by S. Hansen
'Oh no, not just Dantan, it learns languages from your understanding of language. The more languages you know the more languages it knows. And the chips communicate so we have a shared collective of understandable languages.'
'Oh good. I was worried I might be able to have a private conversation.' Dantil now able to hear her movements studied her momentarily before speaking again.
'That was sarcasm wasn't it. I think I'm beginning to understand it although I don't find it a particularly helpful use of language.'
Before anyone could respond to Dantil they felt the vibrations of a time ripple spreading through the ship and were thrown to the past. For Dantil this brought a great sense of relief, for every time the time ripple sent him else where he was temporarily cured of the illness that had been troubling him recently. Their world blurred and what appeared before them created a painful and awkward atmosphere around each of them. The room turned white and at the foot of a bed stood Mazar, Polly and Dantil, seemingly unnoticed by Stark who sat next to it. His back arched over the bed and he gripped a woman’s hand tightly. The woman was laid on the bed with her head propped up and she was obviously in pain although she presented a brave face to Stark.
Stark's eyes were red and brimmed with tears that he struggled to hold back as he gazed upon the gaunt woman with green eyes and a scarf covering her hair. He gently stroked the back of her hand with his thumb and spoke in a staggered voice as he continued to hold back the waterfall of tears welling in his eyes.
'It's not fair.' She smiled and leaned towards him so that she could use her free hand to stroke his cheek before she ruffled his hair and spoke in a husky and quiet voice.
'You need a haircut.' His grip on her hand tightened.
'Well I've been a little bit preoccupied lately.' Polly and Mazar couldn't stand by and watch any longer. They felt as though they were intruding on Stark's life and learning things he may never have freely told them. Mazar turned away and headed toward the door with Polly pulling Dantil behind her but as Mazar yanked open the door there was nothing but bright white light. The light was somehow dense and as much as Mazar tried she couldn't leave the memory.
'What am I going to do without you?' The sickly woman tried to sit upright but struggled under her own weight before Stark jumped to his feet and helped her. She reached out and pulled him closer before tenderly kissing his forehead.
'You are going to throw me one hell of a party, then you are going to grow some balls and ask that beautiful girl to marry you.'
'Mum, I-' Just then Mazar caught a flash of what lay outside the door as a ghost like door was carefully pushed open and allowed to close behind the visitor. Stark's mother turned from Stark to the new arrival in the room and she beamed with joy at her presence.
'Here she is. Anna come and sit with me. Adam is a terrible conversationalist, everything is sad and depressing with him.' She beckoned Anna over warmly and patted the bed on the other side of Stark.
'I managed to sneak something in for you.' Stark was unable to look at Anna after his conversation with his mother so he remained watchfully staring at his mother’s movements. Anna sat awkwardly on the edge of the bed and pulled a white parcel out of her bag, before the parcel was even unwrapped Polly could smell what was inside and she longed for home. Stark's mother coughed and laughed at the same time whilst covering her mouth with an emaciated hand.
'You are an angel, the food in here is terrible.' She eagerly began to unwrap the parcel and reveal the golden yellow potato perfectly edged in a crisp brown.
'Did you bring the-' She paused as Anna pulled an array of red sachets out of her handbag with a mischievous grin. '-ketchup.' She turned to Stark as Anna helpfully relieved the sachets of their contents and created a pool of red at the side of the white polystyrene dish. She stared meaningfully into Stark's eyes and subtly removed the rings from her finger. She grasped Starks hand tightly and planted her engagement ring in his hand whilst speaking to him.
'Forget what I said before about the party coming first, just do it now. Don't let anything get in your way. Never wait.'
'Mum.' He tried to whisper to her but the embarrassed surprise in his voice made it carry further. She slipped her wedding ring back on her finger and began to veraciously consume the chips. When a nurse walked into the room abruptly Mrs Stark paused in her eating and looked guiltily at her. She was a merry woman with a pleasant smile that reassured Stark.
'The chips can stay if I can have one but I'm afraid visiting hours are over and I'll have to ask your family to leave.' Mrs Stark gladly offered her a chip and encouraged Stark and Anna to leave.
'I'm tired anyway. You go home and get some sleep.' Anna lightly squeezed Mrs Stark's hand and winked at her with a friendly and sympathetic smile. Stark leaned in to her, kissed her affectionately on the cheek and whispered to her.
'I love you.' These three words dealt another blow to Mazar and Polly's guilty consciences as they regretted intruding on a moment so filled with emotion and sentiment without permission. Despite their presence being out of their control they couldn't help feeling ashamed.
'See you in the morning Mr Stark.' Stark gave the nurse a vague smile before heading through the door. Anna had waited on the other side and comfortingly held his hand as they walked down the long, sombre halls. All the time the rest of the crew felt a force pushing them, urging them to follow Stark through his memory. No matter what they did they were unable to leave him in peace.
'Mazar! What do we do?'
'I don't know! There is nothing we can do but be respectful.'
'This is strange, fascinating and confusing. I don't understand very much of what is happening here but I am still enjoying trying to piece it together.' Mazar mostly ignored Dantil, still feeling she should not interact with aliens, but Polly sympathised with him and tried to help him without crossing any of Stark's boundaries. Particularly as she was unsure of how much Stark was aware of their presence.
'Dantil, this is going to be very confusing for you. I don't know what is going to happen next or if there will even be a next but this is a part of Adam’s life. It’s very personal and it should really only be for his family.'
'I want to understand human families, maybe this will help me. I’ve never talked alone in a room with my mother.'
'I'm not sure that experiencing someone else’s memories without their permission is the best way to do that Dantil.'
'Can you at least explain what has already happened?' Polly sighed as they continued to be jostled along Stark's memory lane, onto the underground trains and across London. Polly caught Dantil continuing to watch Stark and Anna as they sped through the subterranean tunnels and decided that the only way to give them some privacy was to distract Dantil.
'Dantil, remember what I said before about there being a lot of different kinds of love? Well what you saw in the hospital was a really good example of love. Adam's mother was dying in the hospital before, he loves her so he is very sad. But she loves him so she pretends to be better than she is so that he doesn't hurt any more than he already does.'
'But that is not romantic love?'
'Of course not, it's maternal love. Romantic love is what everyone searches for but if you ask me there is no stronger love than maternal. Women do anything for their children. I have studied humanity throughout the centuries and I am still blown away by how much a mother would sacrifice for her child.'
'My mother has never done anything for me… I don’t think she would sacrifice anything for me. Not unless she was told to. I wonder how it feels to have such a bond with someone.' Dantil looked thoughtfully around the train carriage and for the first time really saw the other humans travelling with them. Many of them seemed unwilling to interact with each other but he enjoyed watching the relationships between the passengers that knew each other. Sadly for Dantil the train stopped and Stark rose to leave, still holding Anna's hand.
The crew spent the next hour following Stark to Anna's home, then to his o
wn, followed by both Polly and Mazar determinedly not watching Stark get ready for bed whilst encouraging Dantil to stop watching. It wasn't long before an emotionally exhausted Stark fell to sleep and the two women felt a little relief that they were now encroaching on an incredibly dull memory. Until a ghost like figure sat up right from Stark's sleeping figure. Present day Stark looked at the crew angrily but before Stark could reprimand them for intruding Mazar cut him up and spoke first.
'We have tried leaving but we can't. Something is keeping us here so don't blame us.'
'Well could you not just close your eyes and stick your fingers in your ears?' Mazar rolled her eyes and tried to get comfortable on an armchair in order to take a nap. Meanwhile Polly couldn't maintain the same restraint Mazar was able to.
'I'm so sorry Adam, you looked so sad with your mother. Are you okay?' His jaw clenched and his brows became harsher.
'Stay out of my head!'
'Adam you need someone to talk to, it's not healthy keeping all this bottled up.' Stark tried to furiously stomp out of the room but found himself bound by the same boundaries as the rest of the crew so instead he dove under the blankets and hid away from the world. Polly began to move towards him causing Mazar to open an eye and whisper.
'Don't.'
'Don't comfort my friend?'
'Just leave him alone, he doesn't want to talk about it.'
'How would you know? You don't know him.'
'Maybe not, but maybe my job is to read people.' Polly considered disagreeing with her but as she thought more about the kind of person Stark was she realised she knew very little personal information about him. She realised he had always been unwilling to share anything personal with her. Before she could begin to feel gloomy Dantil had another question.
'Why wouldn't he want to talk about it?' Stark shuffled loudly in his bed and pulled the sheets tighter over his ears.
'Love hurts Dantil, it's not easy talking about something that hurts to talk about.' Polly whispered before finding an uncomfortable spot on the floor to rest.
The following morning Stark was back in his past self and was cheerlessly getting dressed just loudly enough to wake Polly who pretended to be asleep until he had finished. Mazar had already woken up and was calmly waiting in the corner with her back to the room. It wasn't until Stark left his room and trudged down the stairs that Dantil leapt up and trundled after them. Stark only made one stop on his way to the hospital, a small coffee shop that seemed poorly maintained and had little in the way of customer service. He enjoyed the lack of small talk as he received his coffee and Danish before he sat down at a small table to eat and drink whilst reading the news. Dantil could hear the radio playing in the background and began to move closer to the speaker near the counter.
'What kind of music is this?' He looked at Polly with glee and intrigue forcing her to leave Stark's side and allow him some solitude. Mazar had already found the furthest table from him.
'It's just some music that was popular then I guess.' As the song changed Polly recognised it from the first few bars, it was her first clue as to the year they were in.
'Oh I like this music too, it's very easy to listen to.' Polly smiled at him as he unashamedly danced in the shop.
'You know most men normally hate this kind of cheesy pop music but then I guess I should have expected you to be different and enjoy nineteen ninety eight's lack lustre musical efforts.' Dantil continued to cheerfully dance as he encouraged Polly to join him by holding her hands.
'Do you not enjoy this music?'
'It’s not the kind of music you openly admit to liking Dantil.'
'Why?'
'Because it's embarrassing, it's not cool.'
'Why would you want to be cold?' Polly laughed without thinking about how it would appear to Stark and explained a new concept to Dantil.
'I guess that translation was a little too direct. Cool has more than one meaning. It's also if you are a really easy going, laid back, fun person to be around.'
'Oh, well surely a fun person would enjoy anything?' She smiled at his understanding of social interactions and wished more people would be as accepting as he was. Stark stood up abruptly and left the shop to continue on his way to the hospital. However, as he passed through the door his pocket began to ring with a melody he hoped not to hear from a phone again. His hand dove into his pocket and brought out the blocky phone.
'Hello........ Yes....... I'm on leave.......... Fine........ Only that, nothing else.' He tried to hang up angrily but that had always been more difficult and disappointing since literal hanging up was no longer required. He immediately began to head back away from the hospital and towards Albert Embankment. He moodily sulked all the way there with his crew trailing along at as great a distance as possible in large part due to Mazar's insistence.
When he arrived at 85 Albert Embankment he stormily strode into the building and passed through the numerous security protocols to enter the MI6 headquarters. Fortunately for the rest of the crew they were completely unnoticed and able to simply walk through if they kept close to Stark. Stark impatiently tapped his foot as the elevator made slow progress towards his destination. There was an incredibly awkward silence in the small box broken only by Polly clearing her throat in discomfort. Mazar was intrigued to see the inner workings of MI6 as the elevator came to a halt. She had often wondered how other intelligence agencies would compare to Mossad.
Stark ill-temperedly continued to march through the busy office until he reached a large, plain wooden door which led to an office with a glass wall overlooking the rest of the floor. He closed the door on the rest of the crew and stood impatiently in front of an older man. Polly and Dantil had no particular interest in the conversation as Polly had no desire to learn of the inner workings of MI6 and Dantil was disinterested due to his observations of the working relationships of humans. Meanwhile Mazar watched the interaction in the office with great intrigue.
'אז זה מה שקרה' [So that's what happened...] Mazar mumbled in Hebrew forgetting Polly would be able to understand. Polly turned to watch Mazar who seemed to be very focused on the conversation although Polly could hear none of the words that passed between Stark and the older gentleman.
'Surely you can't hear them?' Without moving her gaze from the men, she replied to Polly.
'Sadly not, I'm reading their lips. Which I could do with more ease if Stark would stop turning away.' She frowned a little as Stark's face turned away from her and he spread his arms wide as he gestured in anger.
'Well what do you mean by "that's what happened"?'
'Oh, it's nothing, just a little spy intrigue.' At this point, Stark seemed to become angrier and his hand gestures became more aggressive and rapid. Mazar noticed the name perched on the desk read "Major C. Franks" which was a name she recognised from a few older reports she had read though he had not been a major at the time of their creation. Stark seemed to calm slightly and rest his hands on the back of a chair as he stood staring Franks down. Major Franks opened a desk draw, pulled out a Walther P99 and pushed the gun across his desk towards Stark. This enraged Stark who began to speak loud enough for the crew to hear him.
'No! I'm on leave.' Such insubordination caused one of Mazar's eyebrows to raise slightly and the shout jolted Polly to her feet as Stark turned his back on Franks and stormed through the door leading the way back to the elevator. He smashed the call elevator button repeatedly before growing too impatient and deciding it was not coming. He then burst through the stairwell door and sped down the stairs skipping as many in between strides as he could. Polly struggled to keep up as they were forced down after him. Dantil tried his best to help her down the stairs but Mazar flowed down them with ease and without thinking about the others.
After a determinedly speedy journey on the underground and through the streets of London Stark arrived at the hospital with the others keeping as much distance as they could. When Stark entered the wing his mother was in a cheerful and busy nurs
e welcomed him to her desk.
'Good morning Mr Stark, you're later than usual today.' Unable to conceal his frustrations he simply mumbled in a surly way before proceeding towards his mother’s room. When he turned the corner he knew things were not right. Time seemed to slow as staff solemnly walked out of her room with their heads bowed. He began to feel a lump growing in his throat when one of the nurses almost bumped into Stark and looked at him in anguish as she attempted to speak.
'I'm sorry Mr Stark-' He pushed past her frantically and entered his mother's room where she was laid flat on the bed with no more humming and beeping coming from the machines. He staggered to her side and leant over her gripping her arms as he did so.
'No, no, no.' Without his mother to force him to be strong the tears flowed freely from his eyes and gently fell onto her lifeless body. He continued to talk to her as though she could hear him but his words were broken by the choking feeling in his throat and the need to wipe away the tears with his sleeve.
'I could have said goodbye. I would have been here.' He stroked her hand desperately clinging to the last signs of life she bore, the warmth that would fade.
'Why couldn't you wait for me?' He stood up and angrily paced around the room, combing his fingers through his hair with his tears still pouring down his reddened cheeks. He clenched his jaw and kicked the chair across the room in outrage before falling to his knees and sobbing by himself in the centre of the floor. Mazar had no desire to watch him go through the pain of loss so had turned away and tried to focus on anything else. Meanwhile Dantil watched eager to learn more and Polly found herself unable to look away. She began to move towards him just as the night before and just as the night before Mazar caught her, this time by stretching out her arm and holding Polly's shoulder.