by Brian Hughes
Matthew Palmer closed the door behind him and looked at Mr Singh. The craggy face of the normally friendly proprietor frowned.
Matthew pulled back the cuff of his sweatshirt and pressed a button on his wristwatch. It was the sort of watch that deep-sea divers might have worn.
There was a buzz.
It was closely followed by a crackle that danced about the rafters.
Then everything ground to a halt, an eerie feeling of déjà vu filling the shop.
Don’t tell me the buggering thing has actually worked? Not totally convinced Matthew looked around.
Outside the window a motionless seagull was hanging in mid-air. Its beak was open in what appeared to be a scream, the sound drawn out beyond comprehension.
“Bugger me! I’ve actually done it! I’ve managed to stop time from moving!”
He punched the air triumphantly then set about shovelling tins of Toastie Toppers and packets of Hobnobs down his collar.
Within a few moments his sweatshirt had grown dramatically in girth.
“So, you’d have me done for shop lifting would you, Singh?”
Clang, rustle, thud went the disappearing groceries, the bitterness in Matthew’s voice growing stronger with every can.
“I spent eight hours in the cells that night having to listen to the inane rantings of some stinking great drunkard! And all for one lousy tin of out of date Spam.”
A sudden thought crossed his mind.
His shirt by this point resembled an upright stegosaurus so he emptied the cargo onto the floor. Then with a snarl of revenge he stomped towards the motionless shopkeeper.
“So, watcha gonna do about it now, eh, Mr Singh?”
He gave Samuel Singh’s nose a pinch, stretching it to roughly four inches longer than nature had intended.
A twist was added as a malevolent afterthought.
Then just for good measure Matthew tugged the biro from Mr Singh’s pocket and scribbled a smiling face on the reddening bulb.
“Well, Mr ‘Don’t-I-Look-The-Stupid-One-Now?”
A couple of slaps around the shopkeeper’s cheeks, and Matthew hurdled the counter. He opened the door that led to the lounge.
“Let’s see what you’ve got in the rest of your house then!”
Matthew hadn’t expected the overweight cat hovering four feet above the landing.
Under normal circumstances cats don’t hover at all.
He grabbed Sanjo beneath the arms and hoisted him onto the telephone table.
Then he smiled maliciously as he thought about what would happen when normal temporal progression started again.
With a surge of adrenaline that made his eardrums squeak he reached for the bathroom door knob.
Soap bubbles look particularly odd without the forth dimension to give them their sense of fragility.
These particular globes resembled those tiny glass fisherman’s buoys that get swept up on the beach from time to time. They were floating above the occupied bath in an oddly inert fashion.
Matthew peered through one, studying the reclining form of Samantha Singh amongst her eiderdown of lather. Five gooseberry toes stuck out of the suds, a scrubbing brush being applied to their glistening nails.
There was a stirring in Matthew’s loins.
In case you’re wondering, it wasn’t a ferret.
With his heart beating excitedly he stooped over the tub and started to burst the obscuring froth.
There was a crash.
It sounded similar to Mrs Tulip dragging her dustbin across the back yard.
Matthew bolted upright in shock, having been disturbed from his sleep.
He rubbed his eyeballs, blinked once or twice to confirm that he was awake and then listened to the wind rattling the telephone wire outside his window.
As reality set in he stared at the junk still scattered round his elbows. His Temporal Suspension Engine was a long way from completion.
Picking up a couple of pieces Matthew studied them miserably.
Then he muttered to himself, “Buggering tufted leprechaun’s dick! I’ll get you yet, Singh, if it’s the last thing I do.”
Seizure the Third: What a Worthless Waste of Time
On Saturday night Judith Dunwoody let herself in through the front door. She was confronted by laughter emerging from the downstairs apartment. Beryl Tulip was watching ‘Wrinkly Ringpiece,’ a show designed to deaden the brain. The volume was so high that her living-room door was bulging in the fashion of a diaphragm on the end of a hosepipe.
Ignoring the din Judith clutched her handbag to her bosom and climbed the narrow stairs.
As she approached the upper landing the scenery changed.
The atmosphere was darker here, the sunlight filtered through layers of cobwebs.
And the smell was something again.
A cross between boiled fish heads and cheese.
Tugging the hem of her rubber skirt down over her thighs, Judith gingerly knocked.
The hammering from Matthew’s foetid chamber stopped.
“Bugger off!” His muffled voice reached her ears.
“Are you alright in there, Chuck?”
Silence followed, only the odd, ‘Fat diseased warthog’ and, ‘Buggering cow!’ being heard.
Then the door was wrenched open, Matthew’s face occupying the narrow gap. It was screwed up tighter than a cab driver’s sphincter after a vindaloo.
“Watcha want, Judith? Can’t you see I’m buggering busy?”
“It’s me birthday, Matt.”
Judith wriggled, the dress squeaking beneath her fingers. Almost a full bottle of talcum powder had been wasted getting into the damned thing. Now she resembled an over-inflated innertube with spokes of fat branching out from each thigh.
“We’re supposed to be going out tonight.”
“Tough! I’ve got me work to finish!”
Matthew tried to slam the door, but Judith’s stiletto jammed itself inside.
Reluctantly she hustled him into the bedroom.
Diagrams and circuitry littered the furniture.
Watching her boyfriend plant himself firmly in the leather chair, Judith picked up a page and studied its contents without really looking.
“Can’t all this wait until tomorrow night, Chuck?” She added a little more pleading to her voice. “We haven’t had a night out for ages.”
“Buggering Nora, Jude!”
The pencil snapped in half, the rubber recoiling across the room and bouncing out of the window.
“Can’t you see I’m working? You wouldn’t expect me to come into Sainsburies and drag you away from your till now, would you?”
He brushed some shrapnel from his desk and added unkindly, “Not that I’d have the buggering strength to pick you up!”
“That’s different, Matt.”
Judith lifted a handful of clockwork parts absentmindedly. Matthew snatched them from her.
“You’re putting our relationship in jeopardy,” she added, sadly.
“Not as much as it’s going to be if you don’t get your fat arse out of me light!”
Obligingly she stepped backwards, spearing a teabag with her heel in the process.
“Matthew Palmer! I’m leaving now, and if you love me…”
“Good! Shut the door on your way out.”
Judith stared open mouthed, then turned and stomped through the rubble towards the landing.
Without raising his head Matthew hollered after her, “And try not to fracture the jamb on your way through the door, you tarted-up wombat!”
11.34 p.m. Sunday night.
The square of yellow light amongst the roof tiles trembled as the window was hoisted open.
Matthew’s face appeared above the sill. It was flushed with excitement, resembling a pomegranate dipped in a sump tray.
“I’ve buggering done it!” His words cracked and bounced along the terrace, startling pigeons from their roosts. “I’ve gone and done it, haven’t I?”
“Thank God f’r that,” a voice called back from number forty-two. “Now clean it up an’ piss off back t’ bed before I stuff your ’ead up me arse and fart on it!”
The window ground shut again.
As Mrs Tulip pressed her ghostly features against her own window, the front door burst open beneath a well-aimed boot.
Matthew bounded energetically into the street, his arms thrown joyously above his head.
He performed a jig around the dandelions.
The gathering storm finally broke.
Growls of thunder rumbled along the narrow street.
Huge pears of rain started to plummet onto Matthew’s head. He held up his palm as one of them detonated on his brow.
“Go on, rain you vicious bugger! Tomorrow morning I’m gonna test my Temporal Suspension Unit out for real. And then you’ll all be buggering sorry!”
Seizure the Fourth: What a Worthless Waste of Life
Grind, clank, rip! Matthew dragged the machine across the rain-washed cobbles of Crookley’s Grove. Its axle bent dramatically beneath its own weight.
It would be fair to say that the Temporal Suspension Unit had ended up slightly larger than Matthew had anticipated. It was now the same size as an American frige. Not exactly the sort of device that could fit snugly round the wrist.
Matthew couldn’t afford silicon chips on his unemployment benefit. Instead the machine had been built from vacuum cleaner engines, washboards and old exhaust pipes.
They bulged and wheezed asthmatically.
Beneath all this Matthew Palmer stumbled, the tremendous ballast on the verge of splitting his calves.
Singh’s Grocery Store swung into focus on the corner of Compton Terrace.
With renewed enthusiasm, Matthew struggled on.
“Incredible value, Mrs Tulip.”
Samuel Singh slid his spectacles down his nose. His teeth glinted opportunistically in the morning light.
“Only the finest quality beef at Singh’s.”
He tried to wrap a sheet of greaseproof paper round the purpling meat.
A faggot of fingers suddenly halted his packing.
“I’m worried about beef. What with all this stuff on telly about ‘Jacob Croissant’ injecting it.”
Mrs Tulip was a bit hazy when it came to topical issues.
“Propaganda.” The parcelling resumed, the old dear’s hand moving up and down like a bobbin. “I’ve made sausages out of this. Been feeding my cat on it for weeks.”
There was the smash of a fish bowl upstairs. It was accompanied by the noise that a cat would make with a goldfish attached to its nose.
Several further crashes followed Sanjo’s progress round the landing.
The shop bell rang.
Then the front door smashed open against the ice-cream cabinet.
Sparks flew up from where the Matthew’s machine was digging into the floorboards.
One top corner tore the bell from its rusted hinges.
“What the Hell do you think you’re doing?!” The parcel of meat was instantly forgotten. “You know you’re banned! I have a court order out on you!”
Towers of neatly stacked tins toppled noisily to the floor.
Matthew struggled through the chaos almost blindly. It was like trying to climb a mountain of ball bearings.
“You can’t bring that into my shop! Get out this instance you hooligan!”
The Temporal Suspension Unit rocked backwards with a thud, dragging Matthew off his feet.
After a brief struggle he found the ground again and hastily unbuckled the wire braces.
“That’s what you think, Mr Singh. Just you try and stop me!”
Which was where the adventure ended.
Well almost.
Matthew grabbed the lever, setting off a series of hisses and creaks. Two whistles on the top of the machine belched steam towards the rafters.
Cogwheels rumbled.
Pistons shunted.
Then a splutter and the whole machine conked apathetically out.
“Buggering wrinkled turkey’s gonad’s!”
Matthew coughed through the smoke, gave one corner a kick, and then grinned as the contraption shook back into life.
“So long sucker!”
All around him time slowed down beneath the weight of temporal mechanics.
Clock hands ground to a halt.
Mrs Tulip’s puckered features became immovable creases.
Samuel’s jaw swung open, resembling the entrance to a broken down lift.
“Now then, Singh, me old mucker. Time for a kick up your annoying fat backside!”
Which was the point that Matthew realised the fatal flaw in his cunning plan.
It is a fallacy to assume that the space between objects is actually empty.
Perhaps in the vacuum of the universe this might be the case, but not so on Earth.
Gaps are filled with tiny atoms of oxygen and carbon dioxide which, when time becomes suspended, become solid.
Not only that, but light itself no longer moves and the shop was suddenly plunged into darkness.
Matthew struggled to move his arm.
Then just his hand.
And finally one finger.
It was impossible. Similar in many respects to being a dead crab in one of those paperweights.
“Oh my God. What have I done?”
Another struggle.
Another grunt, at least a mental one, his larynx now jammed as solid as the rest of his body.
“This can’t be right. Don’t tell me I’m stuck like this for the rest of buggering eternity!?”
It was a question that Matthew would be asking himself for a very long time.
Long enough to think about matters and reach a few conclusions.
Long enough to regret the error of his ways.
The rest of always, in actual fact.
Intermezzo the Third
“Are all your stories so miserable?” Lucy arched one eyebrow flirtatiously.
The stranger snuffled, trying not to look affronted.
“I mean, how come all the characters meet terrible ends?”
“Because that’s how life works...” replied the stranger by the way of explanation. It wasn’t a very good explanation, he had to admit, but under the circumstances it’d have to do. “Life isn’t always about pretty things like kittens with big pink bows.”
“No, but something a bit more upbeat wouldn’t go amiss from time to time, don’t you think?”
“Life is many colours...”
Good, thought Lucy! The stranger was obviously trying to defend himself. Judging by the way that he’d folded his arms a bit too tightly, she’d got him on the run.
“Mine certainly isn’t...usually it’s just red and white as in the Manchester United strip!” She folded her arms tightly and chewed her bottom lip. “The other night I was suffering from a gallbladder attack and do you know what was on the telly?”
The traveller shook his head obediently.
“Football! Bloody football at that time of night! The damned thing's never off. The news these days consists of two minutes of politics, one minute of the Israeli/Palestinian war, thirty seconds of some old biddies who took the wrong turning in France and then twenty-six and half minutes of David Beckham's fucking foot!”
“Yes, well, sometimes life is blue as well,” the stranger continued philosophically. “It doesn’t do to be too optimistic all the time. If we painted our palettes all one shade of yellow we’d end up like the Americans.”
“I prefer puzzles myself,” snapped Lucy, closing her pad resignedly.
“What sort of puzzles? How about the conundrum of temporal physics?” the stranger asked, almost smugly.
“Thought we’d already done that with the Crooked Chronometer?” said Lucy.
“Ah...yes...” For a moment it seemed as though the stranger was floundering.
Fortunately a goose had wandered up from the memorial park lake and was now peering in through t
he window. It distracted Lucy just long enough for him to pull his thoughts together. “But how about recursive time and parallel universes?”
“Doesn’t sound very interesting,” Lucy replied, staring into her empty cup.
Well, it didn’t! Listening to tales of alternative universes wasn’t exactly the way she’d planned on spending her afternoon.
“That depends on whether it’s happened to you or not,” replied the stranger mysteriously. “Now these...” He picked up a set of battered headphones. “These were once part of a time machine.”
“They look like a set of broken headphones to me.”
“Well...yes...they are...” The traveller turned crimson and adjusted his collar, which had suddenly tightened. The pans on his rucksack clanked against the back of the chair. “But once they used to be part of another tale...”
The Sideways History of Conrad Brewster
Chapter One: Trouble Brewing
4.29 p.m. It was Halloween. The fog flattened its numerous noses against the windowpanes and clung to the lawns as though on military manoeuvres.
Inside Court Road Junior High School everyone was geared up for the Halloween party, all fit to explode with anticipation.
Everyone that is apart from Mrs Morgan’s class…
“Conrad Brewster will now give us an informative discussion on whatever he has inside his box…”
The puritanical school ma’am slid her spectacles down her nose.
Conrad Brewster stood up.
He was dressed as a leg of beef. Not a terribly traditional costume for Halloween, it must be said, but Conrad’s mother was of the opinion that whatever frightened her would also frighten his classmates.
His face peered out through a circular hole about halfway up the costume, resembling a watermelon in the neck of a jam jar.
“In my box…” he said, holding up a soggy doughnut. “I have something that roughly approximates the shape of Time.”
Conrad was an intelligent child, which also made him very unpopular amongst his classmates.