Time and Again
by R.A. Conine
He presumed the three girls were about his age. Otherwise they would not have picked him up so readily. He presumed this too. He didn’t know much anymore. His mind was nearly blank. But he had flashes, insights and hints of a strange past.
He knew that his name was Timus. He came into this information while strolling along a seemingly endless dirt road lined by coarse old trees. It was the first thing he knew with any certainty.
The girls came by in a little while, driving a terrible wreck of a car. It clanked and rattled and looked as if it would soon fall apart. It had begun its life of mechanical drudgery as a serious hard-top sedan. At some point, a botched surgery had transformed it into a rattletrap jalopy and a convertible. Though inexpertly done, the resulting appearance was weirdly agreeable.
It looked like nothing he called a car. He was more accustomed to swift, powerful and sleek machines. He realized this in a surprisingly rapturous moment, but the fragment of memory led him nowhere.
The girls were having a grand old time, screaming and waving their arms and laughing so that he could hear them well before they arrived. They rumbled past, leaving him in a cloud of foul-smelling smoke. Then they pulled to the side of the road and shouted for him to join them.
Coughing, he hurried ahead as much to escape the fumes as catch that ride to an unknown place. He slid into the vehicle as the girl in back made way for him. Her hair was mousy blonde and she was childishly small. She was dressed in a mush-green sweater and a wraparound sari of brilliant colors. Her garments were a nonsensical arrangement of clashing hues, as if the ordered composition of such clothing was a puzzle she had not solved. Her legs and feet were bare. She smelled like a cloud of oranges.
He reached out to shake her hand and she giggled, failing to respond to the custom. Instead she clasped her hands to her chest and said, “I’m Myna.”
He took back his rejected fingers and replied, “I’m Timus.”
She gazed at him curiously. “My brother was named Timus. But he died a long time ago. I… I almost forgot.”
One of the other girls leaned over the front seat as the vehicle lurched into motion. The ride was bumpy and uncomfortable. Timus quickly decided walking was a superior means of locomotion.
The second girl was green-eyed and her ivory flesh was peppered with dark freckles. She said, “My name is Myra. Timus? Tim-Moose?” They all laughed but the merriment was good natured.
The third girl spoke next. Her appearance eluded him because she was driving the car and preferred to face forward, as it should be. Her brown hand was very small on the stick-shift and she had some trouble moving it about. Her words were loud. The engine was making a terrible racket and she had to shout to be heard. “I’m Mya, Tim-Moose.”
He said, “Your names are all very similar. Are you sisters?”
They laughed again. At this point the car encountered a particularly rutted section of the road and made alarming noises, as if bolts were popping and metal was being tortured.
Myna leaned very close to his cheek and said, “Something like that. You like this car? We stole it from the Magistrate. We’re on a lark.”
“Oh,” he said, not caring much.
“You want a drink?” she asked.
Now he smelled the alcohol. Her breath was hot on his face. Her scent was as intoxicating as any whiskey. Against his better judgment he said, “I’m a little thirsty.”
The freckled one—Myra, he remembered—handed over a stout metallic container with a red screw-top and Myna poured a generous amount of amber liquid into a paper cup. She spilled a bit on her leg due to the roughness of the ride and cursed sweetly.
Myra leaned over the seat, generously exposing her freckled chest. She was wearing a loose silk blouse that gapped alarmingly. As she watched the drink-pouring debacle, she propped her breasts carelessly on her folded arms. Timus caught hints of warm, pink cleavage.
Myna took a sip of his drink before handing it to him. She then filled more cups, which she drew from a mysterious pocket between her muscular legs.
He took a drink himself, to both pacify his dry throat and lose himself in a haze. What happened next, he wanted to enjoy, not question.
He gagged. The bitterness and sting were unchained. It was the closest he had ever come to drinking raw alcohol. He spewed a mouthful in a long wet stream directed at the roadside. The girls thought this was hilarious, as if they had never enjoyed a joke so rib-tickling.
“What is this?” he asked. “It’s awful.”
Myna handed a cup to Myra, who passed it to Mya, who proceeded with great difficulty to steer with one hand while she drank. Her questionable control of the shifter grew yet more doubtful.
Over the grinding of gears Myna said, “I don’t know. Some peasant gave it to us as a gift. Highlight of his life I think, to meet three temple virgins. He probably brewed it in his hut. Quite illegal, you know? We should report him if we weren’t desperate criminals ourselves.”
They laughed again, a sparkling merry sound that made Timus take another drink. It wasn’t so bad the second time, now that he knew what to expect. Still, it took a long time to rouse enough nerve to swallow it.
He was feeling a little bold now. He said, “You’re all very pretty.”
Myna’s breath was hot in his ear. “You like me?”
“I do,” he admitted. “You smell nice.”
“Feel my breast,” she said. To accent this demand she shifted her shoulders and thrust her immature bosoms toward him. Her breasts were round and inviting looking beneath the tight green sweater.
He answered by sliding a hand beneath the sweater hem, skittering straight up her ribcage and cupping a sweaty globe of flesh. It felt like a soft velvet purse heavy with coins. The nipple was temptingly near. He knew about these. These were the keys to most women’s secret centers.
She pushed his hand away, pretending to be horrified. For one long moment he was nonplussed. The ‘aghast act’ was shared by all of them before they dissolved into merciful gales of laughter again.
He smiled.
Myra leaned toward him a little more and the gap in her silk shirt opened even wider. He found himself gazing into a dark and mysterious valley with secrets that called out to him, demanding he come and uncover them.
She said, “You’re a strange one, Tim-Moose. But very handsome I think. Do you know you have committed a terrible crime?”
He shook his head. “No? What have I done?”
She smiled and Myna smiled. He could not tell what Mya was doing, aside from driving quite badly.
Myra said, “You touched a temple virgin. It’s illegal around these parts. You could be hanged.”
“Oh,” he answered, genuinely surprised. “I didn’t know that. Why are you away from your temple?”
Myna said, “I told you. We’re on a lark. That temple is no fun at all. And the Magistrate is such a dull fellow. He would never touch one of us the way you did.” She feigned a yawn.
Timus nodded approvingly. “I can see why. He probably doesn’t like the idea of being hanged. I would not want to be your Magistrate. I would be executed in a day.”
Laughter surrounded him like a sweet summer storm. Mya asked loudly, “You think we are pretty?”
He answered a bit too quickly and his words were somewhat slurred. The alcohol was making him feel odd and dangerously brave. Myna had refilled his cup at least once, more than likely twice. “Of course I do. You’re goddesses.”
Myna was tousling his thick dark hair with one, long-fingered hand. She said, “What do you have in your pockets? Show us.”
Acting quite literally he emptied his pockets and raised a palmful of items for them to inspect—a polished Indian arrowhead made of some dark-veined, bronze-colored stone, a handful of dull, nicked coins with the faces of strange men on them, and a wad of greenish paper.
“Put it back,” Myna said. “That’s nothing. I bet it doesn’t do anything if you blow on it.”
“I’m sure it doesn’t,” he admitted. “I’m not magic. At least, I don’t think I am.”
Myra looked at Myna. “He could be up from the southlands, got a knock on the head in one of their stupid battles.”
Myna was amused. “He isn’t. Do look at him. He doesn’t even have a tan and a broadsword weighs more than he does. Does he look as if he could kill someone?”
Myra shook her head. “No. He’s very sweet looking. Tim-Moose? Where are you from?”
He was startled. His mind had been wandering somewhere far afield. He said, “I don’t know. I forgot. I forgot almost everything. I want to feel your breast again. It was nice.”
Myna giggled and pushed his questing hand away. “Nothing? You remember nothing?”
He shook his head. “You want to see what’s in my pocket?”
Myra said, “I don’t think we do, Tim-Moose, if it’s what we think.”
They laughed again, agreeably. But he dug in his pockets anyway and pulled out the arrowhead, coins and paper.
Myna said, “That’s very nice, Timus. But we’ve already seen those. I think you’re drunk.”
He ignored her dismissal. He said, “Blow on these. Maybe something will happen.”
Her eyes lit up. She asked, “Do you remember, Timus?”
“I remember nothing,” he said truthfully.
She brushed a lock of hair from her face, then lowered her lips to his palm. He felt a hot wind playing across his upturned flesh.
Suddenly, he was holding a handful of large, rusty coins. The arrowhead, paper and nicked coins were simply gone. The laughter stopped abruptly.
Myra’s lips formed a quizzical ‘O’.
Myna asked, “Timus, do you know what you have done?”
They watched as the coins turned into a red-brown bird that fluttered aloft, alighted on Myna’s shoulder and sang sweetly for a fleeting moment. Then it flew away, catching a warm wind and struggling up over the treetops.
He shrugged. “Don’t worry. It will come back.”
Something happened to the light.
The girls seemed darker and older. Nothing was the same. The merriment had gone out of the world.
The car halted with a gnashing of gears. Myna touched his shoulder and led him from the vehicle. They crossed the wide dirt road in the deepening gloom of an early evening. He remembered catching that ride when the sun was high. He had only been with them for a handful of minutes before the bird flew away and spoiled it all.
He followed her into a large building with adjoining wings that had collapsed. His footsteps echoed on marble tile. High overhead, he glimpsed moonlight playing across a geodesic roof of glass panes.
She raised a metal grate protecting the entrance to a cavernous hall. The passageway beyond was dotted with ornate fountains and long-dead plants. It seemed to go on forever, like a shaft drilled into the heart of darkness. She stepped back, aghast. A rat scuttled across her foot.
She said rather quickly, “I’m going to leave you now, Timus. You cannot come with us.”
“I don’t want to stay here,” he objected. “I want to go with you.”
“You can’t. This is our lark, not yours. If you want to see me again, use your magic.”
He was sobering up rather more quickly than he wanted. “I already told you, I’m not magic.”
She glanced at him briefly. “You are. You must do this. In all the universes and time, we have only minutes together. We can live them forever if you will only use your magic.”
He stared into the dark cave. Then he heard her footsteps receding, growing fainter and fainter as she departed.
Dust sifted down on him from somewhere high above.
He had no desire to go into that dark place with the filthy feral creatures. He could hear them chittering noisily. A rotten smell reached him. It was a mixed bag of odors but it definitely included the sharp scents of spoiled meat and feces.
Instead of obeying her, he went back outside.
The car and the girls were gone. The night was cooling. The buzz of insects filled the empty air. He wrapped his jacket a little tighter around him. The sky lightened then darkened dramatically.
He returned to the strange building. The rats were all gone. They had exhausted their food sources years before and departed that haunted place en masse. The mingled smells of death and excrement had also dried up. The green scents of mold and mildew were all that remained. The place had so devolved that only spores called it home now.
He entered and walked down the central thoroughfare, exploring with his eyes as he went. He was in a great hall, as wide as a road and badly buckled. It was lined by dark recesses, some gated and some open and heaped with trash and rubble.
A high walkway encircled the building’s interior. Parts of it had collapsed onto the floor below and he was forced to step around these puzzles of girders, broken glass and splintered wooden beams. Everything was covered with the dirt and filth of ages. Yet there was a buried magnificence to that place, a deep resonating sadness for something beautiful, abandoned and lost.
He navigated the wreckage unerringly, drawn inward as if by some magnetic force. At the end of this walk he discovered a curious set of metal stairs. They were quite sturdy and Timus had the impression that they were once attached to some sort of moving machinery. Rails to prevent falling either did not exist or were long gone. He was careful not to lean too far to one side or the other as he climbed.
Just as he reached the top of the old stairs the bird returned, settling on his shoulder. He seized and stuffed it in his pocket, ignoring its squalls of protest. But he was not fast enough.
***
He found himself in a bright place, in the company of men wearing baggy silks. It was a warm and beautiful afternoon. They were strolling together down a wide dirt road. One of them cuffed him lightly and said, “Where did you come from, boy?”
“I… I don’t know,” he stammered. The memory of the girls and the car was fading, growing dim as the seconds ticked away. He found this troubling and sad.
The brilliantly dressed fellows laughed. His antagonist said, “Then go on. Go over there and stop bothering us men.”
There were a group of children huddled together near an old building. They were standing on tip-toe and peering into dark windows.
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He was older than all of them, much closer to the ages of the men in baggy silks. But he went anyway, principally out of protest. He did not like the way they treated him.
He tried to remember the girls and what they had done together. He failed miserably. In a moment he was as empty-headed as he had ever been. He did not know his name or where he had come from.
He was tall. He had no trouble seeing in the windows.
The children gathered around him, touching his jacket and pants curiously. A young girl with thin blonde hair asked, “Wh… What’s in there?”
“Books,” he answered. “Lots and lots of books.”
“Can… can I se… see?” she stuttered eagerly. She reminded him of someone named Myna. But he did not know who Myna was or where he had met her.
He said, “Of course. Come on.” He lifted her up in his arms. She was as light as a feather and he could feel her little bones.
She gasped in amazement and the children danced around his legs crying, “Me next! Me next! Me next!”
He laughed. “It’s just books.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and whispered in his ear. A broken memory danced through his swirling thoughts. Someone had done a similar thing recently, but the story was borne away on a mental tide the instant he tried to seize it.
She sang to him in a breathy little whisper, “I wish I could have a book. I would like the one with the man in the funny cap.” He knew stutterers did this sometimes to make talking easier.
He said, “Well then we’ll get it. I have a little money.”
She looked at him, puzzled. “You c… c…can’t do that. It’s not puh… puh…permitted.”
“Of course I can,” he said at once. “Come on. Let’s go inside.”
She was suddenly alarmed. “Oh no! You muh… muh… mustn’t.”
He was exasperated. “What will happen?”
“You’ll be uh… uh… arrested. Only muh… muh.. men can go in sh… shops.”
The children were growing bored, drifting away like his recalcitrant memories.
“I’m very old,” he argued. “I’m hundreds of years old.”
“You uh… uh… aren’t,” she scoffed. “Muh… maybe you’re 15.”
“Do you like magic?” he asked.
She nodded rapidly.
“Would you like to be a grown-up for a little while?”
Her eyes widened. “You c… c… can do that?”
“I believe so,” he answered. He took some things from his pocket, a rusty ball bearing, a few washers and some bare copper wire. “Now,” he said. “If you blow on these things and make a wish, we will be old enough to go in that shop.” He wasn’t sure how he could make this happen. He just knew that he could.
She blew on the objects in his palm and the world darkened and lightened.
She collapsed against him. Her legs were longer. She was a young woman now. She was nude. The tiny garment she’d been wearing was only a memory. The grass had grown up around their ankles and the shop was long abandoned and empty.
He said, “I may have gone too far.” He removed his jacket and helped her into it. She was still quite petite and it covered her to the knees. He zipped it closed and she looked at this simple mechanism wild-eyed. Then she gazed up at him, her jaw dropping.
He laughed. “It’s a simple trick.” He realized he was older too. His voice was gruff and he felt a wiry growth on his face.
She kissed him suddenly, locking him in a fierce embrace.
The sensation was delicious, soft and hot. He tasted her saliva and felt her curious tongue exploring his teeth. Eventually, much to his disappointment, it ended.
She drew back her head with a pleased smile. “How did you do this?”
“I made the world age. But it will go back for you.”
She seemed disappointed.
“Don’t worry,” he laughed. “You’ll always have this memory. But I won’t. I forget everything. Something is wrong with me.”
Reassured, she giggled. “What is your name?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
She studied his face for a long moment. “You remind me of my brother. He died a long time ago. His name was Timus. It’s a good name. You should have it.”
His smile was broad and pleased. “I think it’s a good name too. What’s yours?”
“Myna,” she answered immediately. Then she took his hand and led him through the doorway of the empty building. “Come on. I want a book with a man in a funny cap.”
The shop was a gateway to a bustling plaza beyond. This was lined with more shops and thronged with people dressed in bright silks. He noted that they preferred very elaborate clothing but no one wore boots or shoes. All the people in that place were men.
He hauled her to a stop and said, “You told me only men could go.”
She spoke patiently, “As long as I’m with a man a woman is permitted. You don’t know a thing, do you?”
He shook his head and resigned himself to following.
They bypassed a stand that sold baked treats and walked right by a dealer in wine and cigars. He was fairly sure he loved all these things with a serious passion. But the girl was insistent. She dragged him around like a helpless child.
Finally, much to his relief, they found a bookseller. He was a wiry old fellow with a long gray beard and one eye. The man chuckled as he watched her exploring the racks of crumbling paperbacks and piles of moldering hardcovers.
He nodded to Timus and asked, “Is she simple?”
He said, “Like a child. She wants a book with a man in a funny cap.”
His face lit up. “I have just such a thing. Here it is.” He pulled a large, floppy book from a pile. It was still colorful, though quite old. The man on the cover was carrying a rifle. He was wearing a fringed buckskin jacket and a silly hat made from the hide of some animal. It still had the banded tail attached. His smile was placid and assured as he surveyed a wilderness of trees.
“Daniel Boone,” Timus said. “Who is Daniel Boone?”
The old man shrugged. “I have no idea. What you are holding is called a coloring book. These are very old. This was a place where people stored their treasures. There are rooms and rooms full of such nonsense beneath our feet. They called this vault a ‘mall’.”
Timus turned the pages of the floppy book, awed.
The old man said, “Why people would value a book of silly drawings enough to hide it below ground is beyond me. But it’s yours for three rubats.”
Timus felt his pockets. “I am from away. I don’t have rubats.”
The merchant pointed a stubby finger at a colorful tent nearby. “Well then you must see the money changer. I will keep the book here and I’ll watch your woman. Does she bite?”
“Like a mad cat,” he lied wisely.
The merchant seemed disappointed. “I see. I want no trouble with her. You’ll be back soon?”
“In a moment,” he replied.
The tent was dark and the sudden absence of sunlight rendered him nearly blind. When his eyes finally adjusted he saw a wooden table so long that it sagged in the middle. The platform was littered with coins and puzzling looking pieces of machinery. There were two men surveying this odd and eclectic collection, older shrunken fellows wearing jeweled rings and silken robes.
The men looked up when he arrived and spoke to him invitingly. “Come on then. You’re from away? What have you, dagogs, shinoks, tekates? You look like an Easterner to me.”
“Yes,” he said, stepping up to the table. “I’m an Easterner. I just need a few rubats.”
“Well then,” one of them said. “Let’s have your money.”
As if on cue, Timus felt weight in his pockets. He removed a handful of coins and spread them on the table.
The eyes of both men glittered. “Is this a joke?” one asked him.
He shook his head. “Of course not.”
The man was shaking. “You could buy this entire bazaar with those coins. They’re… they’re dollars.”
“But I only need a few coins. You can keep them if you give me six rubats. I want a coloring book, a muffin and some warm milk. Is six rubats enough for that?”
The first man nodded. “Quite enough. Where did you get these coins, Easterner?”
“From my pocket,” he answered simply.
The second man had moved around behind him and now seized his hands and quickly bound them with string.
Timus did not resist. He knew this would bring on a beating.
He was forced into a chair and the money changers went through his pockets. They found nothing. Frustrated, they examined the coins on the table. But these had changed in the interim. Now they were pieces of bark and scraps of cloth.
The first man said, “He tried to cheat us. He’s magic.”
The second man shook his head. “It’s just a trick. Let’s go and get the regulator. He’ll skin this Easterner alive and eat his liver with his eggs.”
Timus said, “It’s not what you think.”
They refused to speak to him. They wrapped him more tightly with pieces of rope and, finally satisfied that he couldn’t escape, they departed the tent.
He waited for a long while but they didn’t return. The tent grew darker and lighter several times. The ropes grew old and brittle. He broke them. Then he stood and collected his pocket scraps from the table.
He exited the tent and the bazaar was empty. The market floor was weed choked. He recalled that it had once been stamped bare and muddy by many feet.
A large old holly tree dominated the area where the bookstand had been. The stalls were overturned and scattered. All the goods had been removed ages ago. The future was always about emptiness and dying. He didn’t like the future very much.
He left the shops, returned to the wide dirt road and began walking. He noticed that he was wearing his coat again, as if he had never given it to the girl.
He couldn’t remember her face or why they had been together. The more he tried to recall the details the faster they receded. Finally, his mind was blank like a book never written. He walked for a long while. He did remember that his name was Timus. That was something at least.
A rattletrap old car bearing three young girls passed him by. Then it pulled to the side of the road and the passengers called out to him.
He hurried to catch a ride to a place that he could not name, that was at once familiar and mysterious.
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About the Author
R.A. Conine is a southern writer, a U.S. Navy retiree and a North Carolina Tar Heel. His short fiction has appeared in many magazines and journals and his first novel, The Dreamtime – Book I of the Somnia Mortis Cycle is available in paperback and eBook editions on Amazon. His website is located at http://www.raconine.com.
“Time and Again” © 2013 R.A. Conine
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