by Ian Whates
Almost immediately Mark became aware of another motorbike approaching from the same direction as the first. It looked identical, following the same course. The rider took the bridge without slowing down, failed to see an oncoming car, was thrown from the bike when his machine collided head-on with the other vehicle. This was followed almost immediately by another bike; the machine raced towards the bridge, slowed slightly, crossed the river and disappeared along the lanes on the other side without incident.
Mark twisted the orb back to its previous position. Sound and air burst on to him. He blinked, staggered a couple of steps and threw up against a tree.
“Are you all right?” Kate asked. “What happened?”
Mark leaned against the tree with one hand, gasping and sweating and staring at the ground.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I came over all weird.”
“You kind of faded. As if I could see through you.”
At that moment Mark heard the sound of a motorbike on the country lane on the other side of the field; he immediately recognised the note of the engine. He stood upright and turned to face the road. “Oh my God.”
“What’s the matter?”
Mark said nothing. He could only watch through the trees as the motorbike’s headlight sped towards the bridge. As the rider approached the river he eased off the power, took the bridge with caution, then accelerated away into the darkness. Mark gazed towards the road as the sound of the engine gradually faded.
“What is it, Mark?” said Kate. She touched his arm. “What’s the matter?”
“I saw that bike,” he said. “When I twisted this thing.” He looked at the sphere. “In fact I saw it three times. But the first two times it crashed. I saw the same bike have two different accidents. I’m sure I did.”
They both looked at the sphere.
“Come on,” said Kate quietly. “Let’s go. This place is beginning to creep me out.”
IT WAS WELL past midnight by the time they got home. Kate slipped off her muddy boots then shrugged off her coat and threw it on to the back of the sofa. While Mark went into the kitchen and filled the kettle Kate placed the sphere on the coffee table, sat down and stared at it.
As he waited for the water to boil Mark turned and stood in the kitchen doorway. “So what do you think?” he said.
Kate shrugged. “I don’t know. Tell me again what you saw.”
Mark did so, concluding, “Then I saw a third time when it didn’t crash, and that’s what we both saw. Do you want tea or coffee?”
“Tea, please. Just a small one, though.”
As Mark turned and went back into the kitchen Kate picked the device up off the coffee table and rolled it over in her hands. “It looks like glass,” she said, “but it feels warm and soft. Like wood.”
“Weird, isn’t it?”
The object emitted a faint blue glow. Kate examined its stippled surface. She noticed that there was more than one notch around its circumference. She grasped the device firmly between her palms and rotated the two halves until it clicked, turning it to the second notch.
The world greyed and closed in. She felt an almost asphyxiating pressure and dizziness, heard a strange howling and saw ghostly shapes.
She could see Mark in the kitchen, but there was a second image of him, too, a strange overlay. As the first Mark lined up a couple of mugs, a second Mark was picking up already filled cups and turning towards the door. As the first Mark put teabags into the cups Kate watched the second Mark walk across the room towards her. As this Mark passed the sofa he banged his leg on the coffee table and stumbled slightly, half-spilling the contents of the cup in his right hand. She felt his anger and embarrassment quite clearly. He turned and placed the cup on the table and shook tea from his hand. Behind him, the first Mark watched the kettle as the water it contained reached boiling point. That was her Mark. The real Mark. Wasn’t it?
She twisted the device again. The room seemed to shift sideways and she was enveloped in darkness. Kate heard a babble of voices. Fighting the compulsion to deactivate the device Kate closed her eyes and listened through the cacophony.
One voice she recognised. A woman crying. Elanor from next door. Through her tears she was asking David why he treated her the way he did. Why was he such a bully?
Kate focussed harder. She felt as though she were moving through a tunnel. The pressure increased and the darkness intensified until after a few moments she found herself in Elanor’s flat. She could see their living room, their sofa, their television. Kate was behind and to one side of Elanor. The other woman was slightly blurred but it was definitely her. Kate could feel the intensity of her misery and fear.
David was a dense, dark shadow to Kate’s left, looming over Elanor’s slender shape. Kate tried to focus on him but he remained indistinct. Yet his animosity was palpable. When David spoke, his voice was distorted, like a badly tuned radio.
You’re a useless excuse for a wife. His voice shifted and warbled. Useless. Useless excuse. Waste my money again and I’ll knock your stupid head off. Do you understand me?
Kate’s head swam; she felt as though she might throw up.
You’re pathetic. If you waste my time again I’ll break your stupid neck. Do you understand me?
Elanor spoke again – although Kate could not distinguish the words it seemed to be a defiant challenge.
The David shape swelled and stretched and threw Elanor on to the sofa. More tears, more shouting. A stream of garbled, stuttered words.
Stupid neck. Understand me? Do you understand... Neck... Pathetic... Head off, neck, stupid, stupid...
The room spun. Nauseous and dizzy, Kate quickly returned the sphere to its original setting and was dumped back into her own living room.
She blinked, took a moment to catch her breath. She heard the kettle reaching its peak and then looked up to see Mark walking towards her with the tea cups.
“Are you all right?” he said.
“I think so.”
As he neared her Mark banged his leg on the coffee table. He swore, kicked one of the table’s legs, put one of the cups down and wiped his hand on his trouser leg.
“Stupid bloody table,” he said. “Here.” He handed Kate the other cup and looked at her. “Are you sure you’re all right? You look as white as a sheet.”
“I turned that thing.”
Mark glanced at the sphere. “Right. So what did you see?”
“I’m not sure. I saw you in the kitchen. But there were two of you, doing different things. I saw you bang your leg on the table. Then I clicked it again and I was next door. As if I was in there with them, in their flat. They were having another row.”
“What about?”
Before she could answer there was a thump against the wall and muffled voices.
Why do you treat me this way? Why are you such a bully?
You’re a pathetic excuse for a wife. If you waste my money again I’ll knock your bloody head off. Do you understand me?
“That’s it,” whispered Kate. “That’s what I heard. Just a few moments ago when I turned this thing. Only it wasn’t exactly like that.” She gazed at the device. “I think...”
“What?”
“I think it shows the future. Or some representation of the future.”
Mark put down his cup and picked up the sphere. He rolled it from one hand to the other, smoothed his palms across its strange surface. “Well that would kind of explain things. There were slight differences between what I saw and what actually happened, but a lot of it was accurate. Bloody hell. What do you think we should do?”
“Take it to the police and hand it in.”
He looked at her. “And say what? Some aliens came down and left this bauble lying around. If it’s not claimed within six weeks can we keep it?”
“Well what do you think we should do?”
Mark looked at the sphere for several moments, then tossed the object into the air and caught it. “Think about it, Kate. If we really can see the future
with this thing, we could be made. We could win the lottery. Invest on the stock market while all the shares are low. Make a sodding fortune.”
“I don’t know, Mark. That all sounds a bit...”
“What’s the matter? Do you want to be a secretary all your life?”
“Thanks very much. And I’m a PA as it happens.”
“You know what I mean. This thing could change our lives. We could go and live on an island in the Maldives, get an apartment in New York, do anything we wanted.”
Kate rubbed her eyes with her fingertips as immense fatigue caught up with her. She shook her head. “I’m scared, Mark.”
“Of what? The people who left it behind aren’t likely to come looking. They’re probably back on Alpha Centauri by now.”
Kate rubbed her hands across her face “I really can’t think straight I’m so tired. I’ve got to go to bed. Can we leave it until the morning?”
Mark shrugged. “Sure. I suppose. If that’s what you want.”
She nodded. “Please. I’m exhausted.”
“Are you all right? Are you ill? You look terrible.”
“Thanks a lot. No, I’m fine. Just tired.”
Kate pushed herself up and walked towards the bathroom, her cup of tea untouched. As she closed the door Mark looked at the sphere for a few moments longer, then set it on the table in front of him and went to bed.
KATE WOKE EARLY after a night of fitful sleep. Mark was lying on his side facing away from her, but she could tell from the movement of his shoulders that he was still asleep. Slowly, careful not to wake him, she slipped out of bed, put on her dressing gown and quietly went into the living room.
She walked over to the table, picked up the device and sat on the armchair next to the window with her feet tucked beneath her.
She studied the object. She wondered where it had come from, what it was made of, what strange powers it held. But more than that, if the device really did show the future, she wondered whether there was something else she should attempt to view. It did not involve lottery numbers, stocks and shares or islands in the Maldives.
She stared through the window. Weighed up the pros and the cons. After several minutes of consideration, Kate gripped the sphere in her hands and twisted. The device clicked twice.
She felt as though the ground had dropped from beneath her. There were shimmering lights, a discordant howl, a torrent of images that skewed and distorted like a weak transmission.
She saw children: a good-looking boy with Mark’s eyes; a pretty, fresh-faced girl. Kate was rocked by the intensity of the love she felt – an emotion so powerful it took her breath. She tried to focus on them but there was another surge, a headlong rush. She glimpsed riots and demonstrations. Felt the fear of millions. Sunlight weakened by a veil of ash and dust, starving children, a decaying world. The images slewed and shuffled. Sunlight through trees. The girl. Older now. A beautiful young woman with a striking young man. Kate was struck by the intensity of their love. A fast-flowing stream. A golden beach. Children. A house somewhere. Another shift. The boy, his face flickering and morphing on a bizarre time-lapse loop. Laughter, tears, a relationship broken. Another shift. Multiple overlays of the two young people living through a multitude of events and combinations in an exhausting cycle of joy, pain, love, anxiety and fear.
When she could stand the onslaught no longer Kate deactivated the device and was dumped back into their flat.
The room spun. She placed a hand to her chest and gasped for breath.
Within the few seconds that had passed under the device’s power she had careered from elation to heartbreak and back again, experienced a multitude of lives and possibilities.
Kate replayed the images in her head. The future seemed so confused, such a struggle. How far ahead the device had transported her Kate was unsure, but the gravity of the commitment she was on the verge of undertaking was clear. The responsibility for the life growing inside her was overwhelming. There seemed to be potential for so much suffering to come. Could she bring children into a world like that? Were Liz and the others right? There was still plenty of time.
Kate heard Mark moving around in the bedroom; she quickly put the device back on the table, stood and walked over to the window.
“Hello,” he said. “I didn’t hear you get up.”
Kate glanced back at him, smiled, looked outside once more. Mark crossed the room, wrapped his arms around her waist and nuzzled against her neck. “It’s still early,” he whispered. “Why don’t you come back to bed for a while?”
Kate twisted herself from his arms, said nothing.
“What’s the matter?”
Kate continued to gaze through the window, biting her thumbnail. “I used it again,” she said. “That thing.”
Mark glanced at the sphere.
“What did you see this time?”
She hesitated. “I’m not sure. You can twist it more than once. I think the more times you twist it, the further forward you see.” She stopped, bit her thumbnail again.
“And?”
She simply shook her head.
Mark took the object from the table.
“No, Mark. Please.”
But he had already twisted the sphere.
THERE WAS A long pause after Mark deactivated the device. He slumped down on to the sofa, exhausted. After a minute or so he looked at Kate, who continued to stare out of the window.
“Who is it?” said Mark.
“Who?”
“The man. I saw you with someone. You loved him. Or you will love him.” He looked down at the sphere, rolled it from one hand to the other. “Is there someone else?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Mark.”
“I’m not being ridiculous. I saw you with someone. I felt your love for him.” He looked away.
Kate closed her eyes, rested her forehead in her hands and sighed. She took a breath, hesitated. But there was no alternative. “I’m pregnant,” she said. It seemed such a flat statement. This was not the way she had rehearsed the announcement in her head.
Mark sat motionless, absorbed Kate’s words. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It’s very early days. I only did the test yesterday.”
“So that man I saw you with...”
Kate shrugged, looked weary, rubbed her eyes. “Our son? I don’t know. Maybe.”
“There was a girl,” he said. “She had your eyes. I thought you and he...”
“Well he had your eyes. Will have your eyes. Oh, God, I don’t know, Mark. I’m not sure I can cope with this. Did you see the other stuff? It felt like a war. So much struggle and suffering and pain. How can we have kids knowing they’ll go through something like that?” She was on the verge of tears.
“It might not be that straightforward. If it’s showing us different scenarios then events can’t be fixed. It’s the choices we make that will dictate what happens. And if all the decent people just throw their hands in the air and give up, what hope is there?”
“But what if we get it wrong? Think we’re doing the right thing but take the wrong path?”
“We just have to be there for them, give them all the support and help they need. Follow the right course for us.”
“I don’t know, Mark. It’s so... daunting.”
He pulled her close to him. “It’ll be okay,” he said.
“How do you know?”
“We’ve just got to do our best. Roll with the punches when they come and bring our kids up as best we can.”
Kate sighed. Mark wrapped his arms around her waist. She rested her head against his chest.
“At some point we’re going to have a son,” he said. “And a daughter. And she’s going to be beautiful. Just like you.” He kissed the top of Kate’s head.
She squeezed his arms gently. “Did you see others? I think they might have been grandchildren.”
“Grandchildren? Blimey. Let’s take it one step at a time, eh?”
“Sure. One step at a time.�
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They were quiet for a few moments, looking out into the street.
“You know, that thing could still help us,” he said. “If we could learn how to use it, learn how to channel the things we see we could...”
“No, Mark. We’ve got to get rid of it. For good. Somewhere no one else will find it. Better not to know what might happen.”
Mark rested his chin on the top of her head. “You know your trouble?” he said. “You’re far too wise.”
Kate shrugged. “Maybe it’s just the maternal instinct in me.”
MARK AND KATE leaned on the handrail and looked down at the surging sea.
“Not quite as exciting as the time we went to Paris is it?” he said.
“Not quite. But at least we’ll get to buy some cheap booze.”
“Always a glass-half-full kind of girl.”
She shrugged. “Beats half empty every time.”
They said nothing for a few minutes.
Kate looked at him. “When are you going to do it?” she said.
Mark looked back towards the English coast, fading in the mist. “I’ll give it a couple of minutes.”
“You’d keep it, wouldn’t you?”
Mark half shrugged, squinted at another ship in the distance. “Maybe. There are so many possibilities.”
“That’s the problem.” She reached out and rested her hand on his arm. “It’s got to go, Mark.”
Mark took his left hand from his inside pocket and held the device out in front of him. They both looked at the blue sphere resting in his palm. Mark looked at Kate. She nodded once, and Mark allowed the sphere to roll from his hand. A moment later the device hit the water and was lost from sight as it sank into the foaming sea.
Mark turned and slipped one arm through Kate’s. “Come on,” he said. “It’s freezing out here. How about we go inside and get something to eat.”
“Sounds good to me,” she said. “Do you think they do coal-flavoured ice cream?”
Mark laughed. “I guess we won’t know until we get there,” he said. “Come on, let’s go and find out.”
They turned and walked arm in arm along the deck, and left the churning sea behind them.