by James Gault
Chapter 2
The next day, as Antonia was walking down the little lane that led to her school, Ogg suddenly appeared beside her, out of nowhere, just as she wasn’t expecting him. It was early in the morning. She hadn’t slept well because she had spent the whole night thinking about GPQs, so she was exhausted and therefore bad–tempered. What did he think he was playing at?
“I wish you would stop doing that,” she told him, “It’s time you grew up.”
Ogg only smiled, making Antonia’s ill humour worse. Great Beings should be above practical jokes.
“Suppose someone saw you appearing out of nowhere like that! I can’t imagine how I would explain such a trick to a rational person.”
“No one saw me, as far as I know,” Ogg replied,” but if anyone ever does, I want you tell me about it right away.”
Antonia was about to say OK when a sudden realisation struck her. There was something not right about what he had just said. Ogg had the ability to read all human minds; he ought to have known for certain if somebody had seen him. Their thoughts would have given them away. Yet he apparently didn’t always know, and Antonia could only draw the one obvious conclusion, which she immediately drew. Ogg was a Great Being, yes, but he was a flawed Great Being. Was what he lost in omnipotence made up for by the approachability that came with being less than prefect? She wasn’t sure.
“Ant,” Ogg went on, “I think I’m going to need your help. You are living in troubled times and there is evil is everywhere.”
“Ah!” smiled Antonia. “You don’t have to tell me! I know what you want.”
Ogg smiled. He knew what was coming. The older you get, the more you travel, the more frequently you come across the same things. Eventually you die of sheer boredom, if you are an Ordinary Person, but Great Beings don’t even have this escape. Was this the reason for his penchant for practical jokes and his fondness for winding up his friends? Desperate attempts to stave off monotony in old age? Ant meantime continued to rage with enthusiasm over her little bit of inspiration. Nothing to be done, Ogg said to himself, but to let her get it off her chest.
“You are the embodiment of everything good in the world. When we do good deeds, it’s you who are directing us. But there’s also another super-being with special powers, and he is responsible for all the evil things that happen. You and he are engaged in a bitter battle for the future of mankind. If you lose, the human race is doomed. And you need my help because I am young, innocent and uncorrupted, and incredibly clever.”
“And modest,” Ogg added.
Antonia just couldn’t see any reason why modesty was a particular virtue. She was young (a good thing), innocent (some pluses and minuses there, she thought), uncorrupted (unfortunately) and clever (thankfully). If it was true, why lie about it, for fear some stupid person might think you’re arrogant? She was surprised that Ogg had even mentioned ‘modesty’. Maybe that was another aspect of the flawed side of his Great Beingness.
“Listen, Ant! That was a very good story of yours, and very popular, but I’m afraid it doesn’t hold water. Of course, it would be very convenient if you could blame someone else for all the bad things you do, but you can’t. It is true that I am lucky enough to have lots of special powers, and I know what goes on inside the head of all human beings. But I can’t make you do good deeds. No one can but yourself. Nor is there any evil Super Being who can make you do evil things. So if you’re a bad person, it’s entirely your own fault. So you mustn’t try to pass your faults off on people like me.”
“But how can we fight against all the evil in the world if it’s spread out among the minds of billions of people?”
“You’ve hit on another Great Philosophical Question, Ant.”
Antonia was pleased and upset at the same time. Formulating a G.P.Q. was a bit of an achievement, and it was nice to be thought smart enough to do it. But she had really wanted an answer to her question. During her insomnia of the previous night, she had made list of few GPQs as a means of trying to put herself to sleep. But when that didn’t work, she used her time to try and come up with some answers, but with no success. It appeared to her that there were a great deal too many Great Philosophical Questions going around. Time for some Great Philosophical Answers.
“You must be able to do something about all the evil in the world!” she challenged Ogg. “Or why do you have these special powers?”
“Another…” Ogg began.
“Great Philosophical Question.” Antonia finished, with an exasperated sigh. Antonia had begun to suspect that youth was the age of idealism, and that growing up was a mere euphemism for increasing cynicism and disillusionment. To a clever girl like her this was plainly obvious in the way her parents and teachers behaved. But really, you expect better of a Great Being, and Antonia did hope that Ogg wasn’t going to let her down.
“Now, please listen carefully, Ant, because I’m going to tell you exactly why I need your help. It’s a very complicated story, and you’ll require all your brainpower to understand it.”
This sound more promising to Antonia, but she suddenly realised that her life was not her own to dedicate exclusively to Ogg. She looked at her watch, and squealed.
“Oh, no! Blast! Is it going to take long? I absolutely mustn’t be late for class. We have the horrible Mrs. Ghoul first period and she’s impossible if we’re late.”
Ogg didn’t even speak. It was a long and extremely complex story he had to tell, and listening to it would certainly have kept her late for school, but he had an instant solution to her problem.
Two hours earlier, Antonia was sleeping peacefully in bed when there was a tap on her shoulder.
“Wake up! Wake up! I’ve something to tell you, Ant.”
Antonia woke up to see Ogg’s face peering down at her.
“Oh, hello Ogg! What do you want at this time of the morning?”
Ogg had jumped back in time but Antonia didn’t know this. So for Antonia the meeting with Ogg on the way to school was still in the future and hadn’t yet happened, so she knew nothing about it. And now, of course, it wouldn’t happen, because Ogg was going to tell her everything right at that moment, two hours earlier than before. If he stopped her two hours later and told her the whole thing all over again she would have found it extremely odd. So the discussion between Ogg and Antonia in front of the school both took place and didn’t take place. At first sight one would suppose such an idea to be absolute nonsense, because ‘obviously’ something either happens or it doesn’t. But don’t be seduced by such simplistic logic and that insidious word ‘obviously’. Ogg and Antonia talked in front of her school and they didn’t. Impossible? Not at all! We know exactly why such an apparently impossible thing occurred, and the explanation is extremely simple and totally logical. If there’s one thing that Ogg has learned in his travels through time and space, and which he kindly teaches all his friends, it’s that one must never dismiss the most seemingly outrageous things. As often as not, they are true, and the explanation is usually extremely simple and totally logical.
“What do you want at this time in the morning, Ogg?” Antonia asked again.
“Ant, I think I’m going to need your help sooner rather than later. You are living in troubled times. Evil is everywhere”
“Ah!” squealed Antonia. “Don’t tell me! Don’t tell me! I know! I know!”
Ogg of course had already heard this, two hours later. He didn’t want to hear it again. Enough is enough! He quickly interrupted her.
“I want you to listen carefully, Ant, because I’m going to tell you exactly why I need your help. It’s a very complicated story, and you’ll need all your brainpower to understand it.”
Antonia admitted to being young and inexperienced, but she wasn’t stupid. As far as she could tell, she had understood everything that Ogg had told her
so far, and had even managed to come up with a few Great Philosophical Questions off her own bat. So why should he doubt her ability to understand what was no more than just a collection of events? It wasn’t the kind of attitude she expected of a Great Being, but she supposed even they must forget themselves sometimes. She felt like telling him off, but she was in a forgiving mood and anyway Ogg had started to tell his story so she let it pass. This time!
“As you know, I can travel freely in time and space, and I can look into the thoughts of every human being. Recently, however, things have changed.”
”What do you mean by recently?” Antonia asked. It wasn’t just a question of semantics. When you have the capability to travel through time, the meaning of certain expressions like ‘now’, ‘later’, and ‘earlier’ become a little confused. So, without knowing it, Antonia had just formulated yet another Great Philosophical Question, and Ogg was at a loss for words. Finally he said,
“If we can leave that difficult question to the side for now, let me tell you about these changes. In my travels in time and space, there have always been a few minds I’ve been unable to read. Not many, but the odd one or two. However, on my last few visits to your time, I’ve noticed a considerable increase in the number of such minds.”
“Can I have a question?” Antonia asked.
“But of course. It is only through questions that the knowledge of mankind is increased.”
“Why can’t you read these minds? After all, you can read the minds of every human being.”
“Ant, you should be ashamed of asking such a question. It’s a simple question of logic. I can read all human thoughts, I cannot read these thoughts, therefore…. ?”
“They don’t belong to humans!” Antonia shouted triumphantly.
“The next part is even more worrying. I used to travel in a time not so far forward from now, when you are no longer a girl, but a full-grown woman.”
“What will I be like? Will I have children? Will I be rich and famous?”
Ogg looked at her and frowned. Antonia had allowed her mind to stray from the point in question, an unforgivable fault in someone who has ambitions related to the solution of Great Philosophical Questions. But who can resist the temptations of a fortune-teller? Ogg ignored her and went on with his explanation.
“The last five or six times I’ve tried to visit you as an adult, I haven’t managed to get there. It’s as if there is a barrier. I try to go forward ten years, but now I can get to two years beyond today, but no further.”
“What does it mean, Ogg?”
“Come on, Ant, you can work it out! I can go as far into the future as I want, but I can’t go any further than two years ahead, therefore…?”
Antonia shivered. The conclusion seemed both too obvious and too terrible to be true.
“In two years time, there is no future!”
Ogg and Antonia sat together. Thinking in silence. Antonia thought about the future where she was a woman. Then she thought about this new non-future which had suddenly appeared from nowhere. A future which ended in two years time.
But the future is the future. Isn’t it? Ogg had seen her there. Only now, there is to be no future in several years. The world ends in two years.
“Ogg, can there be two futures? And if there are two futures, can there be two pasts? And is this the only present, or are there lots of them?”
“Great Philosophical Questions, Ant.” Ogg smiled an infuriating smile.
To be honest, Antonia was a bit browned off with Ogg’s Great Philosophical Questions. There seemed to be no answers to any of them, only more questions.
And there was Ogg, sitting motionless and silent in front of her. He seemed tranquil and contemplative. But at the same time he was darting back and forward in time and space, seeking opinions and gathering information to help him solve the mystery of the missing future. So when a dark cloud passed over his face, it wasn’t the outward indication of some sudden awful thought. It was the reaction to a new and terrible turn of events that he had discovered on his journeys. Antonia had learned very quickly to understand this.
“What’s happened, Ogg?” Antonia asked when she saw his face darken.
“More bad news, Ant! I’ve been spending a lot of time at the end of the future recently, looking for clues. I would have expected some kind of warning. A political crisis with great powers threatening each other with nuclear or biological weapons, for example. But there was nothing more the usual bad-tempered squabbling of greedy people looking after their own interests. Then I thought of some natural disaster, like an enormous comet from outer space. No sign of that either! A sudden massive weather phenomenon, perhaps? No! Nothing! Nor were there any signs of a virulent widespread disease springing up abruptly and killing the whole of mankind instantaneously. It doesn’t happen to me often, but for once I hadn’t the slightest inkling of where the problem might lie. So I came back to this time.”
“Thinking that you might find the answer here, with a smart person like me to help you.”
Ogg found himself thinking that Antonia sometimes tended to forget that pride was one of the seven deadly sins. He threw a disapproving glare in her direction before continuing. “Perhaps there is a connection between the end of the world and all these minds I can’t read.”
“The non-humans? The aliens. The invaders from another planet?”
“Don’t jump to conclusions! Think properly! They might be aliens, but we don’t know that. We don’t know exactly what they are, we only know what they’re not. Logic tells us they’re not humans. They might be from outer space, but there might be another explanation.”
“Sorry, Ogg! Sloppy thinking again!”
“Anyway, the one thing I know is that, over the next two years, up to the point everything stops, more and more minds become closed to me. ‘Could it be,’ I ask myself, ‘that these minds are shutting the gates of the future?’”
“Can I say something, Ogg?”
“Of course you can, Ant.”
“Does it really matter?” she asked.
“What?” Ogg was completely taken off-guard.
“Does it really matter about the end of the future? I mean the future used to go on and on, you know that because you’ve been there. It’s only recently that it’s decided to end itself in a couple of years’ time. Maybe it’s only a temporary thing. And even if it’s not, so what? There’s at least one future where I go on to have a career and maybe a family and presumably everyone else has a normal future too. So if there’s another future which is so stupid it decides to pack it in a couple of years, does it really matter?”
“Ant, you’ve come up with a few G.P.Qs in the short time I’ve known you, but this is the best I’ve heard in a long time. It’s one of the Greatest Philosophical Questions ever.”
Surprisingly, this particular compliment didn’t please Antonia in the least.
“You mean you don’t know the answer?” she shouted.
She immediately regretted shouting. Her parents might be odd, but they had instilled a Victorian sense of propriety in their offspring, and she knew she ought to have shown more respect for her elders, especially someone as revered and ancient as Ogg. But frustration had just gained a temporary victory over upbringing. She was living in a world where no one seemed to really know anything important. And all Ogg could do was calmly shrug his shoulders and shake his head.
“Ant, you can’t expect me to have the answer to everything. There are some people who pretend that I do, because they just can’t face up to uncertainty, but it isn’t true. There are even some arrogant people who say the ‘Ogg knows everything.’ Then claim that I’ve told them all my secrets so they know everything too. When everyone does know everything, maybe that’s when the future will end. And maybe that’s why it does matter that the futur
e, or at least one future, doesn’t prematurely end in two years’ time. In any case, I don’t know if I can do anything about it, but I believe I have to try.”
This wasn’t much of an explanation. More of an excuse really, and totally unworthy of a Great Being! But Antonia baulked at telling him so. Not that she was reticent, but she still felt she just didn’t know him well enough yet. She was beginning to realise the difficulties that Great Beings had in living up to their reputations. It was annoying, yes it was, but Ogg was doing his best. It was obviously worrying him that he had no clue about the future. No sense in further damaging his self esteem.!
“Let us assume that it is important then, Ogg, although you will agree that we can’t be sure about it.”
“Agreed! So, working on the basis, which may or may not be true, that it is important to save the future from extinction, I formed a hypothesis,”
“A hypothesis which has to be tested,” Antonia interjected. They had taught her the basic principles of scientific theory at school.
“Which has to be tested,” Ogg concurred. “My hypothesis was that there is some connection between those non-human minds which I can’t read, and the approaching end of the future. I therefore decided to go forward to the end of the future once again and devote some attention to the phenomenon of the non-human minds.”
“What did you find out, Ogg?”
“Nothing!”
What did he mean ‘nothing’? Just how flawed was Ogg going to turn out to be? She could accept that he might not know everything, but with all his great powers he could surely find out something.
“Worse than nothing!” Ogg added.
“Nothing can be worse than nothing!” From the point of view of pure logic, this was a very interesting statement, being at the same time a tautology and a paradox, and Ogg was sorely tempted to spend some time explaining all the possible meanings to Antonia. But he had some world-shattering news to reveal, and he had been building up to its revelation rather nicely. To postpone revealing the important news would have infuriated her once again.
“Some things can be worse than nothing, Ant! When I tried to go forward two years just now”
“To the end of the future”
“The previous end of the future! When I tried to go back there, I couldn’t reach it.”
“How far could you get?”
“The new end of the future, Ant, is in one year’s time.”
Antonia shivered. Her life expectancy had just gone from two years to one. It was a strange sensation having your whole future cut in half, just like that.