a guided tour, but only when we have time. You’ve caught me at a bad time, I’m afraid. Anyway, I assure you it’s all a bit pointless, as you will have no memory of any of this when you return.”

“No memory, you say?”

“None whatsoever.”

“Oh! Well, in that case… someone’s picking me up.”

“If you’re concerned about the time don’t be. Time stops in here; for you, that is.”

The man looked around again, trying to take in what he saw. “Before I go, can you just give me a clue?”

“A clue? How quaint. At least you’re asking. OK. A clue. OK. Rats.”

“Rats, is that it, rats?”

“Yes. It’s more than a clue really. The rodent brain is quite remarkable, rats are extremely intelligent. We love watching them. We’re in the process of giving the planet, your planet, a complete makeover.”

“You are? You can do that?”

“Definitely, we can. Who do you thing put all that together? All that out there, I mean… um, OK, you have all sorts of belief systems, we know that. Yes, rats. They are very bright and so entertaining. You guys are far too serious.”

“About?”

“Everything, really. You’ve made everything so complicated. It’s like I said, you just take everything so very seriously.” He shrugged and shook his head. “Your breed never seemed to cotton on to the fact that with so many of you all striving for self-importance, it brings about this ghastly condition where you take yourselves much too seriously. At the end of the day, you’re just not much fun to watch.”

“Watch?”

“Of course, watch. That was the whole idea. We just want a good show.”

“OK, and us, what happens to us?”

“You’ll be gone, I’m afraid. Please don’t worry about it, you’ll know nothing about it. You won’t feel a thing, besides, look!”

At this, he pointed to something behind the visitor. With a firm but not unfriendly push, he found himself back out on the street, stumbling forward. He didn’t fall over but he had trouble keeping his balance.  He looked around to see if he’d tripped on something, but the pavement was clear. He checked the time again, nearly ten minutes before his ride.

He leant back against the wall and lit a cigarette.