Hey Mortality

by Kinsella, Luke

  I brushed myself off, before sweeping up the sand into a small pile. At that point, I noticed that there was no sign of the shiny black sphere. Perhaps after serving its function, it simply disintegrated into that fine yellow powder, that pile of dust; remnants of the machine.

  I searched my coat to check I had all of the belongings I had with me when I took the leap. It all looked good. It appeared the first step was a lot easier than I had expected. Time travel, it seemed, was a very simple thing.

  After my headache subsided, I started to wander down the corridors of the hospital, peering into each room when I got the chance. I wasn’t entirely sure who I was looking for, be it a man without a face, or a younger version of the Duck Man. I would figure it out though, he had told me that himself.

  For no reason, other than my own instinct, I stopped at room 405. Peering through the murky window, I could make out the shape of a figure resting quietly on a bed. The figure didn’t appear to be moving though, but a monitor beside his bed showed a steady heartbeat. I knocked lightly. After no answer, I pushed the door slightly ajar, allowing me just enough space to poke my head through the gap.

  The room was absent of any distinguishing features. The walls that were perhaps once white had become stained yellow from cigarette smoke. The bedside table was absent of any flowers, fruits, or get well cards. Only a small glass of water sat peacefully; the glass half full, the water steady. It could have been that the glass of water had been untouched for days. Finding the room absent of any doctors or nurses, I wandered inside slowly, carefully letting the door close without causing a disturbance.

  I walked over to the bed and immediately I realised that something was not quite right at all. In fact, I would go as far to say that something was very wrong indeed. I stood in shock. My body started to shake, the glass of water remained perfectly still. There was no earthquake, it was something else. My body physically changed as fear or confusion swept through me like a sickle carried by Death himself.

  The man that lay before me was no other than the Duck Man; of course it was, that’s why I had travelled through time, to save him. But the man in that hospital bed was the same age as the man I had met in Beppu. The very same person, perhaps. The man that should have looked thirty-eight years younger, but didn’t.

  It began to dawn on me that everything in the hospital, the whole charade about travelling to Beppu, receiving the card about finding answers, that all of it was actually some elaborate prank. A hidden camera television show, where the poor unsuspected victim is set up and made to look like a fool.

  “He actually thought he travelled back in time!” the studio audience would say, laughing through white teeth and every word.

  “This guy is so stupid, believing a story like that!” an announcer would say, accompanied by huge flashing subtitles of various different colours and sarcastic remarks.

  Cut to an image of me sat on a sofa in the television studio. My face highlighted in horror as I watch the video played back before me. What a fool I look. How could I fall for such a ridiculous trick?

  As those solipsistic thoughts of conspiracy drifted through my head, I found myself looking around the room for a camera or some sort of microphone, but there was nothing there. Just a small window, white curtains, bare walls, bedside table, Duck Man, monitoring equipment, and a bed. Nothing else of any interest.

  I tried to make sense of things in my head. Looking for something that might have been wrong or out of place, something that might be able to clarify the reality of the situation, or to give confirmation that what I was experiencing was indeed a hoax.

  The previous few months played over and over in my head. A Day in the Life returned to the turntable, needle stuck, waiting once again for someone to intervene, someone to change the record, someone to end the mess of a mind that I had allowed myself to get lost within.

  As my thoughts began to settle, I took in my surroundings once again, with logic and reasoning. The man before me was unmistakably the same person I had met before, his features were identical. He had to be an actor, or at the very least, the same person. Perhaps I had travelled back in time, and maybe I did save him. Maybe the man somehow managed to live for eternity, surviving on the magical healing waters of Beppu. But all of that seemed unlikely. There was only one way to be absolutely sure.

  I left the room, carefully closing the door just as quietly as I had opened it. I walked the long corridor and eventually found an exit.

  My thoughts kept drifting as I left the hospital. I had to find a large group of people and ask them what year it was, it was the only way. If it was a television show, then everyone couldn’t be involved. That would have been impossible, the costs would have been too high. I had to get as far from the hospital as possible, and find out for myself. If, however, everything was real, then what would happen to me? Would my life have to follow a set path, like I was always fated to do the same things that the other version of me once did. Presuming the timeline had always been like this, there would have always been another me at this hospital. If the Duck Man was alive in Beppu in the future and said I would save him, then surely I always ended up coming back in time to save him. Or could I disturb time, change it even? I was either imprisoned by fate, or free from the shackles of time.

  Suddenly, a heavy sound filled the air all around me, like an air horn blasting into my ears. I looked to my right to see the front of a highway bus. My whole body crumpled under the pressure, my thoughts became enveloped in numbness, and just as quickly as when I made the leap through time, everything around me faded into a thick dark sea of black.

  ***

  I woke to the sound of beeps and chimes. Opening my eyes, I could see that I was in a hospital bed, in a room of similar size to before, and with equally stained yellow walls.

  A nurse leant over to me.

  “Good,” she said with a smile, “you’re finally awake.”

  “Where am I?” I asked, my mouth hoarse.

  The nurse realised this and poured for me a glass of water. I sat up slightly in bed, and she handed me the glass.

  “Beppu Hospital, Kyūshū,” the nurse told me, maintaining her cheerful expression.

  I took a sip of water.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “You stepped out in front of a bus, that’s what happened.”

  The memory returned to me, crashing through the back of my skull, and deeply embedding itself into my brain; almost like the bus had done.

  “Don’t worry, you survived with barely a scratch. People are saying it is a miracle that you aren’t dead right now. A man from the local newspaper had been waiting around for a few days to get the scoop, but he’s gone now, perhaps the story couldn’t wait that long.”

  I assessed my body, slowly moving my hands delicately down the right side of my chest. My ribs didn’t feel as if they had been broken, there were no signs of cuts or stitches. I felt better than ever actually.

  “How long have I been like this?” I asked.

  “In the hospital, let me see,” the nurse said, as she reached for a small notepad and leisurely flipped through its pages. “You’ve been here almost eight days now.”

  Eight days? I suddenly remembered the Duck Man.

  “I came here to see a friend, he was staying in room 405, if I remember correctly.”

  A solemn look wiped away the nurse’s smile.

  “I’m very sorry, sir,” she said, but judging from her expression, I already knew what was coming. “Sadly, Mr Leary passed away five days ago. I am sorry you have to hear the news now. You must still be in shock from your own accident.”

  “That’s okay,” I told her, just as a familiar wave of confusion began to return.

  “Mr Leary had made arrangements for his own funeral, I can supply you with the details later if you would like. I believe he is being buried tomorrow. The cemetery is close by actually.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Will I be able to attend the funeral? I’m n
ot even sure if I am able to walk.”

  “As far as the tests have shown, sir, there is nothing wrong with you other than the odd scratch. Like I said, it’s a miracle.”

  “Thank you again,” I told the nurse.

  “Look, we found a rather large amount of money in your jacket. We thought about reporting it to the police, but decided to speak to you first. Perhaps you had that amount with you so you could pay for Mr Leary’s funeral arrangements?”

  “Something like that,” I said to her.

  “You must have known he was close to the end, the other doctors and I, we don’t think we’ve ever seen anyone as sick as Mr Leary, not since this hospital has been operating, that’s for sure.”

  “He was a very sick man,” I found myself saying, despite not having any real knowledge of this Mr Leary person. All I knew is that he had the same face as the Duck Man, and I failed to save him.

  “Nurse, I have one last question.”

  “Sure, anything,” she said, her smile finally returning.

  “What is today?”

  “Tuesday.”

  “Like, what is the date?”

  “August 16,” she said.

  Eight days after I kneeled on that beach with the Time Stone. I hesitated to ask the next question, but somehow the words came out anyway, “What year?”

  The nurse paused for a second. Perhaps she thought this was an unusual question, perhaps she had been asked it many times before. I imagine it is not uncommon for people to be disorientated after a serious accident and not know the year.

  “Today is August 16, 1977,” she said, the serious expression on her lips possibly confirming that I might have actually travelled through time.

  “Today is the day that Elvis Presley died,” I told her. “Aged forty-two.”

  “I don’t know who that is,” said the nurse. “Look, if you need anything at all, just push this button.” She handed me a small device with a little red button on its surface.

  “Okay, thank you very much.”

  “Please take care and rest now, I will be back in two hours anyway to change your medication. We just have to run a couple more tests now that you’re awake, and then you should be free to leave.”

  “Thanks again,” I said.

  With that, the nurse left me alone, giving a small wave as she exited the room.

  ***

  Duck Man’s plot was easy to find; the soil still loose from his recent burial. Words were carved into the headstone that loomed over him, casting a shadow on the dirt that housed his decaying flesh, it read:

  Timothy Leary

  Born. 1912

  Died. 1977

  The gravestone featured no other text, no flowers, just a dark grey stone with simple carvings. The plot of land was generous, and sat inside a small cemetery close to Beppu beach. Presumably, it was what he would have wanted. The nurse had provided me with the details of the funeral, but I was unable to attend; too many tests to confirm that I was a healthy twenty-eight-year-old human being.

  As I stared at the grave of the Duck Man, a certain sadness washed over me. Not caused by the demise of a fond friend or relative. I could only put down my emotional state to that of my own failure. Failure to save the man. Failure to complete my task.

  Planted in the middle of the Duck Man’s plot was a small apple tree. Oddly, this is something I had always wanted for myself. Perhaps not apples, but a tree all the same. I had always liked the idea that a tree planted with the body of the dead would feed on the nutrients of the decaying human, and would continue to grow. As if life continued on, somehow. Perhaps this is why he chose an apple tree; its fruits would spread to other surroundings, to the birds, to the other life all around, to the skies and the ground.

  Being buried after I died would perhaps be seen as an unusual practice, cremation is the more popular choice. But being turned to a pile of ash always felt wrong to me. The earth feeds from itself, and ash offers no sustenance.

  I paid my respects, let out a whimpered apology, before wandering the cemetery in search of an exit.

  ***

  Next to the cemetery was a small children’s play park, deserted on that quiet August morning. I took a seat on one of the swings.

  When I was little, my father would often take me to that sort of place. A nice park with no greenery, just concrete containing swings and a slide. He would push me on the swing, pushing my back with his hand, me shouting at him to let me fly, higher and higher. Thinking about those days brought me more sadness. I thought that in this world now, I am not even born. My father and mother haven’t even met. Fate will eventually bring them together, I was sure of that. As time goes on, so to do the events that make up its fabric. The events weaved together by happenings that are destined to take place.

  I sat on the swing for a while, closing my eyes, being whisked off to that place in the past, with my father, or perhaps that place in the future.

  A thought hit me. When you’re on a swing with your eyes closed, you could be anywhere in the journey of your life. Any time you are swinging, the experience is almost always the same. The only thing keeping you bound to where you are, where I was then, are memories. If I close my eyes I can transport myself to any time in the past, or future, to any time I have enjoyed being on a swing.

  Darkness, swinging; nothing else changes.

  I cycled through my life on swings. Days with my father in Tokyo. Sitting side by side with my very first girlfriend at eighteen, beer cans scattered on the ground. Swinging when I had nothing better to do on another lonely Sunday afternoon as an adult. And then, deep in the past, swinging after visiting the grave of a man I wouldn’t meet for thirty-eight years.

  I opened my eyes, hoping to be back in Tokyo, at any of those other times that weren’t 1977, but it didn’t happen like that. In the distance I could see the trees that loomed over the bodies of the dead. The crows waiting for the deceased to rise. The air quietly scented by the sulphuric smell of Beppu.

  I was alone there. In that time. No reason to continue obsessing over Lucy, no more talks with Jun, and no more working for my father’s company. No more family and no more friends. Just me, alone in that place, a place that only exists as a time in their history. Trapped forever in that strange past.

  I will always be in someone’s past though, I realise. And so too will everyone else.

  ***

  The next few days drifted by without much event. I was still finding it difficult to accept that I had travelled back in time.

  Beppu in 1977 was bleak. The indoor shopping arcade remained desolate and empty. If there was a bar with a Harley-Davidson outside, it was doing a good job of remaining hidden. I considered going back to Tokyo, but in honesty, there was nothing there for me either.

  Using my counterfeit identification, I opened up a bank account and arranged to meet with a financial advisor. I handed him four million yen in crumpled bus crash bills, and gave him a list I had prepared that featured the names of some small start-up companies that I knew would have success in the near future. A thought struck me when going through that process, that my father spent a lot of time developing technology to prevent fake banknotes, helping to remove them from circulation, and there I was, cheating my way to riches. Fake passport, fake birth certificate, and an unfair knowledge of the financial markets.

  I still had one million yen to spare, so that would be used for my survival for the next few months. Eventually, I would make enough money that I would never have to worry about my finances ever again.

  After getting my investments in order, it was time to reflect. There I was, trapped in 1977. My future uncertain to me, but perhaps already mapped out by a previous incarnation of myself. All there was for me to do was enjoy my life, despite my failure to keep the Duck Man alive.

  ***

  The months sailed past, and I left the sulphur of Beppu, and moved north, to Fukuoka. I spent most days there simply overindulging in alcohol and food. There wasn’t a lot else
left for me. I would keep my eyes focused on the markets, every now and again I would call up my financial advisor and have him shift some of my investments. I sold the ones that I had profited from, and reinvested most of the proceeds into my next venture.

  At twenty-eight I was still young, and with a wealth of knowledge of future events, I was always tempted to use it to my advantage to get with girls. I never did, however. If I started predicting earthquakes or volcanic eruptions or politicians’ untimely deaths or the next person to be kidnapped by the Koreans, people would start thinking that I was some kind of shaman. History tells us that witches get burnt.

  As it turned out, the women in 1977 Fukuoka were somewhat freer than 2015 Tokyo. I never needed to lie or trick my way into a woman’s arms, and a series of meaningless one night stands followed. All the while though, Lucy was there, like an itch, somewhere in the back of my mind. Loveless sex, late nights and parties. Life was good, but always seemed to lack any real purpose or direction.

  Despite drinking every day, and being able to enjoy myself thoroughly while inebriated, the next day I would never once get a hangover. Like the nurse had said back at the hospital, it was like a miracle. It was as though I was invincible to any bad feeling, untouched by pain or excessive alcohol consumption.

  ***

  As time went on, I grew even more curious. I wondered just how far I could take it. Whether I could actually be hurt or feel pain, I wasn’t even sure any more.

  I recalled a conversation that I had had with Jun, thirty odd years from now. We were talking hypothetically about what special ability we could have, if any. One wish. Jun had chosen the ability to speak every language in the world, at native ability.

  “That sounds like a bit of a waste,” I had told him.

  “Think about it. You could speak every language in the world. You could get any job anywhere as a translator, work for rich Saudi princes, translate for the Prime Minister, be able to communicate with women from anywhere on the planet. You could enrich yourself in culture you would never have been able to understand. If people were talking about you on the train in their native tongue, then you could flash them a glance that told them you understood, just for the satisfaction of seeing the shock on their faces. You could listen to songs in any language, songs you wouldn’t have understood before in your wildest dreams. Read thousands of years of untranslated literature. The opportunities would be endless.”