Reflections in the Mind's Eye

by Stuart Young

  Drool running from his lips and onto his chin, Robert smiled back.

  We Have all the

  Time in the World

  The symbols made no sense.

  Laura eyed them as she sat in the traffic jam, idly attempting to decipher the arcane squiggles. Scrawled across the road sign indicating the next exit the symbols glowed impudently, a riddle in luminous paint.

  Numbers and diagrams jumbled together, falling over themselves in their eagerness to take pride of place in the graffiti. Letters too, the entire English alphabet, plus several other alphabets Laura didn’t recognise. Arabic? Russian? It didn’t matter, it was all Greek to her.

  A pair of cones stood at the centre of the Byzantine scrawl, one perched atop the other, their points touching as they engaged in a diagrammatic balancing act. They could be a pair of ice cream cones, or a brace of dunce’s hats, perhaps even a stalagmite and stalactite. But to Laura they most resembled an abstract of an hourglass, the soft curves honed to sharp angles.

  And at the point where the tips of the two cones met was a symbol which resembled a figure eight lying on its side, looking like a bowtie or as though the hourglass came equipped with a tiny propeller. Time flies.

  Laura continued to gaze at the mass of symbols but still failed to discern any meaning.

  Then the trail of cars finally began to move; slowly, cautiously, as if their growling engines had been stuck in neutral for so long they found the idea of forward motion a strange and alien concept. She gave the symbols one last glance before edging up the dual carriageway. Then she stopped, staring, a tiny frown creasing her forehead.

  The symbols had vanished.

  Of course she had lost the parking space outside her house.

  The next-door neighbour always left traffic cones out in the parking bay whilst at work, reserving his place, and he always got home before Laura. Consequently he had yet again taken the last spot in the street and Laura had to park around the corner and trudge back to her house.

  Dumping her handbag on the table she kicked off her shoes, shrugged off her coat, popped a ready meal into the microwave and poured herself a Southern Comfort and lemonade. Remembering that drinking alone is a sign of depression she fired up the computer and logged onto a message board; technically she was now no longer alone, she was in contact with the entire World Wide Web – therefore she could drink as much as she liked. Although she had better not actually post anything whilst drinking, last time she did that she started a flame war and got a thread locked. Doubly embarrassing as the thread’s topic had been tolerance and understanding.

  The microwave dinged. Cutting open the tiny body bag containing the curry embalmed beef corpse she poured it over her plate and added the accompanying rice. Alternating between fork and glass she consumed her dinner.

  After feeding both herself and the dishwasher she curled up on the sofa with a fresh Southern Comfort. The weekend starts here, she thought.

  And it would end here too, after meaningless shopping trips spending money she didn’t have on things she didn’t need, after empty phone calls to friends she didn’t see often enough and whom she no longer had anything in common, after doomed attempts to meet a man who would make her happy and who she wouldn’t drive away with her neuroses and insecurities. After all that her weekends always ended with Laura drinking on the sofa, longing for Monday so work could provide a distraction from the pointlessness of her existence, yet also dreading the way work numbed her to the inevitability of her life slowly ebbing away; ambition dwindling, happiness fading, hope dead.

  She drained her glass with a sudden, desperate gulp. The ice clinked against the empty beaker; a cold, lifeless sound.

  She frowned at the glass, wondering if she had the energy to pour herself another drink.

  The ice cubes caught her eye. Hard, solid shapes, containing a network of intricate crystals. She stared at the inner depths of the cubes’ structure, rapt.

  Slowly the interior of the cubes darkened, the patterns taking on new shapes.

  Gasping, she recognised the symbols she had seen on the road sign.

  The same numbers, the same letters, the same diagrams. And at the centre of it all the prone figure eight and the two cones forming the hourglass symbol.

  As she gazed in awe the ice multiplied, new cubes filling the glass, threatening to tumble out onto the carpet, all of them blazing with the light of the strange symbols.

  Running to the kitchen she flung the ice into the sink and twisted the taps, blasting the cubes with a jet of hot water. The ice slowly melted, its clear edges dulling, softening, the symbols fading away before the dissolving cubes swirled down the plughole.

  Trembling, Laura stumbled over to the drinks cabinet. She needed another Southern Comfort.

  This time she didn’t add ice.

  As Laura swallowed a mouthful of chlorinated water for the fifth time in as many minutes she wondered if she might have made a mistake in coming swimming. At first turning over a new leaf by ditching the booze for clean living and exercise seemed like a good idea; anything to avoid a repeat of last night’s episode with the ice. Hallucinations she could live without. But that was before she realised her old swimming costume made her stomach look like a saggy sack of suet. It was also before she realised that the local swimming pool was only slightly smaller than the Atlantic Ocean.

  She clung to the side of the pool, gasping for breath, wondering if she needed to take her passport with her if she swam to the other end of the pool it was so bloody far away. Her fingers cramped as they grasped the side of the pool but she refused to let go until her lungs had reinflated. Here at the deep end the bottom of the pool was three metres straight down and she didn’t have the energy to tread water; she had already made that mistake, as her chlorine-saturated tongue would confirm.

  Around her pensioners easily forty years her senior glided effortlessly through the water like wrinkled dolphins – she half expected them to balance balls on their noses and to somersault through hoops whilst whistling ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary.’ They swooshed past her on their way to the far end of the pool and then spun round, launching themselves into the return journey without missing a beat.

  Laura continued to grasp the side of the pool. It wasn’t just a case of getting her breath back, her muscles ached as though she had been run through a mangle. Not to mention the fact that she didn’t want to collide with any of the pensioners. Oblivious to everything except their desire to prove their geriatric athleticism they refused to make way for other swimmers. Laura had twice narrowly missed head-on collisions.

  She peered along the pool checking for the bobbing head of the breaststroke devotee and the scything arms of the front crawl practitioner, the face dipping into the water then turning to the side as though giving the water the kiss of life. She waited impatiently, her breath now restored, but the swimmers drew no closer. In fact they appeared to be moving away from her.

  Staring along the pool Laura realised that despite their best efforts the swimmers were moving backwards.

  Astounded, she looked over to the lifeguard. He was moving backwards too, strolling in reverse alongside the pool, nodding to people as they walked backwards into the changing rooms.

  Twisting round Laura stared through the glass walls that led out to the sport centre’s café. There too everyone moved in reverse, spitting sports drinks back into bottles, using their teeth to reassemble power bars, draining teacups by sending their contents flowing back up to the teapots from whence they came.

  Laura twisted back to look at the pool again and she lost her grip, sinking beneath the water, her mouth filling with chlorine yet again.

  Thrashing wildly she made for the surface. Something blocked her path, her hands bumping against something cold and hard.

  Ice.

  She thumped her fists against it but it refused to break. She swam for the far end of the pool hoping to find a gap where she could surface. More ice.

  Panic fl
ared within her and again she pounded the ice; fast, frantic blows of her fists. Skin tore; blood stained the water. The ice remained intact.

  She forced herself to calm down. The lifeguard must have seen her go under, she needed to conserve her oxygen until he could smash through the ice and rescue her, his hand stretching out to grasp hers. Her swim had taken her to the shallow end of the pool, she could rest her feet on the bottom, save her energy. Straightening her legs she dropped her feet to the floor.

  It wasn’t there.

  Sinking down; two metres, six metres, twelve; a stream of bubbles marking her descent; darkness enfolding her as completely as the water.

  Kicking wildly she drove herself back up to the ice. Pressing up tight to its freezing touch, her heart beating frantically, thoughts crashing through her mind, piecing together the seriousness of her situation.

  The pool’s floor had vanished – the water was no longer heated, instead chilling her flesh – trickles of water that had seeped between her lips no longer tasted of chlorine but brine – none of the other swimmers were trapped along with her.

  She had been transported somewhere else. Somewhere cold and desolate and far from any possible help.

  She was going to die.

  The realisation staggered her. Up until now her fear had been instinctive, a primal response to sudden danger. Now her death was a coldly logical fact, the only possible answer to the puzzle with which she had been presented.

  Desperately Laura kicked her legs to stay afloat. She jammed her hands up tight against the ice; the sharp chill letting her know that she wasn’t sinking. She couldn’t escape but she was determined to prolong the last few moments of her life as much as possible.

  But still she saw the same darkness envelop her as when she had descended to the blackest depths.

  Then the darkness was gone and with it the ice. She found herself back in the heated pool, pensioners gliding past her as she clutched at the side for a handhold, hanging there spluttering and shivering, her teeth chattering so hard she was sure they must shatter.

  Crowds massed in the shopping centre: laughing kids zipping between the slower moving adults; parents trying to contain their family units as they steered pushchairs through the throng; teenagers swaggering around the shops or else slouching in sullen poses, depending on which they thought made them look coolest. Everyone congregating to the shops, making the most of the brief escape from work, frantic not to miss any sales or bargains before the weekend finished, gorging themselves on everything the shops had to offer.

  Laura let the escalator carry her up from one floor of white tile and gleaming chrome to the next, identical but for the contents of the shops. She headed for the supermarket to stock up on soup; gallons of it was required if she wished to stave off pneumonia.

  Shivers still ran through her body but at least her lips were no longer blue. She clutched her coat about her, desperate not to allow any body heat to escape its folds.

  If only she wasn’t so bloody cold she would be happy to pass the whole thing off as a hallucination. But hallucinations couldn’t account for the iciness that ran though her body or the grazed skin on her hands.

  The experience had left her too shaken to drive home from the sports centre; her car still sat in the car park. Just as well, she would never find anywhere to park it at home anyway thanks to her neighbour and his traffic cones.

  Scooping up a basket she headed for the soup section. Chicken noodle, beef broth, red pepper and pasta; they all went into her basket. The weight pulled one shoulder lower than the other and she walked lopsided to the tills.

  The queues stretched far away from the checkout, some of them even reaching into the aisles. Sighing, Laura placed her basket on the floor, nudging it along with her foot as the queue inched slowly forward. No point dislocating her shoulder.

  Waiting impatiently she wondered what was happening to her and why. More importantly she wondered how she could stop it.

  The couple behind her chatted away in a language she didn’t understand, something East European, Ukrainian perhaps. The woman glanced at her watch then muttered to the man, ‘We’re going to be late meeting my brother.’

  Laura blinked. The woman still spoke in her native tongue but somehow Laura could understand her. Moreover, she could understand the man’s reply.

  ‘With your brother I don’t mind being late. The less time I spend with the arrogant little shit the better.’

  ‘Don’t call him that.’ The woman smiled. ‘Even if it is true.’

  They continued speaking and Laura listened, understanding every word. She looked around, searching for someone else speaking a foreign language. A couple of aisles over an elderly Chinese woman complained about her rheumatism in Cantonese. Laura understood her perfectly. A Pakistani man dropped his change and swore at the scattering coins in Punjabi, every curse word making complete sense to Laura.

  Then, from somewhere across the store, she heard a strange hodgepodge of languages; French, German, Swahili, all mashed together but making perfect sense. A man backed out of one of the aisles, dishevelled and wild-eyed, babbling away in ever increasing panic, each new sentence uttered in a different language.

  ‘Make it stop! Too many thoughts to keep in my head!’

  He stopped and stared about him before screaming in a language that Laura knew didn’t come from Earth. ‘Space, time, it doesn’t make any difference! They’re both just strands in the Icy Web of Eternity!’

  Before she knew what she was doing Laura answered him. ‘They are both facets of the Frozen Crystal Lattice.’

  Laura clutched at her throat, the words had nearly ripped her larynx to shreds; the strange alien syllables were not designed for the human voice box.

  She had no time to ponder this before the man ran over and grabbed her arms, pinning her against the checkout counter. ‘Who are you? How did you understand what I was saying?’

  ‘I-I don’t know.’

  Releasing her the man stepped back, staring at all the bewildered customers. Then with a strangled laugh he turned and ran out of the supermarket. A security guard tried to grab him but only succeeded in pulling off his coat, the contents of the man’s pockets scattering across the floor.

  Laura watched, stunned, as the man raced towards the escalators. A small queue stood at the top of the escalators and she expected to see him shove them aside, instead he headed straight for the barrier beside the escalator, vaulting over it and plunging out of sight.

  From the ground floor of the shopping centre came a woman’s scream.

  Laura stumbled away from the checkout, leaving her basket behind, heading dazedly for the escalators. She had no desire to see what lay at the bottom but somehow she couldn’t help herself. Others had the same urge, running past her to see the man’s fate.

  As she reached the supermarket’s exit her foot brushed against something lying on the floor. A notebook; one of the items that had spilled from the man’s pockets.

  The notebook lay open, revealing its contents.

  A scrawling mass of arcane symbols. And at their centre two cones that resembled an hourglass.

  The printer’s gears whined as it produced yet more hard copy of the information Laura had found on the Internet. Plucking the sheet of paper from the printer’s tray her eyes flitted over the mixture of text and pictures.

  Googling “icy web of eternity” and “frozen crystal lattice” produced nothing useful but “space,” time” and “cones” had proved much more rewarding. According to the science sites she had visited space and time were not two separate concepts but a single entity: space-time. Space could not exist without time and vice versa. As for cones an hourglass-like diagram of two cones could be used to map space-time. If the point where the two cones met was a hypothetical event occurring in the present (P) then the top cone represented all the event laying in P’s future whereas the bottom cone represented all the events laying in P’s past.

  But the symbols Laura had
seen didn’t just show P as the centre of space-time, they also showed the sideways figure eight which, after a little research, she had discovered was the symbol for infinity. As far as Laura could work out this meant that P – the present moment – was infinite. The concept boggled Laura’s mind.

  To make matters worse the man’s notebook showed the space-time diagram to contain another symbol Laura hadn’t previously noticed. At the point where the two loops of the infinity symbol intersected was a zero. Try as she might Laura could not see how the two figures co-existed in any possible equation. Any number multiplied by zero equalled zero, but infinity by its very nature could not be reduced to nothingness, could never end. The paradox rattled around inside Laura’s head, confusing and irritating in equal measures.

  She didn’t stand a chance of solving the puzzle. In fact she was amazed she had got this far. Science was not her forte, especially not cosmology and theoretical physics. Her one attempt at reading A Brief History of Time was thwarted when she became flummoxed halfway through reading the book’s title.

  Still, she battled bravely on with her research, attempting to decipher more of the bizarre symbols. Some remained a mystery, confounding the search engine no matter how specific her queries. Others led to yet more scientific theorising.

  The symbol she had just printed out was a Feynman diagram. Its loops and angles looked to her like a picture of an oldfashioned television aerial that had been handled by Uri Geller, but according to the printout it was in fact a representation of the manner in which particles interact by exchanging bosons. It took Laura a couple of seconds to realise that boson was not a nautical term but a particular type of particle that obeyed something called Bose-Einstein statistics.

  She clicked on the name of the Feynman diagram’s creator, Richard Feynman. A bio appeared featuring a short section on the Wheeler-Feynman absorber theory, which in turn contained a link to the transactional interpretation of quantum physics. Clicking the link she discovered that the transactional interpretation claimed that agitating an electron in the present sent a wave of radiation to an electron in the future which then sent another wave of radiation back to an electron in the past which in turn sent radiation to the electron in the present allowing that electron to emit just the right amount of radiation dictated by scientific law. Worse, this complicated sequence of events all occurred at exactly the same time; the past and the present joining hands to create the present.