dw fic: "Hard Times for Dreamers." (R, Ten/Rose)
Hard Times for Dreamers, Ten/Rose, R, AU of 'Einstein’s Dreams' by Alan Lightman.
Come morning, John Smith will wake up on the ground, sweating, tangled up in his sheets, and trying ever so desperately to cling on to the dream and the face of the falling girl. On his way to the office he will buy a bouquet of roses, but he will not know why. 3, 872.
Written for challenge 40 at then_theres_us
1st place winner!! :D
(Italics are extracts from Alan Lightman’s novel.)
.....
In some distant arcade, a clock tower calls out six times and then stops.
The young man comes out from behind his desk and opens the windows to the stuffy room. The cold morning breeze hits him instantly and he breathes the fresh air like a man deprived of such things. His hair is a mess, and his suit is creased. On his desk sit piles and piles of paper and parchment, as crumpled as his clothes, and equally as covered in splotches of ink.
A little boy screams in the street below and the calm morning is shattered. His brother growls, and they continue to hit one another until their mother sees them and scares them into standing still. The silence is marred in the aftermath and the man moves to sit behind his desk once more.
He can hear the wind rustling through the trees, as people slowly wake up and open the window shutters of the apartments around him. He hears a very quiet and feminine laugh. He hears a low mumble in response and he deduces that it must be the young couple that live nearby.
He yawns. His sleep is haunted by the many variants of the universe. How time could and could not be. It’s intricate unknown being taking his mind on wonderful adventures each night, and leaving him drained and exhausted come morning.
He puts his papers to one side, and leans his head against the cold wood. He closes his eyes and hopes to see her again.
.....
There is a place where time stands still.
He does see her again. Her blonde hair sparkles with raindrops, her lips parted, her cheeks rosy, her hand beckoning him forwards.
Here, where time stands still, a visiting traveller would find himself slowing down the closer he approached the centre of time itself. His footsteps falling in sync with the frozen raindrops that hang in the air around him. The clock pendulums halted mid-swing. You see, here time lasts forever. People do not die and yet they cannot live.
A mother holds her dying child forever, and forever the child holds on. No sadness, no mourning. No fear. The fallen do not fall, and those destined for terrible things, remain, unmarred by actions they have yet to complete.
Couples embrace, never to be torn from one another. They will not argue, they will not say things they do not mean. They will not reclaim items that mean nothing in the grand scheme of things, and they will not find temporary solace in the arms of another companion. Here, the air will forever smell of ozone before rainfall, hands held never to let go, moments kept for eternity.
He thinks it might not be so bad if she were only in his embrace instead of in the distance, arms forever outstretched, unable to touch.
.....
In this world, time is like a flow of water.
The stream is usually slow, but a shift causes the water to quicken its pace, to crash down and flow backwards, and anything caught in its turbulence is thrown back in time. Soil. Birds. People.
In a world he does not recognise that is somewhat reddened in his dream state, he finds himself standing on a street corner with the distinct knowledge that he must hide from this time for it is no longer his.
The people scream such horrific screams; wearing strange garments as they run through the streets crying out in a language he does not recognise. If they notice him there, skulking in the darkness, they pay him no heed.
He watches as a planet burns, each perishing soul’s fate weighed upon his shoulders. The citadel towers falling in the distance, the academy crumbling into debris. A billion years of War, to end today as mechanical voices spread fear in the distance.
A shining world, reduced to dust at his feet, and a finger points and says it’s his fault. Somehow this is his past, his future, his destiny. A surge of agony bites through his brain. His screams join those around him as he desperately tries to tell himself it’s just a dream.
Just a dream, as the ground beneath him gives way and the fires assault his skin.
.....
With a start, he wakes up to find that not only has the clerk cleared away every little mess in the room, but his dear friend Bastian has arrived and is sitting by the desk opposite him, with his feet propped up, careful to avoid his friend’s precious documents on time.
“He’s awake!” Bastian cries dramatically. “John, my friend, how go the theories?”
“In all honesty I’m not sure.” John replies, his throat dry, his mind desperately trying to forget the horrors of War in his dreams. The hairs on his arm stand tall as the sensation of burning ebbs away. He hides his shaking palms under the desk before Bastian can see.
“Well you best hurry up, I’ve heard talk of a young man in Berne who’s catching you up, I think his name is Albert.”
“What does it matter?” John asks hopelessly. “We all benefit from mutual understanding.”
“After all your work, all your hours of pouring over methods and algorithms, you’d honestly be content with another man’s name on your paper?” Bastian blanches.
“Not content, but accepting.” John whispers, rubbing his temple to rid himself of the permanent headache there. Bastian frowns.
“When was the last time you slept? Are you still dreaming those crazed dreams?”
“Yes.”
“And…?”
“And, I haven’t truly slept in a while. But...” He stops, and wonders if he should go on. His friend has accommodated his ramblings so far. “She’s still there. Most of the time. Just, there. Out of reach.”
“Perhaps she is the mistress of science itself, urging you to finish your work.”
“Or perhaps she’s a stranger I bumped into on the street, and my subconscious is intent on taunting me.”
“Or that. Zusammen immer. Tell me, where is your typist? I always enjoyed her company while you slept.”
“She left rather unexpectedly, I am waiting for her replacement.”
“Clearly your chicken-scratch writing finally got the better of her.”
“Yes, I suppose so.” He yawns.
“Why don’t you take a break? While I realise the importance of time in your work, if you are not rested you will never finish your notes to hand them over to the typist let alone finish the paper before this other young boy manages it.”
“To sleep, perchance to-”
“Sleep, John. Go home, and sleep.”
.....
In this world time has three dimensions, like space. Just as an object may move in three perpendicular directions corresponding to horizontal, vertical and longitudinal, so an object may participate in three different futures.
It is snowing; despite the trails of sunlight he had witnessed this morning. He stands on the balcony of his home overlooking the Zähringer Fountain, staring out at the mounds of white ice below. The frigid air bites as his skin and his hands ache as he grasps the frozen rail. He cannot move, he cannot help but stare at the little red hat on the ground, buried in snowflakes.
Should he pick it up? Should he find her, and return it, and let them discuss how grateful she is, how happy he was to do it for her.
He panics that she will not welcome his company. He thinks that she’s been so distant of late and it must be his fault. Her mood will only turn sour, and they will grow to hate one another, he’s sure.
He lets the hat disappear under the blanket of snow and decides against finding her hand in hand with disappointment. Instead, he works hard at his job; he makes good use of his time. He drinks more, and appreciates the finer things in life in a way that only men when grouped together, will ever find comfort in.
He feeds the stray cat that appears on his doorstep daily, until it is no longer a stray. He meets other women, but their hair is too dull, their eyes too close-together, their features harsh and gaunt, compared to the rosy perfection he let slip away.
For a moment he thinks of a red hat in snow, before he moves on with his life and the cat meows in his lap.
In the second world, he jumps from the balcony, grabs the hat and runs off into the cold wearing nothing but his shirt and thin pinstripe trousers. He thinks her distance must be fear-that they do not know each other well enough yet to make snap decisions. That while her mood may be unpredictable; the softness in her face that comes with her smile and laugh is more than worth it.
He finds her at her house in Fribourg. She is welcoming and within seconds of sitting next to her on the couch, he feels his heart beating so quickly in his chest that he can scarcely breath. The hat lies forgotten on the floor as they make love, loudly in the living room. Their friendship is ruined, but for a little while, they think this is better, they think speeding through life is wonderful, and they make rash decisions, move in, play house, until their insecurities get the better of them. Their private self-deprecation destroys the relationship from the inside out.
They eat and sleep, and make love and argue and they scream and scream and scream. She threatens to leave but never does, and he lives for her, and delights in the winter days when she puts on her red hat and smiles as she reminisces. Her blonde locks curl more as she growls older and begin to turn a light white. He is happy with the uncertainty of her love, and the anguish of their arguing. So is she.
In the third world, he decides to see her again. He forgets the hat as he puts on his long winter coat, and only remembers as she opens the door and smiles at his appearance. They talk for hours, and both feel a spark as their hands touch while both reaching for milk to put in their tea. After hours of talking non-stop, she sees the time and must go help a friend. He walks home slowly, smiling still, scuffing his shoes in the snow.
When he opens the balcony doors at night to watch the snowflakes catch in the glow of the street-lamps, he will marvel at the red hat still visible under a thick mound of snow. He will dash downstairs to get it, and it will stay hanging on the hook, until one day, after many years, she will appear, as if out of nowhere, and they will run to one another, desperate for an embrace. They will be happy. She will make sure of it, having found it nowhere else but in his arms.
All events happen simultaneously, all meetings take place, and all futures are real. These worlds are infinite, and contradictory, and choices are made one after the other, every day, every moment, every possibility considered by the universe and adapted from therein.
Nothing is certain, and yet certainty is not lost.
.....
The world will end on 26 September 1907. Everyone knows it.
A year before the end all the schools close. What use is learning when all the information in the world cannot save them from their fate. No careers to fight for, no lives to lead. The end is nigh, and the children spend each and every day playing.
Businesses close one month before the end. Everyone has enough money and food to last until that fateful day in September. There is a strange liberation to be had when everyone is resigned to the same fate. United in hopelessness.
On the last day he finds her. She’s sitting on a table outside of a closed café. Many others have chosen to do the same. Some stand in alleyways, others lie in beds.
“I’ve never seen you accept the end of the world so easily.” She says calmly, as he takes a seat next to her.
“Marry me.” He says, impulsively, for what else is the end of the world for, if not sudden declarations of love.
“Yes. Forever yes. After the end of the world we’ll get married on a beach somewhere in Norway, and the wind will carry my veil off to sea, but you’ll keep me smiling all day regardless.”
He can think of no reply.
One minute before the end, he hears laughter in the streets and all of a sudden everyone is holding hands and skipping in circles as the wind picks up.
“Ring-around-the-roses,” she begins to sing as she grabs his hand and runs to join the many. “A pocketful of posies, a-tishoo, a-tishoo, we all fall down!”
She squeezes his hand, and in return he kisses her. The end of the world rushes up like approaching ground. No sparks, just the nothingness. Time stops, the universe stops, everything everywhere stops.
.....
Suppose time is a circle, bending back on itself. The world repeats itself, precisely, endlessly.
They make love for the first time, shyly undressing one another and exploring new territory with awe in their eyes. They do not know that they will do it again. There is no such thing as rediscovery, merely discovery again.
He does not know that she will dangle at the edge of the precipice time and time again and he will fail time and time again to grab her in time. To hold her hand in his and save from the darkness. She does not know that she will always fall, always. She does not know that she will be born, and go to school, and in her boredom find a man so wonderful and kind and brilliant that will lead her to this day, this moment, as she feels her grip lessen, and her body drop.
Sometimes it takes millions of relived lives to realise that that sense of déjà vu is so much more than an inkling of the uncanny. Not simply an anomaly of memory, but a clear distinct knowledge that this day has come before and that this moment will be preceded by one already seen. Those that know this are unhappy. They are useless instruments in the machine of their fate. Everything bad that has ever happened to them will do so again, and they can do nothing but wrestle with the bed sheets as they toss and turn, desperate for an answer, or better yet, a way out.
.....
Come morning, John Smith will wake up on the ground, sweating, tangled up in his sheets, and trying ever so desperately to cling on to the dream and the face of the falling girl.
On his way to the office he will buy a bouquet of roses, but he will not know why.
.....
Imagine a world in which there is no time. Only images.
A shoe, scuffed and worn. A jacket, dark and faded. A scarf, long and colourful.
A leek...
A journal, tied and bound with red ribbon under the light of a dim lamp. A packet of sweets, opened and offering. A granddaughter staring up at her grandfather in awe. A woman on a beach crying into her mother’s shoulder. The moon reflected in a shop window. A clock. Blossoms on wet grass. Morning dew on cobwebs in November. A never ending library. A swimming pool. A bow-tie. A bicycle.
Bare feet freezing in the snow. A couple lying awake with nothing but the fading blue twilight outside to illuminate the room. One is asleep, while the other basks in the warmth under the quilt and marvels at the steady beating of a single heart. A pocket watch. Eyes flared in sunlight. Dust in sunbeams. A wolf.
Cities in the sky and far too many zeppelins. Sea foam on the shore. Blonde strands of hair left on the pillow, a shaft of light shining on them. An old man and a young man sitting in a café, distraught and upset; unable to comfort one another. A swing. A dog rushing after a cat. A key. A sandcastle mounted with a found feather as its flag.
Their first kiss.
Their last kiss.
A man running off into the distance, alone and troubled, the sun setting behind him. A broken chain. Blue eyes. Brown eyes. The ocean. The stars. The planets drifting caught between one another in the vastness of space.
A rose petal.
Rose.
.....
Bastian finds John miming the piano on his desk. His head on his side, staring intently as his fingers deftly play Beethoven in silence.
“Don’t tell me you’re a classical musician as well? Oh the things I don’t know about you, friend!”
“It calms me, I find it easier to concentrate.”
“And are you playing to a crowd of hundreds?”
“No, just one.” The mood in the room becomes sombre and quiet, so John finishes the composition with its starting key of A minor, and a final authentic cadence.
“Times are hard for dreamers.”
“Les temps sont durs pour les rêveurs.”
“Why am I not surprised that you can speak French?”
John smiles half-heartedly before testing out his most recent theory with his friend.
“I have had a minor breakthrough.”
“In music or science?” Bastian laughs, flicking a speck of dirt off of his shirt cuff.
“I could go into how the two are interlinked but I believe it to be a conversation for another time. I meant in my theories.”
“Go on.”
“Well, I believe the crux of it to be-well, you see people assume, myself included to a point, that time is a strict progression from cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint I believe it to be more like a ball...of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey...stuff.”
“Have you been drinking?”
“No! It’s hard to explain...it makes sense to me, like a completed puzzle, I need only to find the words to put it to paper.”
“Please don’t put ‘timey-wimey’ down on paper. You’ll be laughed out of Germany, and I’ve grown rather accustomed to our new friendship.”
“I’ll do my best.”
.....
In this world, time flows backwards.
They begin on a beach, saying their last goodbyes. Sand sticks to their shoes, they save the world, they are reunited. They are parted. They are together. They go on to have so many adventures, so intimate, so close. They wish never to be separated, until their beautiful relationship ends with him standing there, in the basement of a department store with a different face, telling her to run, and asking for her name.
“Rose.” She has already told him, before he vanishes from her life and she grows younger and younger, until the end at the beginning that isn’t really an end at all.
.....
Imagine a world in which people live just one day. Either the rate of heartbeats and breathing is speeded up so that an entire lifetime is compressed to the space of one turn of the earth on its axis - or the rotation of the earth is slowed...either interpretation is valid.
They spend their day in search for one another, and fail spectacularly to do so.
.....
In this world time is discontinuous.
An argument breaks out in the centre of the square, two men with newspapers discussing politics stop to watch for a moment, pondering on whether or not they should intervene. A dog breaks free from his leash and a child catches his foot on the curb of the pavement and is about to fall.
The world stops.
A punch is aimed, but does not land, a newspaper dropped, but not yet fallen, a child tripping, so far unhurt, suspended.
The world starts again.
A man sways on his feet beneath the blow, and the two men of news and politics leave their papers for the ground, and try to stop the fight. The little boy rights himself at the last minute, and gets away with nothing more than a scraped palm.
The world stops. And starts. And stops. And starts. And....
For the most part these displacements go unnoticed and do nothing to effect the world around it.
For the most part.
He finds her at the edge of the woods. She stands beneath the lamp post that marks the beginning of a public footpath. He loves her desperately but she is so mysterious, and that thrills and scares him all at the same time. He is frightened. He waits for a sign, for he cannot put his love into words.
What he does not know for sure is that she loves him back, wholeheartedly. She smiles, unaware of his turmoil. Time stops. And restarts. Their heartbeats beat the same, their heads tilted close. No change can be seen, but he blinks. A speck of dust on the end of an eyelash, and he’s broken eye contact, and she feels a lump grow in her throat at this change in demeanour. The moment is lost.
Time stops. Time starts. Time stops.
“I have to go.” She whispers in dismay, leaving him alone to wonder why she does not love him.
Time stops.
Time starts.
Time stops.
....
“Finished.” He sighs, pleased to have completed his theories before that Einstein fellow managed it.
“Then I suppose you’ll need it typing up then, sir.”
He looks up and finds the air has left the room. Before him, stands the woman of his dreams-quite literally. Her blonde hair is twirled and placed high in a bun, as small curled strands fall and frame her face. Her eyes are bright and he can’t help but think of the moments they have shared in his mind. Their intimacy, their togetherness.
“You sent a request for a new typist.” She tells him slowly, clearly aware of his manic gaze and shaking palms.
His mouth opens but no words come out. He cannot help but stare. In her hand there sits a pocket watch, its chain twisted around her fingers. A present from her husband perhaps, he thinks.
And forgets, as she crosses the distance between them with a sudden kiss. Her fingers brush through his uncombed hair as his hands drift down the curve in her back. Her lips are soft, and he cannot help but return the gesture, as thousands upon thousands of dreamed scenarios enter his mind in which he has done this, or longed to do it.
“I’m,” he tries to find his voice between her passionate kisses, “Doctor-”
“Yes, you are.” She interrupts before he can tell her his name. “You most certainly are.” She says again, handing him her instrument of time. Her beautiful pocket watch, engraved in the splendour of a foreign language. Somehow he knows it does not belong to her, somehow he both fears and welcomes its anonymous origins.
He hears whispers, he hears voices, and his manuscripted theories of time flutter haplessly to the ground, forever forgotten, as he opens up the watch and marvels in its terror and beauty and knowledge of him.
--fin.
( link to original post )
Come morning, John Smith will wake up on the ground, sweating, tangled up in his sheets, and trying ever so desperately to cling on to the dream and the face of the falling girl. On his way to the office he will buy a bouquet of roses, but he will not know why. 3, 872.
Written for challenge 40 at then_theres_us
1st place winner!! :D
(Italics are extracts from Alan Lightman’s novel.)
.....
In some distant arcade, a clock tower calls out six times and then stops.
The young man comes out from behind his desk and opens the windows to the stuffy room. The cold morning breeze hits him instantly and he breathes the fresh air like a man deprived of such things. His hair is a mess, and his suit is creased. On his desk sit piles and piles of paper and parchment, as crumpled as his clothes, and equally as covered in splotches of ink.
A little boy screams in the street below and the calm morning is shattered. His brother growls, and they continue to hit one another until their mother sees them and scares them into standing still. The silence is marred in the aftermath and the man moves to sit behind his desk once more.
He can hear the wind rustling through the trees, as people slowly wake up and open the window shutters of the apartments around him. He hears a very quiet and feminine laugh. He hears a low mumble in response and he deduces that it must be the young couple that live nearby.
He yawns. His sleep is haunted by the many variants of the universe. How time could and could not be. It’s intricate unknown being taking his mind on wonderful adventures each night, and leaving him drained and exhausted come morning.
He puts his papers to one side, and leans his head against the cold wood. He closes his eyes and hopes to see her again.
.....
There is a place where time stands still.
He does see her again. Her blonde hair sparkles with raindrops, her lips parted, her cheeks rosy, her hand beckoning him forwards.
Here, where time stands still, a visiting traveller would find himself slowing down the closer he approached the centre of time itself. His footsteps falling in sync with the frozen raindrops that hang in the air around him. The clock pendulums halted mid-swing. You see, here time lasts forever. People do not die and yet they cannot live.
A mother holds her dying child forever, and forever the child holds on. No sadness, no mourning. No fear. The fallen do not fall, and those destined for terrible things, remain, unmarred by actions they have yet to complete.
Couples embrace, never to be torn from one another. They will not argue, they will not say things they do not mean. They will not reclaim items that mean nothing in the grand scheme of things, and they will not find temporary solace in the arms of another companion. Here, the air will forever smell of ozone before rainfall, hands held never to let go, moments kept for eternity.
He thinks it might not be so bad if she were only in his embrace instead of in the distance, arms forever outstretched, unable to touch.
.....
In this world, time is like a flow of water.
The stream is usually slow, but a shift causes the water to quicken its pace, to crash down and flow backwards, and anything caught in its turbulence is thrown back in time. Soil. Birds. People.
In a world he does not recognise that is somewhat reddened in his dream state, he finds himself standing on a street corner with the distinct knowledge that he must hide from this time for it is no longer his.
The people scream such horrific screams; wearing strange garments as they run through the streets crying out in a language he does not recognise. If they notice him there, skulking in the darkness, they pay him no heed.
He watches as a planet burns, each perishing soul’s fate weighed upon his shoulders. The citadel towers falling in the distance, the academy crumbling into debris. A billion years of War, to end today as mechanical voices spread fear in the distance.
A shining world, reduced to dust at his feet, and a finger points and says it’s his fault. Somehow this is his past, his future, his destiny. A surge of agony bites through his brain. His screams join those around him as he desperately tries to tell himself it’s just a dream.
Just a dream, as the ground beneath him gives way and the fires assault his skin.
.....
With a start, he wakes up to find that not only has the clerk cleared away every little mess in the room, but his dear friend Bastian has arrived and is sitting by the desk opposite him, with his feet propped up, careful to avoid his friend’s precious documents on time.
“He’s awake!” Bastian cries dramatically. “John, my friend, how go the theories?”
“In all honesty I’m not sure.” John replies, his throat dry, his mind desperately trying to forget the horrors of War in his dreams. The hairs on his arm stand tall as the sensation of burning ebbs away. He hides his shaking palms under the desk before Bastian can see.
“Well you best hurry up, I’ve heard talk of a young man in Berne who’s catching you up, I think his name is Albert.”
“What does it matter?” John asks hopelessly. “We all benefit from mutual understanding.”
“After all your work, all your hours of pouring over methods and algorithms, you’d honestly be content with another man’s name on your paper?” Bastian blanches.
“Not content, but accepting.” John whispers, rubbing his temple to rid himself of the permanent headache there. Bastian frowns.
“When was the last time you slept? Are you still dreaming those crazed dreams?”
“Yes.”
“And…?”
“And, I haven’t truly slept in a while. But...” He stops, and wonders if he should go on. His friend has accommodated his ramblings so far. “She’s still there. Most of the time. Just, there. Out of reach.”
“Perhaps she is the mistress of science itself, urging you to finish your work.”
“Or perhaps she’s a stranger I bumped into on the street, and my subconscious is intent on taunting me.”
“Or that. Zusammen immer. Tell me, where is your typist? I always enjoyed her company while you slept.”
“She left rather unexpectedly, I am waiting for her replacement.”
“Clearly your chicken-scratch writing finally got the better of her.”
“Yes, I suppose so.” He yawns.
“Why don’t you take a break? While I realise the importance of time in your work, if you are not rested you will never finish your notes to hand them over to the typist let alone finish the paper before this other young boy manages it.”
“To sleep, perchance to-”
“Sleep, John. Go home, and sleep.”
.....
In this world time has three dimensions, like space. Just as an object may move in three perpendicular directions corresponding to horizontal, vertical and longitudinal, so an object may participate in three different futures.
It is snowing; despite the trails of sunlight he had witnessed this morning. He stands on the balcony of his home overlooking the Zähringer Fountain, staring out at the mounds of white ice below. The frigid air bites as his skin and his hands ache as he grasps the frozen rail. He cannot move, he cannot help but stare at the little red hat on the ground, buried in snowflakes.
Should he pick it up? Should he find her, and return it, and let them discuss how grateful she is, how happy he was to do it for her.
He panics that she will not welcome his company. He thinks that she’s been so distant of late and it must be his fault. Her mood will only turn sour, and they will grow to hate one another, he’s sure.
He lets the hat disappear under the blanket of snow and decides against finding her hand in hand with disappointment. Instead, he works hard at his job; he makes good use of his time. He drinks more, and appreciates the finer things in life in a way that only men when grouped together, will ever find comfort in.
He feeds the stray cat that appears on his doorstep daily, until it is no longer a stray. He meets other women, but their hair is too dull, their eyes too close-together, their features harsh and gaunt, compared to the rosy perfection he let slip away.
For a moment he thinks of a red hat in snow, before he moves on with his life and the cat meows in his lap.
In the second world, he jumps from the balcony, grabs the hat and runs off into the cold wearing nothing but his shirt and thin pinstripe trousers. He thinks her distance must be fear-that they do not know each other well enough yet to make snap decisions. That while her mood may be unpredictable; the softness in her face that comes with her smile and laugh is more than worth it.
He finds her at her house in Fribourg. She is welcoming and within seconds of sitting next to her on the couch, he feels his heart beating so quickly in his chest that he can scarcely breath. The hat lies forgotten on the floor as they make love, loudly in the living room. Their friendship is ruined, but for a little while, they think this is better, they think speeding through life is wonderful, and they make rash decisions, move in, play house, until their insecurities get the better of them. Their private self-deprecation destroys the relationship from the inside out.
They eat and sleep, and make love and argue and they scream and scream and scream. She threatens to leave but never does, and he lives for her, and delights in the winter days when she puts on her red hat and smiles as she reminisces. Her blonde locks curl more as she growls older and begin to turn a light white. He is happy with the uncertainty of her love, and the anguish of their arguing. So is she.
In the third world, he decides to see her again. He forgets the hat as he puts on his long winter coat, and only remembers as she opens the door and smiles at his appearance. They talk for hours, and both feel a spark as their hands touch while both reaching for milk to put in their tea. After hours of talking non-stop, she sees the time and must go help a friend. He walks home slowly, smiling still, scuffing his shoes in the snow.
When he opens the balcony doors at night to watch the snowflakes catch in the glow of the street-lamps, he will marvel at the red hat still visible under a thick mound of snow. He will dash downstairs to get it, and it will stay hanging on the hook, until one day, after many years, she will appear, as if out of nowhere, and they will run to one another, desperate for an embrace. They will be happy. She will make sure of it, having found it nowhere else but in his arms.
All events happen simultaneously, all meetings take place, and all futures are real. These worlds are infinite, and contradictory, and choices are made one after the other, every day, every moment, every possibility considered by the universe and adapted from therein.
Nothing is certain, and yet certainty is not lost.
.....
The world will end on 26 September 1907. Everyone knows it.
A year before the end all the schools close. What use is learning when all the information in the world cannot save them from their fate. No careers to fight for, no lives to lead. The end is nigh, and the children spend each and every day playing.
Businesses close one month before the end. Everyone has enough money and food to last until that fateful day in September. There is a strange liberation to be had when everyone is resigned to the same fate. United in hopelessness.
On the last day he finds her. She’s sitting on a table outside of a closed café. Many others have chosen to do the same. Some stand in alleyways, others lie in beds.
“I’ve never seen you accept the end of the world so easily.” She says calmly, as he takes a seat next to her.
“Marry me.” He says, impulsively, for what else is the end of the world for, if not sudden declarations of love.
“Yes. Forever yes. After the end of the world we’ll get married on a beach somewhere in Norway, and the wind will carry my veil off to sea, but you’ll keep me smiling all day regardless.”
He can think of no reply.
One minute before the end, he hears laughter in the streets and all of a sudden everyone is holding hands and skipping in circles as the wind picks up.
“Ring-around-the-roses,” she begins to sing as she grabs his hand and runs to join the many. “A pocketful of posies, a-tishoo, a-tishoo, we all fall down!”
She squeezes his hand, and in return he kisses her. The end of the world rushes up like approaching ground. No sparks, just the nothingness. Time stops, the universe stops, everything everywhere stops.
.....
Suppose time is a circle, bending back on itself. The world repeats itself, precisely, endlessly.
They make love for the first time, shyly undressing one another and exploring new territory with awe in their eyes. They do not know that they will do it again. There is no such thing as rediscovery, merely discovery again.
He does not know that she will dangle at the edge of the precipice time and time again and he will fail time and time again to grab her in time. To hold her hand in his and save from the darkness. She does not know that she will always fall, always. She does not know that she will be born, and go to school, and in her boredom find a man so wonderful and kind and brilliant that will lead her to this day, this moment, as she feels her grip lessen, and her body drop.
Sometimes it takes millions of relived lives to realise that that sense of déjà vu is so much more than an inkling of the uncanny. Not simply an anomaly of memory, but a clear distinct knowledge that this day has come before and that this moment will be preceded by one already seen. Those that know this are unhappy. They are useless instruments in the machine of their fate. Everything bad that has ever happened to them will do so again, and they can do nothing but wrestle with the bed sheets as they toss and turn, desperate for an answer, or better yet, a way out.
.....
Come morning, John Smith will wake up on the ground, sweating, tangled up in his sheets, and trying ever so desperately to cling on to the dream and the face of the falling girl.
On his way to the office he will buy a bouquet of roses, but he will not know why.
.....
Imagine a world in which there is no time. Only images.
A shoe, scuffed and worn. A jacket, dark and faded. A scarf, long and colourful.
A leek...
A journal, tied and bound with red ribbon under the light of a dim lamp. A packet of sweets, opened and offering. A granddaughter staring up at her grandfather in awe. A woman on a beach crying into her mother’s shoulder. The moon reflected in a shop window. A clock. Blossoms on wet grass. Morning dew on cobwebs in November. A never ending library. A swimming pool. A bow-tie. A bicycle.
Bare feet freezing in the snow. A couple lying awake with nothing but the fading blue twilight outside to illuminate the room. One is asleep, while the other basks in the warmth under the quilt and marvels at the steady beating of a single heart. A pocket watch. Eyes flared in sunlight. Dust in sunbeams. A wolf.
Cities in the sky and far too many zeppelins. Sea foam on the shore. Blonde strands of hair left on the pillow, a shaft of light shining on them. An old man and a young man sitting in a café, distraught and upset; unable to comfort one another. A swing. A dog rushing after a cat. A key. A sandcastle mounted with a found feather as its flag.
Their first kiss.
Their last kiss.
A man running off into the distance, alone and troubled, the sun setting behind him. A broken chain. Blue eyes. Brown eyes. The ocean. The stars. The planets drifting caught between one another in the vastness of space.
A rose petal.
Rose.
.....
Bastian finds John miming the piano on his desk. His head on his side, staring intently as his fingers deftly play Beethoven in silence.
“Don’t tell me you’re a classical musician as well? Oh the things I don’t know about you, friend!”
“It calms me, I find it easier to concentrate.”
“And are you playing to a crowd of hundreds?”
“No, just one.” The mood in the room becomes sombre and quiet, so John finishes the composition with its starting key of A minor, and a final authentic cadence.
“Times are hard for dreamers.”
“Les temps sont durs pour les rêveurs.”
“Why am I not surprised that you can speak French?”
John smiles half-heartedly before testing out his most recent theory with his friend.
“I have had a minor breakthrough.”
“In music or science?” Bastian laughs, flicking a speck of dirt off of his shirt cuff.
“I could go into how the two are interlinked but I believe it to be a conversation for another time. I meant in my theories.”
“Go on.”
“Well, I believe the crux of it to be-well, you see people assume, myself included to a point, that time is a strict progression from cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint I believe it to be more like a ball...of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey...stuff.”
“Have you been drinking?”
“No! It’s hard to explain...it makes sense to me, like a completed puzzle, I need only to find the words to put it to paper.”
“Please don’t put ‘timey-wimey’ down on paper. You’ll be laughed out of Germany, and I’ve grown rather accustomed to our new friendship.”
“I’ll do my best.”
.....
In this world, time flows backwards.
They begin on a beach, saying their last goodbyes. Sand sticks to their shoes, they save the world, they are reunited. They are parted. They are together. They go on to have so many adventures, so intimate, so close. They wish never to be separated, until their beautiful relationship ends with him standing there, in the basement of a department store with a different face, telling her to run, and asking for her name.
“Rose.” She has already told him, before he vanishes from her life and she grows younger and younger, until the end at the beginning that isn’t really an end at all.
.....
Imagine a world in which people live just one day. Either the rate of heartbeats and breathing is speeded up so that an entire lifetime is compressed to the space of one turn of the earth on its axis - or the rotation of the earth is slowed...either interpretation is valid.
They spend their day in search for one another, and fail spectacularly to do so.
.....
In this world time is discontinuous.
An argument breaks out in the centre of the square, two men with newspapers discussing politics stop to watch for a moment, pondering on whether or not they should intervene. A dog breaks free from his leash and a child catches his foot on the curb of the pavement and is about to fall.
The world stops.
A punch is aimed, but does not land, a newspaper dropped, but not yet fallen, a child tripping, so far unhurt, suspended.
The world starts again.
A man sways on his feet beneath the blow, and the two men of news and politics leave their papers for the ground, and try to stop the fight. The little boy rights himself at the last minute, and gets away with nothing more than a scraped palm.
The world stops. And starts. And stops. And starts. And....
For the most part these displacements go unnoticed and do nothing to effect the world around it.
For the most part.
He finds her at the edge of the woods. She stands beneath the lamp post that marks the beginning of a public footpath. He loves her desperately but she is so mysterious, and that thrills and scares him all at the same time. He is frightened. He waits for a sign, for he cannot put his love into words.
What he does not know for sure is that she loves him back, wholeheartedly. She smiles, unaware of his turmoil. Time stops. And restarts. Their heartbeats beat the same, their heads tilted close. No change can be seen, but he blinks. A speck of dust on the end of an eyelash, and he’s broken eye contact, and she feels a lump grow in her throat at this change in demeanour. The moment is lost.
Time stops. Time starts. Time stops.
“I have to go.” She whispers in dismay, leaving him alone to wonder why she does not love him.
Time stops.
Time starts.
Time stops.
....
“Finished.” He sighs, pleased to have completed his theories before that Einstein fellow managed it.
“Then I suppose you’ll need it typing up then, sir.”
He looks up and finds the air has left the room. Before him, stands the woman of his dreams-quite literally. Her blonde hair is twirled and placed high in a bun, as small curled strands fall and frame her face. Her eyes are bright and he can’t help but think of the moments they have shared in his mind. Their intimacy, their togetherness.
“You sent a request for a new typist.” She tells him slowly, clearly aware of his manic gaze and shaking palms.
His mouth opens but no words come out. He cannot help but stare. In her hand there sits a pocket watch, its chain twisted around her fingers. A present from her husband perhaps, he thinks.
And forgets, as she crosses the distance between them with a sudden kiss. Her fingers brush through his uncombed hair as his hands drift down the curve in her back. Her lips are soft, and he cannot help but return the gesture, as thousands upon thousands of dreamed scenarios enter his mind in which he has done this, or longed to do it.
“I’m,” he tries to find his voice between her passionate kisses, “Doctor-”
“Yes, you are.” She interrupts before he can tell her his name. “You most certainly are.” She says again, handing him her instrument of time. Her beautiful pocket watch, engraved in the splendour of a foreign language. Somehow he knows it does not belong to her, somehow he both fears and welcomes its anonymous origins.
He hears whispers, he hears voices, and his manuscripted theories of time flutter haplessly to the ground, forever forgotten, as he opens up the watch and marvels in its terror and beauty and knowledge of him.
--fin.
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