The Time Bubble Box Set 2

by Jason Ayres

  “Can’t you just trust me? What if I promise that I won’t? Cross my heart and hope to die and all that,” said Kent. “And anyway, even if I did, I’m sure you’ve got enough powers to do something about it. Just create another copy and revert to that if things go wrong. Or send me back here and wipe my memory if things look bad in the future. Then I wouldn’t be able to do anything differently, would I?”

  “I suppose it could be done,” admitted the angel. “It’s not something I would agree to, generally. But since you have provided me with a lot of entertainment, I guess I could allow it, just this once.”

  “You won’t regret it,” replied Kent, hoping that he wouldn’t, either. This was a bit of a gamble. He may well not like what he saw in the future, but he felt that he had to find out. His trips to the past had given him a fresh perspective on life that had stripped away the disillusionment he had felt at the onset of middle age. But that was only half the picture. To see what lay in the other direction, the great undiscovered country that was the future, that was truly the ultimate adventure.

  These thoughts brought to mind a very old story, one that had been retold many times.

  “Think of yourself as the ghost of Christmas past, present and future,” he said to the angel. “Scrooge got to see himself in the future, and that turned out alright, didn’t it?”

  “That was just a story,” the angel said. “And if you recall, Scrooge didn’t have much of a future until he decided to change it, which is exactly what you just promised not to do!”

  “Was it just a story?” asked Kent. “I wonder. You’ve been around a long time, judging on what you said the other day about Jack the Ripper. Dickens only lived a few decades before him. Could it be that you paid him a visit and that’s where he got the idea from?”

  “I couldn’t possibly tell you that. It’s a question of client confidentiality,” said the angel. “Even if I had, I certainly wouldn’t have taken Dickens into the future. If he decided to write that into the story afterwards, then it was all down to his own imagination.”

  “Because it was a good idea, that’s why,” said Kent, wondering if the angel really had given Dickens the idea for A Christmas Carol. So many strange things had happened in recent days, he could believe just about anything by now.

  “It was a good story, admittedly,” replied the angel.

  “Look, this is how I see it,” said Kent. “You’ve let me relive my past to come to terms with my present. Now I’m ready to look to the future, but all I need is a little nudge in the right direction. Show me where I will be in ten years’ time, and then I can work towards it.”

  “What if you’re dead in ten years?” asked the angel. “Do you want to spend the day rotting in a grave?”

  “I’m not, am I?”

  “No, you’re not.”

  That was a relief. He had at least a decade left, then. He could achieve a lot in ten years.

  “That’s what I want, then. I want you to send me forward exactly ten years in time from today. Show me the future.”

  “Very well,” said the angel. “But you’ve got to promise me that whatever you see, you will not try and use it to your advantage or alter anything when you return. And definitely no looking up horse racing results! Because I will be watching, and I will come back and sort it out if you do. Are we agreed?”

  “It’s a deal,” replied Kent, and he meant it. The angel’s omnipotence had been wholly benevolent up until now but he had absolutely no desire to get on the wrong side of it.

  “Right then, let’s get started,” said the angel. “Just to let you know, we won’t meet again after this. I won’t be here when you get back, so I guess it’s time to say goodbye.”

  “Aren’t you going to tell me who you are first?” asked Kent. “After all of this, surely it won’t do any harm.”

  “Do you really need to know all the answers?” replied the angel. “Does it really matter who or what I am? Look, you’ve had a fantastic adventure with my help so why not leave it at that? Why not keep an element of mystery about it? Draw your own conclusions and think of me, well, as whatever you would like me to be.”

  “I suppose that all makes sense,” conceded Kent. The angel was right, it didn’t really matter.

  “Well, thank you for all you’ve done,” he added. “I really do appreciate it – you genuinely have changed my life.”

  “You’re welcome,” replied the angel.

  “Keep up the good work,” added Kent. “There are plenty of others in this town who would benefit from your help if you’re planning to stick around.” As he said it, he thought about Kay and the others in the pub. What difference might the angel make to their lives?

  “One final thing,” said the angel. “Make sure you book yourselves a holiday in Cyprus for the last two weeks of October 2029. You don’t want to be around then.”

  “Why not?” asked Kent.

  “I’m not going into details, but trust me; your life depends on it. Now it’s time to go, and remember what I said. Off you pop.” With that, the angel clicked his fingers for the last time.

  As Kent vanished before his eyes, the angel took a last look around. This had been a lot of fun, not just for Kent but for him, too. He may have had a whole universe to play with, but got bored very easily. This had been the most interesting case he had had for ages.

  Where to next? he wondered. Kent was right; there were plenty of interesting cases in the town. He would have to investigate further. But for now, he needed to rest so it was time to leave Universe 1.0 to its own devices for a while. Aware that Kent would return in just a few seconds, he himself vanished. The space in the corner of the rooftop they had shared for the past six days was left empty, with just a plastic lemonade bottle and some leaves blowing about in the breeze.

  In 2028, Kent was waking up in a body that was now fifty-two years old. Surprisingly, he didn’t feel that bad, certainly no worse than he had at forty-two. Looking down at his body he could see it was a similar shape to before. Clearly he hadn’t made much progress in his vow to live healthily. Still, on the plus side, at least he hadn’t put on any more weight. The only noticeable sign of aging was the hair on his chest – it had turned almost completely white. Had the same happened to the hair on his head? That was assuming there was even any left. He had been noticeably thinning on top by his early forties.

  He sat up and looked around. The room was not one he recognised but it was filled with familiar things, notably the old bed frame, black metal with gold knobs on. Clearly they had moved house, but to where?

  Debs wasn’t in the room but there was enough evidence of her around to reassure him they were still together. He could see her usual brand of deodorant, the one she had used for years on the dressing table. He also recognised the little china cats on the window sill, family heirlooms passed on to her by her grandmother.

  Thankfully there was no mirror in the room, so he would be spared the sight of his declining hairline for the time being.

  He could hear a lot of hustle and bustle coming from outside, so he got up and walked over to the window. The curtains were closed, so he pulled them apart, allowing the bright sunlight to flood in. It shed light not only on his immediate surroundings, but also on the location of the room. When he cast his eyes down at the street outside, he found himself looking at a familiar scene.

  It was no wonder it was noisy. He was looking down from a first-floor window right at the High Street of the town he knew so well. He knew immediately by the stalls stretching up the street that it must be a Friday – market day.

  “Get your bananas here, six for a pound,” shouted out a man almost directly below him.

  It pleased Kent to see that in the world of ten years’ time, the market was still going strong. It had been difficult enough coping in the modern world of 2018, let alone the future. He had worried that it might be so technologically advanced by now that he would be completely baffled by it.

  Seeing the familiar and
unchanged shape of the market was quite comforting. The future was not the alien world he had feared it might be.

  From Kent’s view of the street, he could pretty much pinpoint his whereabouts within a house or two. In fact, if the fruit and veg stall was directly below him, realisation swiftly dawned that there was only one place he could possibly be. It was scarcely too good to believe.

  There was only one way to find out. He rushed out of the room, clad only in his usual bedclothes of T-shirt and Y-fronts and down the rickety spiral stairs towards the ground floor. He was almost certain he knew where he was now, as he remembered going upstairs in the building for a drink once, but he had to see for certain.

  He opened the heavy, wooden door at the bottom of the staircase, which was all he needed to confirm his location.

  He was in The Red Lion.

  To his left, lay the bar. To the right was the restaurant. What was he doing here? There was one very obvious explanation, and he knew just how to confirm it. He turned left into the bar, past the bemused and vaguely familiar barmaid and straight to the front door, ignoring the chuckles of a group of pensioners who were sitting in the window seats enjoying a morning coffee.

  He opened the front door, went outside, turned around and looked up. There it was, written on a plate above the door, the glorious confirmation he had been seeking:

  Richard and Deborah Kent.

  Licenced to sell all intoxicating liquor for consumption on or off the premises.

  So it was true. This was his dream job – running a pub! The angel wasn’t going to have to worry about him changing this future. He was more than happy that this was where he was going to end up a decade from now.

  He was shaken out of his reverie by the fruit and veg man shouting over to him, “Have you gone bleedin’ mad, mate? You’ll catch your death.”

  Only then did he notice the cold. The sun was low in the early winter sky and it was decidedly chilly. He went back indoors to find Debs waiting for him.

  “What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing? Go upstairs and put some clothes on straightaway. I don’t want you parading around like that in front of the customers, and certainly not in front of Lauren!”

  Lauren. That rang a bell. Of course, he thought he had recognised the barmaid. He looked up to see an older version of the girl he had not long ago seen drinking underage in here. He had advised Craig to take her on as a barmaid. It seemed Kent had followed his own advice.

  “Sorry, my love,” said Kent. “I must have been sleepwalking or something.”

  “Just go upstairs and get dressed,” she snapped. “We’ve got the first Christmas party of the season booked in tonight and I need you to go to the Cash and Carry for me.”

  He went back behind the bar and prepared to head upstairs. Before he did so, he took a quick look at the restaurant on the other side of the building. It looked fantastic, decked out with rustic-looking pine chairs and spotless white tablecloths. The places were all set out for the evening, with candles and menus on the table. A blackboard on the wall proudly announced, “Debs’s specials”.

  Pan-fried sea bass with lemon butter sauce.

  Aberdeen Angus fillet steak in red wine sauce.

  He smiled and headed upstairs. This was awesome. He owned a pub and Debs had her restaurant, serving far more than mere pub grub. It was everything both of them could have hoped for.

  How had he ended up here? What did it matter, he could work all that out when he got back. He knew Craig was planning to leave. All he had to do was wait until that happened and make sure that it was him and Debs who got to take over.

  Happy that their future was assured, he returned to the bedroom to get dressed. He was very much looking forward to playing landlord for the day.

  The end…but the story continues in the sequel, Rock Bottom, told from Kay’s perspective.

  Rock Bottom

  Chapter One

  December 2018

  Kay was so drunk that she practically fell out of the front door of the pub. Just about managing to stay upright, she instinctively clutched at the clasp of her small, black, leather bag, desperate for a smoke.

  It was chucking-out time at The Red Lion on a bitterly cold December night. The wind was howling all around her as she tottered around on her cheap high heels in a forlorn attempt to light her cigarette.

  Cursing as the wind extinguished each attempt in a fraction of a second, she made for the doorway of the shop next door to seek some shelter. Cupping her hands around her mouth as she leant into the doorway, she finally managed to get the damned thing lit at the ninth time of asking.

  Turning, she began to make her way along the town’s main street, brightly lit by the same gaudy old Christmas lights that the council put up every year. There were drunken revellers everywhere, celebrating finishing work for the holidays. It was the last Friday night before Christmas, a night that she had heard the landlord of the pub refer to earlier in the evening as “Mad Friday”.

  A group of sexy young women dressed up in Santa outfits passed her by, laughing, followed by a group of young men, clearly hopeful of some action. They would all doubtless be heading for the town’s only nightclub, keen to continue the festivities, but Kay had had enough. She had suffered enough humiliation for one night already.

  Things had not gone well in her attempts to chat up various men in the pub and she couldn’t face the likelihood of more rejection in the club commonly referred to by the locals as the “last chance saloon”. It was said that if you couldn’t pull in there, you couldn’t pull anywhere and failure would be the final nail in the coffin of her already fragile confidence. Besides, she had work in the morning. Whatever else had gone wrong in her life lately, at least she still had a job.

  Kay was so lonely that she had sunk to the stage where she would give herself to anyone who wanted to take her home. She did it in the hope that they would make her feel wanted for a few hours and with a vague hope that it might lead on to something more.

  In reality, these liaisons rarely extended to even a few hours. Most of the men she managed to entice back to her flat were in and out in a matter of minutes. As soon as the deed was done, they were off back to their wives and girlfriends, satisfied now they had enjoyed their little bit of extra-curricular fun.

  Her conquests, if she could call them that, were hardly trophies she could proudly display on the mantelpiece. They were pretty sad characters for the most part, fat and ugly middle-aged men who were only interested in her because they couldn’t pull anyone else. Aware of her rapidly growing reputation as the “pub bike”, they were drawn to her not for her fading looks but because they knew she was an easy lay.

  She was just as aware of this as they were, but her self-esteem was so low she still allowed it to happen. The whole sorry situation had been going on for months.

  But now, the offers were drying up. Kay knew she had let herself go to the point where even the desperadoes were looking elsewhere. She was forty-three years old but looked at least fifty. Years of excessive alcohol consumption to help her get through her miserable marriage had taken their toll. She had also taken up chain-smoking again since her husband had kicked her out, after nearly two decades of being smoke-free.

  Living alone, she had seen her diet go rapidly downhill. With no motivation to cook any longer, most of her meals were takeaways, and she couldn’t remember the last time she had eaten any fresh fruit or vegetables. All of these things had contributed to a rapid and premature aging process. Her skin was blotchy and looked unhealthy, while her body was overweight and sagging in all the wrong places.

  These were just the physical signs, but a lack of grooming and personal care had also contributed to the downward slide in her appearance. Things she had once taken for granted, like having her nails done or a trip to the hairdresser’s, were now things of the past. She couldn’t even afford to dye her hair anymore to keep the ravages of time at bay. Consequently, in a very short time her once beautiful blonde loc
ks had become unkempt and greying.

  She could see all this every time she looked in the mirror but tried to justify it to herself as being down to the inevitability of aging. She couldn’t say the same for the state of her teeth, however. She had been meticulous in looking after them over the course of her life, with electric toothbrushes, regular dentist visits and lots of flossing. She had prided herself on reaching her forties without ever having to have as much as a filling.

  Sadly, no amount of care could have prepared them for an extremely unpleasant incident that had taken place a couple of months ago. The wife of a man she’d taken home for a one-night stand had turned up the following day, hammering on the door of her flat.

  When Kay hadn’t answered, the woman kicked the front door in, easily shattering the flimsy lock, and then proceeded to beat the crap out of her, screaming obscenities as she went. Kay had no chance to explain that she hadn’t known the man was married before the woman attacked her.

  The man had conveniently forgotten to mention that he had a wife, but then they rarely did. Kay doubted that even if she had been given time to protest her innocence the woman would have taken any notice. Saying she didn’t know was a pretty flimsy excuse after all.

  By the time her assailant had mercifully departed, she had left Kay minus most of her front teeth. With no money for dental treatment in her impoverished state, she now had no choice but to go around looking like some horrible, toothless old crone. To top it all, her landlord, despite witnessing the woman smashing in the door downstairs, still made Kay pay for a new lock.

  Since she had lost the teeth, she had found men very hard to come by. Perhaps that in itself wasn’t such a bad thing. Deep down, she felt quite disgusted with herself for taking men home with her to the extent that she had. There had been at least a dozen in the past eight months and none of them had satisfied her need to feel wanted in any way. All they had done was selfishly and emotionlessly thrust away inside her with not the slightest consideration of her needs.