by C J Paget
Frank nodded sympathetically. “My Enid passed away about fifteen years ago. All these amazing things we can do, sending men to the moon, talking to people on the other side of the world and all that, and yet we can’t stop cancer.”
“No, that we can’t,” said Harry quietly, tapping his chest.
“Oh…” Frank said. “I’m sorry.”
“It happens. Early stages, they say, but I’m ninety-two. It’s not like I’d be running any marathons if they did get rid of it.”
Frank stared at his pint for a moment. “What brings you home then, Harry?”
“I wanted to see it again, for one thing,” he answered, glancing out of the window as a van went by with a satellite dish on top of it. “And I wanted to take in the eclipse. It’s due tomorrow. There are a bunch of science-type people in my hotel who are going to see it. You know what? I remember the last one that was visible from here. 1927. I was nine. It was the day I lost my dog. Daft little thing. Eighty-one years ago and I still remember it like it was yesterday.”
“Giggleswick’s changed a bit since then, so it has,” Frank said, glancing out of the window too.
“Aye, it has,” Harry said. “Lots of things have changed.” He looked to his old friend and raised his glass. “But we haven’t. Here’s to us, eh?”
They drank to that.
* * * * *
The Astronomer Royal at the time, Sir Frank Dyson, had paid a visit to Giggleswick for the eclipse in 1927. Harry remembered his mustache. There had been a fair bit of local pride at the time, as the fact that Giggleswick was one of the few places that the eclipse would be visible from in the whole country had brought respected scientists and some sizable crowds to the place. Things were rather different now. There were still groups of scientists and a few locals gathered on the green, but there was nowhere near as much fuss.
Harry was fine with this. He’d waited a lifetime to see this again, to clear his mind up, to get some closure. The lack of fuss was refreshing. He sat on a folding chair he’d brought with him, his overnight bag under the seat, and his stick hooked over the back of the chair. He sipped at an overpriced cup of tea he’d bought from a snack van that stank of burnt burgers.
A family had laid a picnic blanket down and the cheerful couple’s two children were happily eating sandwiches, oblivious to the fact that the world was about to look very different. It was funny seeing a family picnic in winter, but they all seemed well wrapped against the elements and perfectly happy with their sausage rolls and pasties.
The green was a little smaller than it used to be, thanks to the roads that had been built during the intervening years. People were gathered in little groups, all of them with various methods to view the coming eclipse. Bits of colored film, screens and dark lenses, visors, special cameras, laptops and tall aerials. Oh, and lots of those bloody mobile phones everyone was obsessed with. It was a far cry from Harry’s memories of children running around and playing and climbing trees.
The atmosphere was electric, as the time was growing near. Harry had no means to view the eclipse. That wasn’t what interested him. He took in the atmosphere generated by the excited scholars and bystanders. This was apparently a chance in a million. Harry had done some reading before he’d come back to Giggleswick. Once again, it would be the best place to see the stunning sight of a full eclipse, and it gave Harry a great sense of coming full circle. It was a shame more people hadn’t turned out to see it, but Harry supposed reality TV and messing with their phones was more interesting these days.
He had ended up having dinner with Frank the previous evening, and the two of them talked long into the night over a bottle of very old whiskey. It had been years since he’d drunk so much, and he was feeling the effects. If his kids had been around, they would have told him he should be taking it easy at his age, but they were off in Canada and didn’t have much to do with him other than a Christmas card every year and the occasional phone call. This was fine by Harry, as he wanted to be left alone to do his own thing, even if it was at a rather slow pace. It had been good to see Frank, and that link to the past had cemented it for Harry—it had been a good idea to come back. This was where he should be.
The memory of that other place danced in his mind, a dream that he had wondered about for most of a century. He didn’t know what he expected to see today, but he needed to be here. He needed to be in the same place that had defined so much of him in the days that had followed. He knew exactly what people thought of him and people like him. They thought that it was okay to talk down to him, to speak slowly or as though talking to a baby. Bloody hell, people were still people, even when they got bloody old.
The world had become a very ungrateful place. The war was a good example. It had got to the point where most people just saw the war as something that brought them a few statues of brooding soldiers with archaic names, a few TV programs, and something for old people to talk endlessly about in between humming Vera Lynn songs. They’d never had to live through it. They’d never seen their friends blown to pieces in front of them. They’d never woken up screaming in the night when they could hear air raid sirens in their sleep. They’d never had to pick through the rubble, searching for bodies after a bombing. People had forgotten a great deal about what ‘the old dears’ had done for them.
Harry hadn’t forgotten. Any of it.
The family having the picnic brought a little radio out of their luggage. Immediately, Harry could hear that local station again, talking about the impending eclipse. The chatter around him grew and then fell away to nothing as the moment finally arrived.
He struggled up out of the folding chair, dropping the plastic cup of tea onto the grass as he did so. The young man rose from his family’s picnic blanket when he saw Harry struggling, and came over with a smile and a strong hand under Harry’s arm. “Are you okay there, sir?”
“Thank you, fella,” Harry said as his frail legs straightened. Maybe they’re not all so bad.
The young gent rejoined his family and he and his wife tried to get his children to wear their special, thick visors.
Harry glanced at the sun and then off to his left, just as he had done in another time. Another life. The green was ringed by a metal fence, which now had people leaning against it, thick dark blocks of glass and special visors held up to their faces. Even the children in the distant playground enclosure had stopped running riot and were glancing around themselves as the light began to change.
The moment had come. After all this time, Harry would know whether or not he had made up the most bizarre moment of his childhood. He would know if he’d lied to himself.
A collective sound of awe rose from the modest gathering on the expanse of grass as the day grew darker, the light grew sickly, and the world took on an unreal hue. The burning disc of the sun was being crossed by darkness. After that initial crowd noise, the green fell silent. The occasion had set into the minds of those gathered. This was special. It would last a mere thirty seconds, six seconds longer than the one in 1927, but it would be a moment that nobody there would ever forget. The radio had switched from talk to someone playing “Mars” from Holst’s Planets suite, which was a nice touch, if inaccurate. Whispered chatter grew between the scholars with their cameras and computers. Phones were pointed up, their little cameras all filming the same thing, ready for the internet. The family nearby were huddled close together. The little boy started to cry, scared of the dark that was stealing the winter sun. His father hugged him closer, telling him everything would be okay.
Harry looked around himself, and was rewarded with nothing other than the sight of the green, lost in an odd shadow that made it seem like a half-remembered dream.
The other world wasn’t there.
He felt his legs weaken, and he slid back into the folding chair, tears running into the grooves of his face. There was nothing magical. The eclipse would soon be over, and there wasn’t even a hint of another place. A feeling of massive disappointment washed th
rough him, and he felt his frail shoulders sag. He wept into his hands. A scared and lonely old man, ignored by the others.
I suppose I should have expected this.
Warmth grew over the left side of his face, followed by a sound like steam and fire. With a sudden intake of breath and a shot of adrenaline, he snapped his gaze over to the origin of the heat.
Where a junction and a crossing had been a moment ago, now there lay alien trees and a landscape Harry had dreamed of exploring for his entire life. He recognized the swinging, tactile vines straight away. It was the same exact spot he remembered from the dreams of his childhood. The halo of orange fire burned brighter than he remembered, but it was all the more beautiful for it.
The vines upon those distant amber trees swung towards him, moving as if in a waved greeting. They bunched together, into one mass, which then lifted its tip towards itself a couple of times.
Closer, Harry. Closer.
Harry realized he was halfway toward the edge of the opening into that magical other world. The eclipse was almost through, and Harry knew that it would pass and the other world would vanish again before he could get to it. He damned his pathetic, weak old legs, but pushed on regardless. He realized he’d left his stick on the back of the chair. The vines beckoned him closer again.
Harry arrived at the edge of the world, and looked back upon the green. The science crowd were taking notes. Children were holding onto their parents. A teenager at the fence was texting someone instead of taking in the wonder of the eclipse. The world was normal there. The event was fading, and soon the other place would too.
Bugger this, Harry thought to himself, and stepped forward. His feet touched sand, and once again he stood beneath an orange sky. He shuffled over to the tree, and extended a hand towards the vines, which instantly curled around his arm like a loving pet.
“I only have a few seconds and then I’ll have to go,” he told the tree before realizing just how absurd this all was.
It was amazing, though. The sand still glittered with every imaginable color, and the purple outcroppings of rock that dotted the stunning landscape were even more incredible than he remembered. Everything shone. Everything shimmered. Even the air seemed to sparkle. The iridescent vistas of multicolored sand stretched on further than his eyesight.
There was a movement around him, more like breathing than wind, and he looked to the halo of fire. It had already started to close.
Harry tried to pull away from the vines, but they wouldn’t budge. Fear shot through him, and he stretched out his free hand, three feet short of the opening that would take him home again. Tears fell once more, and he shivered. He craved a warm bed and a good pint. He wanted to be back there, with the normal things and all of the world’s problems.
You told nobody of this place, said the tree through the vines.
Harry almost screamed, but something passed through the vines and into him and he was calmed. He breathed deeply, a sweet scent like apple blossoms falling from the tree.
“I have to go—have to get back!” Harry said, fear still gnawing at him despite the soothing influence of the vines.
The doorway will last a little longer. I wish it to be so. Time works differently here, sir.
“Thank you…” Harry said weakly. “I’ve wanted to come back here ever since I saw it as a boy. Now it’s… even more wonderful.”
A moment has passed here while your life has stretched out. There are many strange things that we should discuss, but time is short.
“Have I upset you?”
No. You have not upset me, or any of us. You have been the subject of much discussion already. We are curious and grateful.
“I thought I’d dreamed you up,” Harry said, feeling some strength return to his limbs. “I thought I was mad!”
You are a good person. You have lived your life well, and we are thankful that you never revealed us.
“Who would have believed me anyway?” Harry said to the vines. “I’m a stupid old man.”
To us you are still a curious child, as are most creatures that lie beyond us. You were the first to actually come here. Others have seen us from the corner of their eye, but nobody has been able to step closer. We wish to thank you for the insight you have given us, and we have something for you.
Harry froze as he felt the warmth of the vines spread through his whole body, and then converge on one side of his chest. Something faded within him, and he gasped.
“How—”
A gift. A token of gratitude that you both crave and deserve.
“Will I… Will I get to be a hundred now?” Harry said with an unexpected laugh.
You will, and not alone.
The trees moved as one, swaying their vines in unison. The sand swirled, and the air danced, and even the rocks seemed to change. Wind rushed between the trees and rocks with a high pitched sound that broke into a lower, harmonizing pitch halfway through.
A whistle?
Immediately, something dashed past Harry and leapt through the fading halo.
Scamp. He looked back from the green, his little head cocked to one side, and barked once at Harry.
The vines unfurled from his body, and he found his footing in the sand. With one last glance at this strange place, he hurried as fast as his ninety-two-year-old frame would allow. Breathless and sweating, the moisture mixing with tears and obscuring his vision, Harry realized that he wasn’t going to make it. If only I’d not left my stick behind. The halo was closing. Fast. His heart thudded in his chest as he tried to will his legs to be stronger. Faster. Younger.
Scamp barked again. Hurry up. Hurry up.
With the same sound of flames and steam, the halo shrank almost to nothing. Harry reached out. Too late. Too late!
As the opening finally shrank to a mere dot, a sudden rush of air shot past Harry, and vines leapt at the dying portal. They sank into the fading light and yanked it apart. Reality screamed in protest. The otherworldly flames leapt back into existence.
Go. These doors are unpredictable, despite my influence. Go, friend.
“Thank you,” Harry said, touching the wines as they trembled with the effort of holding reality open.
And thank you, said the vines as Harry left behind the dream of his childhood.
He didn’t see the opening vanish behind him. He just stood still on the grass of the cold green as a flash of orange light erupted behind him. As it faded, he once again heard the notes of “Mars.” The light of the world was readjusting itself. A brief glance skyward told him that the black disc was passing by. There was chatter from the small crowd. Someone was suddenly talking over Holst on the radio.
“—the likes of which we won’t see again in our lifetimes—”
Harry looked down to the ground and stared in amazement at Scamp. Just as he remembered the little tyke. Scamp let out a pleased ruff and wagged his stubby tail. Harry tried to bend down to pet his dog, but couldn’t. He shuffled towards the folding chair and his luggage, and tapped his thigh so that Scamp would follow. The dog, lost to him for eighty years, but gone only moments in its own mind, trotted along beside him. He must have trained him up better than he’d thought.
Harry sank into the chair and it creaked. He tapped his lap and Scamp leapt onto him, excitedly trying to lick his face. Harry scratched behind Scamp’s ears, and reached into his luggage, from which he produced a very old and much-treasured collar and lead.
As the university people started to pack up their gear and the family close by started to tidy away the remnants of their chilly picnic, Harry wiped tears away from his face with a handkerchief and affixed the collar around Scamp’s neck. He sat and thought of the other place, the sky, the vines, and the glittering sand. It was beautiful, but it wasn’t home.
He thought about getting in touch with Frank again. It was shaping up to be a rather lovely weekend.
DRIBBLING IN XIBALBA
by Mark Mellon
A charter bus picked the guests up at th
eir hotel in San Francisco. Remotely activated wrought iron gates swung inward, and the bus zig-zagged up the winding gravel road that led to the Marin County hilltop mansion. It was followed by a white van with a heavily stylized logo on both sides that read, “Museum Channel.” The guests slowly disembarked. Many were elderly. They’d paid five thousand apiece to meet their guiding light, Dr. Darryl Daxton. A heavyset, middle-aged man in a safari vest and two scruffy, younger men with camera equipment emerged from the van.
When everyone stood gathered in the courtyard, the crew filming, Darryl floated down the stairs, arms outstretched, white teeth gleaming.
“Greetings,” he said. “Welcome to Nim Li Punit, my home when I’m not traveling on research. I want to thank you for coming here today. You’ll find the trip was worth it.”
The guests applauded.
“I wanted the media here today to show those so-called Mayanists and other critics who’s the real expert.”
There was more applause. The man in the safari vest smiled and said with a posh British accent, “Now you’ve mentioned us, Doctor, mind if we ask your guests a question or two?”
“Please, Rob,” Darryl replied. “They’re good people, the smart kind.”
The man turned to a nearby couple. “Hi, Rob Wooton with Museum Channel.”
“Hello. I’m Herb.”
“And I’m Crissy Swinton. We’re from Clinton, Ohio.”
“Ah, very good. You must think highly of Dr. Daxton and his work.”
“Oh, yes,” Crissy said. “Pinions Of The Feathered Serpent completely changed our lives. Before that, we didn’t know about 2012.”
“That’s right,” Herb said. “I can’t tell you how excited we are to be here. Dr. Daxton has explained so much going on in the world today.”