A soul-tearing screech. Everything flew everywhere. Blood exploded in a fountain of crimson. They had to get to the hospital. Everything would be alright! They had to be alright! Her skin grew pale, all life fled from her eyes. Her breathing slowed, slowed, and stopped.
Joe woke up slowly, his bones aching with the remembered pain of decades. It had been the same bad dream he had had for twenty years, and it no longer chilled him the way it had done. Over the years, he had grown accustomed to the images, expected the visions to come. It was a spur to action, a call from the past that came to him each night. He badly needed a drink.
Joe peeled back the bed-sheets and rose carefully to his feet. His right knee was troubling him, as it often did at night, but he ignored it and headed for the stairs. The red wood of the bannister was dark with use; Joe gripped it firmly as he stepped down. The pale carpet was discoloured, the textured wallpaper torn and ragged. The house needed serious work, thought Joe. One of these days, I must get around to it. One of these days. When I have more time.
The withered carpet felt like sand beneath his feet as Joe crept down the stairs. He switched on the light and rubbed his eyes to clear away the sleep. It smelt damp and old, a thick layer of dust covered everything and heavy cobwebs hung from the ceiling, drifting slowly in the draught. Pictures hung from the walls but everything blurred together into shades of grey. In the end though, it hardly mattered.
A single bulb lit the kitchen, and it swung relentlessly to and fro like the pendulum of a grandfather clock. Each swing measured a moment lost to time, a unique, singular instant that was unrepeatable. Second by second, time leaked away. But each swing had an echo in the swing that followed, action and reaction, motion and counter-motion. With the right energy, Joe could soon make time itself recur, moments long-since passed return. Or so he hoped. Sighing, Joe turned from the light and filled his limescale-ridden kettle with water.
The clock told him it was five to six in the morning. Hardly worth going back to sleep. He never slept well anyway.
The kettle took exactly a minute to boil. Joe threw a tea bag into a chipped mug and poured vaguely clear water over it. Part of him wanted something stronger, even after all this time, but he didn’t touch alcohol any more. Now he had his time machine to finish.
Joe took the mug of tea to the living-room and collapsed into the leather armchair, its touch comforting but cold against Joe’s thin clothing. He didn’t bother turning the lights on. Orange streetlight poured through the windows, and Joe knew exactly what the room looked like - there was nothing new to see. It was the same as it had been for twenty years; nothing changed.
Sometimes he forgot there was any dust at all, so clearly could he see the room in his mind’s eye, but then the dust would get in his throat and set him coughing. Only two objects in the room were free from the dust: the chair he sat in and a picture above the fireplace.
This chair was where he used to sit and relax after work, tea in one hand, newspaper in the other. Some of his greatest ideas had come to him in this chair. That was one of the greatest pleasures of life, the sudden flash of inspiration, the moment when you find the solution that has eluded everyone else, the instant where you dreamt what no one else has dared to dream. It was sitting in this chair that the time machine had come to him. Like a prophecy or a revelation, it had simply appeared in his mind, almost fully formed. At that moment of inspiration, it had seemed so easy.
But such moments had become things of the past and Joe had almost forgotten what they were like. As he sat in the leather arms of the chair, his mind was blank. He had no thoughts he had not had a thousand times before. His eyes came to rest where they habitually did, across the room, above the fireplace.
It had been cold for at least a century, ever since central heating had been installed. It was archaic but did not look out of place, gathering dust over the ashes of the past. The picture rested on the mantelpiece above it, framed in a simple silver square. It was nothing extravagant but then Joe cared little for the appearance of things. It was the substance that really mattered - the photograph and not the frame.
Three figures stood in the photo, against the backdrop of the night sky. A thousand stars glittered in the darkness while a wide, pale moon cast a pallid glow. The three of them stood close together, smiling and hugging each other. The one in the middle could have been Joe when he was younger, maybe twenty or thirty years ago before his hair and eyes had turned grey. Sometimes Joe wondered if it was really him at all.
The woman to his right was about the same age and wore an elegant black dress and a silver necklace with a diamond pendant. It had been a present from him to her, a gift for their silver wedding anniversary. Her hair was golden-brown, her hazel eyes glittered by the light of the moon.
To his left was a girl, who couldn’t have been more than fifteen or sixteen. She wore thin, framed glasses that enlarged her eyes, and was laughing as she always had. Her eyes shone exactly like her mother’s.
Joe watched them while he waited for his tea to cool, and he knew he had to continue.
* * *
In the cutting winter sunshine, Joe watched the children playing. Wrapped up in synthetic fur, mittens, hats and coats they were like miniature cavemen. They laughed and shrieked with equal glee as they played their childish games and tromped the frost-rimmed grass underfoot. They seemed almost inhuman, like visitors from another world, a world free from cares and the pain of the past. Not a cloud was in sight, the sky was perfectly blue with a sun that almost pierced the skin but did nothing to warm it. There was light but no heat. The children did not seem to register the cold, so bound up were they in their play, but Joe shivered violently, the chill gripping his bones. He rubbed leathery hands together in an attempt to keep warm, and took in his surroundings.
How long could this park remain, he wondered. London grew exponentially, way beyond all artificial limits, absorbing everything in its path. Like a monstrous whale, London opened its mouth and swallowed whatever entered. Naturally there were protesters. There would always be conservationists and the liberal-minded who stood in the path of the bulldozers, protested to local government, chained themselves to the trees in protest against the destruction of London parks. But the force of change seemed inevitable these days, and sooner or later, the machines would come, grind up the once fertile soil with teeth like dinosaurs. What was once a park would become a new apartment block, another coffee shop, a high rise shopping mall. This park too could not hold out much longer - soon it would be gone.
A terrible shiver ran through Joe’s body. His only protection from the cold came from a light, black coat he had bought because it was cheap. He had no gloves, no hat or scarf. Personal possessions were an ineffective use of money that could be better spent funding the time machine. That was all that really mattered.
The time machine. Still missing some crucial ingredient, the source of power that had eluded Joe all this time. But when it was finished... When it was done he could turn back time, master death itself; change the past and stop them ever going out in that car. When it was done, he would see his wife and daughter again. This was what he lived for.
But until then, Joe came here every day, whatever the weather, though he knew it was bad for his health. The wind blew through his coat, and the holes in his greying trousers. He could not blame the children for avoiding him where he sat, alone on the bench.
He came anyway, to watch the world and remember what he had once had. His daughter had loved this park. She had spent hours playing on the red swings, just over there. When she grew too big, she moved on to the trees. Each became a personal challenge to be overcome. The day she climbed the tallest tree... he could still see the look in her eyes. So like her mother. The tree had been cut down years ago, of course.
So after the accident, and after he had begun to recover, Joe gathered his savings and had the park renamed after the one who had loved it best. As he watched the children, Joe thought he caught a glimpse of her. Something in the easy way they ran - a lightness, a freedom. Another shiver shook his body. Time to leave, time to start work for the day.
Then, in the shadow of a great willow tree, Joe saw a middle-aged man peering at him. Joe glimpsed a balding head, small dark eyes, round spectacles, and then the man vanished. Joe looked again but he had gone.
Sighing softly, Joe got up and left the Dinah Smith Memorial Park. The children never noticed he had gone.
* * *
Joe was sitting in his shed watching the sun get lower in the sky when the phone rang. Slightly antiquated, the shed had wooden walls and was lit by a single bulb suspended from the ceiling that illuminated the clutter of books and pages that threatened to overwhelm the work bench and bookshelves. There was little dust in here - it never had a chance to settle. Joe was constantly shifting the piles of notebooks and journals, moving equipment from one corner to another. It was a cycle that betrayed his lack of progress more than anything else.
After going to the park, Joe had always come back here to work and used to spend most of the day scribbling, soldering and tweaking, cursing and muttering to himself. Sometimes, he had forgotten to eat at all, only knowing that time had passed when the sky began to darken. That had been before though, before he had run out of ideas. Now he spent more time staring into space than wielding tools or cursing. Nevertheless, Joe refused to leave the shed, hoping despite the long years, that inspiration might suddenly strike.
A few years ago, he had moved the telephone into the shed, to avoid missing any important calls. Not that he actually had any important calls any more. In fact he hardly had any calls at all - he had no family and no time for friends. But it had been something to do and was better than staring into space.
Just before the phone rang, Joe was almost asleep, dozing off in his chair, but the sharp ring jolted him awake. Blearily, he contemplated its dark, demanding shape, before remembering that he ought to answer it.
“Hello?” he said, hesitantly.
“Joe? Is that you?”
He almost recognised the voice. It was on the tip of his mind but the name wouldn’t come.
“Yes, it is. Who is this?”
“It’s me,” replied the voice earnestly, “Eliphaz”.
Eliphaz was staring at his hands in shock and utter disbelief. Red rivulets of blood poured down his arm.
“My God, what happened? What!?”
Eli only stared at his crimson hands, dumbstruck.
“What!” screamed Joe, furious with fear.
“Your wife... your daughter...” was all he said, a pained whisper, words torn from deep in his soul.
They were in the ambulance, racing to hospital. Ammi was covered in tubes. Dark, red fluid pumping through her still body. They were going to make it, everything would be alright.
Dinah was breathing raggedly but was still breathing. Tiny drops of blood speckled her skin. Her eyes were closed but moved rapidly beneath her eyelids. They had to make it. Couldn’t this thing go any faster?
Medics scurried over their bodies. Joe never really saw them. He only saw Ammi and Dinah. Come on, come on!
A soul-tearing screech. Everything flew everywhere. Blood exploded in a fountain of crimson. Joe was flung against the wall. Needles and plastic tubes were thrown across the ambulance.
What had happened? They had collided with something. No! It wasn’t fair, they had to get to hospital. His eyes flew around the ambulance. Ammi’s skin grew paler, all life fled from her eyes. Dinah’s breathing slowed, slowed and stopped. They would be alright! They had to be alright!
“Joe, are you there?”
“Yes... yes I’m here,” he replied haltingly, “I was... remembering. It’s been so long.”
“Yeah, I know.” Eli’s voice had grown sadder, but Joe recognised traces of the voice he had once known so well.
“How are you?” asked Joe.
“I’m fine,” Eliphaz replied, “yeah, I’m fine. Listen, I’ve got a project I’m working on and I thought... well, I thought you might want to join the team. For old time’s sake.”
“I don’t know,” replied Joe, wrestling with the past.
“The moon, Joe, we’re building a city on the moon.” Eliphaz’s voice brimmed with enthusiasm. “A city in paradise, away from the mess we’ve made of this world - it’s a fresh start, a huge leap forward. I want you to be part of that future. Will you do it?”
The idea thrilled Joe more than he liked to admit. Terraforming the moon! it was almost inconceivable. How could he say no? Perhaps it would help with the time machine, he added as a justifying afterthought. He smiled, for the first time in weeks.
“Okay,” he said, “I’ll do it.”
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