Sunday 5th February
So much time has passed, and I haven’t written in this diary for months. The time room has made such a difference to my life! Spending twenty-four hours in it at a time has worked very well. I get a few extra days each week in which to paint.
All the practice is paying off. My teacher says I’m improving in leaps and bounds. I’m trying to spend time learning about art, too. The staff at the local library think I’m a very fast reader.
I spilled turps all over one of the library books last week. All I had to do was leave it in the room, step out, and watch the turps leap off the book back into the jar. A few times I’ve let paintings un-paint, when I wasn’t happy with the way they were progressing. And once I changed the positions of all the books on the shelves so I could watch them shuffle back into their places. (I can’t take them out, though. They won’t go past the doorway.)
There’s another, unexpected blessing with this room. I never have to clean it up!
It’s easy to lose track, however. I forget things people told me because more time has passed for me than they know. Referring to ‘yesterday’ can be confusing. Every day I check my computer to make sure I know which day of the week it is.
Thursday 18th May
Good news!
The paintings I took to Impressions Gallery last week have sold. The manager rang today. She wanted more so I brought another five down after work. I took some of my surreal ones as well, just to test the waters. She said she didn’t know if they would sell, but that she’d show them to a few people who liked that sort of art.
It’s nearly a year since I moved in. It seems much longer. When I was looking through my paintings to see which ones to take to the gallery I was amazed at how much I’ve improved. I’m quite ashamed of those early attempts from June—and tempted to throw them away.
Monday 10th July
Michelle from Impressions rang again today. She wants more surreal paintings! She suggested an exhibition, and says the gallery has had a cancellation for a week’s hanging time for the second week of August. I asked how many paintings I’d need. She said at least thirty. Thirty! I told her I would only need to do a few more, but in truth I’ll have to do over twenty paintings in four weeks!
I just worked out how much time I’d need to make up thirty paintings. I can probably have them done if I spend one day in the time room for every day outside. I’d also like to try a few ideas for larger paintings. I’d never dared to do them before, but now that I know people are interested …
Saturday 22nd July
Two weeks have passed and I’ve only finished five paintings, including one big one. At this rate I won’t have thirty done before the exhibition, but I’m not worried. I have all the time in the world.
Sunday 6th August
The exhibition was a success! You would not believe the number of people who were there. I owe it all to my new agent, Michelle, who must have sent invitations to the whole world. I was even interviewed by a man from the Age!
Half the paintings sold on the opening night. I hadn’t paid any attention to the prices Michelle had placed on them. Suddenly I have ten thousand dollars to play with. Michelle said the rest of the paintings will sell in the next few weeks when word gets around about this ‘dynamic new artist’.
At last all the hard work is paying off! People like my paintings. I’m going to be famous!
Sunday 23rd July
Has it really been five years since I moved into this house? It seems far longer. It is longer.
People have been telling me I look tired and pale for weeks now. I thought it was from spending so much time indoors. I certainly don’t get as much exercise or sunlight as I used to. I’ve put on a little weight and I’m not as fit as I used to be, but I feel fine. It wasn’t until Mum said I had matured very fast in the last few years that I realised what might be happening. So I had a good look at myself in the mirror today.
I’m ageing. I don’t feel any older than thirty, but I look it. My skin is drier and creased. My cheekbones are more prominent. My eyelids are different, too. Saggy. There are a few strands of white in my hair.
I tried to estimate how much time I have spent in the room. More than a day for a day. More than two, sometimes. Weekends might have stretched to a week. During times of inspiration, I came out only to go to the toilet. I’ve often wished that whoever had created the room had included one. Often I went into the time room so laden down with food that I could barely carry my painting materials as well.
If I’ve spent a day inside for every day outside, then I must be thirty-five years old!
Monday 24th July
I haven’t entered the room since Sunday. I’m worried that I’m addicted to it. The side-effect of this addiction is premature ageing. I have to think about what I might miss if I continue living this way.
Like a boyfriend or husband. It sounds terrible, but I’ve been single for ten years. Oh, I’ve had a few brief relationships, but I was afraid to get too close in case they found out about the room. And children. But I’ve never felt any great desire to have any, really. I assumed that a day would come when I’d know it was time to do the husband-and-kids thing, but that day hasn’t come yet. Perhaps it never would have, whether I’d found the time room or not.
I think I should spend some time away from the room and try to sort out what I want from life.
Sunday 27th August
I’ve started a new series of paintings. It sounds corny, but they are of clocks and time pieces. They’re realistic and intricate, and take many weeks to complete. The first one I did was of women lying in a circle with their feet touching. The woman at one o’clock is young. The woman at six is middle-aged. The woman at twelve is old. I painted the hour-hand at four and the minute-hand at twelve. All the woman have their arms around each other’s shoulders.
After this one I did the same thing, but developed it further. The young woman is larger, brighter and a little blurred and faded. The middle-aged woman is in focus, but smaller. The old woman is smaller still, and in shadow. The effect is of a flat cod slowly retreating into the distance.
I see time symbols in everything. I was inspired when I looked down at my tools and saw that a paint tube with a pear-shaped spurt of paint below it, looked like an hourglass. I did a picture of this, too.
The hourglass shape is in everything. I paint thousands of them, in miniature, to make up large, ordinary objects. I paint enormous hourglasses with thousands of ordinary objects inside them. My favourite is of a giant hourglass with a crowd of women standing inside the top half. One is diving gracefully through the aperture. Below her is a mound of sleeping, contented women.
Tuesday 5th March
Michelle gave me yet another cheque today. I didn’t know what to do with it. I have all the paints I need, and the house is full of nice furniture. She suggested I buy a sports car, or a home entertainment system, or go on a holiday, and I nearly took her advice.
But then I thought: why bother? I don’t drive much any more, and I wouldn’t use the home entertainment system. I don’t want to leave my house to go anywhere. I have everything I’ve ever wanted. I told her to send the money to a charity.
Since I gave up work I don’t see people very often. I don’t want to leave my house. I’m afraid people will discover my room while I’m gone, or that people will wonder why someone in their mid-thirties, who doesn’t drink or smoke and didn’t spend their youth trying to get a good tan, looks like someone in their sixties.
There’s only so much that creams and powders will hide.
Friday 19th May
I’ve become quite morbid lately. I’ve started wondering what would happen if I died in the time room. If I had been taken in there by someone else, would I come alive again if they left the room without me? I guess I’ll never know. I’ve never shown anyone else the room, and I don’t intend to.
No one can enter after I do, however. Time does not pass in the outside world whi
le I’m in it, so there is no way someone can happen upon the room and open it, thus discovering my body.
But if I died in there, and the room remained ‘activated’, time would keep stretching out. Would that moment keep expanding forever, or would there come a point when the ‘bubble’ of time would burst?
Or is the room set to expel its contents if the person who activated it died in there?
Wednesday 12th November
I haven’t written in this diary for a long time. As always, I was afraid my family would find it if I took it to hospital with me. They might read it in the hope of finding a reason for my mysterious ‘disease’.
I wish I didn’t have to put up with these tests, but I can’t pretend that there isn’t anything wrong with me. The doctors have decided I have a rare ageing disease. Accelerated ageing syndrome, they call it. The same disease suffered by those sad little children I’ve seen on television. It’s something they’re born with. The doctors are really puzzled about me, since I appear to have manifested the syndrome in my forties. And what really has them perplexed is that I should have something wrong with my genes, but I don’t.
They’ve finally decided they can’t do anything about it. So they sent me home and encouraged me to make the most of my life, doing the things I enjoy. Like painting. Mum and Dad come around every day or so. I wish I could tell them the truth, but I can’t risk it.
Though the room won’t be of use to me for much longer, I don’t want it to fall into the wrong hands after I’m gone.
I’m enjoying spending more time with my parents, though. I haven’t seen as much of them as I might have if I hadn’t discovered the time room. And we have more in common now that we’re almost the same physical age.
Friday 14th July
Michelle visited me here in hospital today and brought me my diaries, as I had asked. She told me that I had won an award. The hospital staff made a big fuss, which was nice. Michelle told them that my paintings are hanging on walls all over the globe. I like the thought that my art has travelled to far-off places. Nobody will ever know how much work and sacrifice was behind my success, but I don’t think anyone, except perhaps another artist, can really understand that anyway.
My house was sold yesterday, which is why I risked having my diaries brought to me. They will be sent to the new owner. I had Michelle search for talented creative people who needed a big break. I insisted on being able to interview them myself. I had their entire lives investigated, just to be sure. I don’t want my gift to end up in the wrong hands.
Today a shy, young man with a great talent for music will be exploring his new home. I wish I could be there to see him discover the time room. In my mind, I see him skimming over the books and trying the bone flute. It is winter, but it is strangely warm and he can’t find the switches to turn off the lights. He’ll find his watch is running too fast, or that something he has taken into the room with him flies out of the door when he leaves. Or he’ll try to take a book out, and find it won’t move past an invisible barrier at the entrance. I see him returning with one of his many instruments, and making beautiful music in that quiet place.
And I see the sunflowers there on the shelves, beautiful forever.
Waste
Michael Pryor
‘The Brigade isn’t for you, lad,’ said Captain Dar. ‘Leave now, go home, raise children.’ He glared with red-rimmed eyes, stubble on his face. ‘Are you going to finish that drink?’
Tilden Lambholder looked down at the glass that Captain Dar had thrust towards him. ‘No sir.’
‘Good.’ The captain reached across the desk and swooped on the glass. He threw the brandy down his throat as if it were medicine. ‘I mean it, lad. Go home. Don’t make the same mistake I did.’
‘But sir! I’ve always wanted to be in the Brigade! It’s been my dream!’
Captain Dar smiled a little at that, but it was a wintry smile. ‘Forty-two years ago I said the same thing, lad, on my first day in the Brigade. I wish someone told me then what I’m telling you now.’
Lambholder sat back in his chair. Captain Dar’s office was small. It looked as if it was trying to work its way up from dilapidated to shabby, but was losing the struggle. Piles of papers stood on the desk and most of the floor. Some had toppled over but the dust that lay on them seemed to indicate that this event happened a long time ago.
Only two features of this room looked at all cared for. One was a calendar, with dates conscientiously marked off. The other was a shelf that stretched along one wall. On it were earthenware and metal crucibles. Most were old and battered, some were badly cracked. They ranged in size from one the size of a teacup to one made of rusty iron, a hand-span tall.
Dates had been scratched into these crucibles, or splashed on with paint. ‘Argan Heights, 876’, ‘Tanniput, 879’, ‘Outskirts of Shandler’.
Lambholder noticed, with some interest, that a few of these pots still glimmered from the magic they had once held safely.
A single grimy window gave a view of the gates to the depot. A collection of buildings stood around sheepishly. They looked as if they’d been painted in the past, but these days didn’t have anything to do with fancy muck like that. A haze hovered over this depressing scene, and seemed to come from several pillars of smoke or vapour behind the buildings.
‘You don’t mean it, sir,’ Lambholder said stoutly. ‘You don’t really mean I should go home and not join up.’
‘Oh yes I do,’ Captain Dar said softly. ‘The Brigade is a laughing stock. The lowest foot soldier in the army looks down on us. The swabbies on our war galleys lord it over us. Even the low life in the city watch think they’re a cut above us. You don’t want to be part of that. Get yourself a respectable job. Take up cobbling. Cobbling’s always good.’
This wasn’t what Tilden Lambholder had been expecting when he’d farewelled his white-haired mother and ten white-haired aunts days ago. After all, tales of the Brigade had been his bedtime stories since he was small. ‘No sir. It’s the Brigade for me.’
Captain Dar put down his glass, placed both elbows on the desk, cradled his chin in his hands and studied Lambholder with pity. ‘And why, lad? Why this demented dream to join the Brigade?’
Lambholder’s huge frame squirmed a little in his seat before he caught himself and sat up straight. ‘It’s honourable, sir, the Brigade is. Doing something for people, helping others.’
‘Oh yes. It does that.’
‘And …’ Lambholder hesitated.
‘And?’
‘And it’s in the family, sir. My da was in the service.’
Captain Dar closed his eyes and bowed his head. ‘I should have known. Thirteen months to retirement and this happens,’ he mumbled. He looked up and studied the ceiling. ‘Your father was Felden Lambholder, wasn’t he?’
‘Yes sir! The bravest, most reliable, most hardworking corpsman ever!’
Captain Dar nodded slowly. ‘Your ma told you that, did she?’
‘Yes sir! And my ten aunts. I never knew my da, of course, but I’ve heard all about him.’
‘And did they tell you how he bought the farm?’
‘The farm? We had a farm long before Da joined the Brigade.’
‘Cashed it in, lad. Have his number come up. Bit the big one.’
‘Sir?’
‘Died, lad. Did they tell you how he died?’
‘Well, they said it was heroically defending his friends, giving his life so that others—’
‘Short on detail, were they?’
‘In a manner of speaking,’ Lambholder said stiffly. His father’s demise had always been spoken of in hushed whispers. In the great store of stories about Felden Lambholder that his mother and his ten aunts would tell throughout the long frigid nights of Upper Harkbut, Felden Lambholder’s last stand was the least repeated.
‘So they didn’t tell you about how he was caught in a wave of waste magic that turned him into what looked like a puddle of gently simmering vegetable
soup?’
Lambholder’s mouth hung open and he had some difficulty in closing it. ‘Ah?’ he finally managed.
‘I was there,’ Commander Dar went on, his gaze distant. ‘It was a nasty situation we were called out for. Grade nine, at least. Felden didn’t see it coming, at least he had that mercy. But I saw the wave roll down the hill. Raw, untamed magic, it was. It hit a boulder, diverted, but a splash caught Felden in the middle of the back. He was soup in the blink of an eye.’ He sighed. ‘But that’s life in the Waste Brigade. When your sole job is to take care of magic overflow, waste and build-up, what do you expect?’
At that moment, a short, red-faced man bustled into the office and saluted. ‘Chief, Private Tremen wants to see you.’
Captain Dar sucked his cheek for a while and stared at the bottle of brandy. ‘Take care of it, will you Crully?’ he said to the red-faced man. ‘I’ve had enough of that social climbing leech.’
Crully saluted again. He seemed to enjoy it. ‘Like to sir, but can’t. Tremen has a man with him, and the man specifically asked to see you. He was very persistent.’
‘Give me a moment,’ Dar sighed, ‘then send him in.’
‘Righto, Chief.’ Crully turned to go, but something leapt to his mind with enough force to make him topple a few steps backwards. ‘Oh, and Private Wambley’s gone. Meant to mention it earlier.’
‘Gone?’
‘Left to join the army. He said he was wasted here. He said it like it was a joke, sir.’
‘It probably was, Crully. It probably was.’
‘Ah. I’ll see to Tremen and the man, then, Chief.’
At that moment, Lambholder felt the floor under his feet shake a little, and a dull explosion sounded nearby. Captain Dar glanced out of the window. ‘And take a squad out to see about that, will you Crully? It sounds like Leaching Pond 3 is playing up again.’
‘Righto, Chief.’
Captain Dar turned his attention to Lambholder. ‘You see what sort of outfit this is? We clean up waste magic, which is dangerous and nerve-wracking and no one wants to do it. We’re necessary—everyone admits that—but we’re not on anyone’s “must invite” list when it comes to royal balls, gallery openings or gala hooplas.’
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