Short Story: Time Travel
I am impatiently waiting in a crowded car park for my brother. It is a grey, wet typically British summer afternoon. Fine raindrops impact against the windows of my Volkswagen. People mill around like sheep. Two tedious hours have slowly passed.
Finally Chris’s lanky frame emerges from the building outside of which I am parked. He is dressed, as always, in an ill fitting t-shirt with an outrageous logo emblazoned across the chest and ridiculously skinny jeans. He spots me and offers a half hearted gesture of acknowledgment, beckoning me with his left hand. I turn the key in the ignition, the engine reluctantly starts. I release the handbrake, press my foot down on the clutch and allow my car to coast slowly towards him. He pulls open the passenger door and gets in beside me. I say nothing to him as I edge towards the car park exit and the frustratingly long queue of rush hour traffic.
Once my car is firmly established in the queue I decrease the volume of the radio, inhale a deep breath of fume-tinted air and ask Chris…
‘So, how did it go?’
I look in his direction. He doesn’t look back at me. I note his blue eyes are beginning to fill with tears. His mouth moves as if he is trying to say something, yet he is unable to find the right words. He runs his hands through his girlishly long hair and shakes his head slowly in disbelief. My stomach begins to summersault. I feel sick.
‘Fucking hell,’ he says gently.
Then something amazing takes place. Suddenly, I am surrounded by darkness, vast and empty space. No rush hour traffic jam, no car, no Chris. I feel the sensation of tumbling backwards at an unfathomable speed.
I find myself in a seemingly endless, windowless corridor. The unnatural lighting is recognisable. I am in the hospital. I am two years old and still unsure on my feet, yet I am determined to walk. My Dad leads me by the hand as we pass door after door after door. He walks purposefully, and before long scoops me up in his hairy, tanned arms and carries me.
Eventually we enter a clean and spacious room. A slim, rectangular window allows fresh afternoon light in. I notice the leaves on the trees outside are magically colourful, orange, red and yellow. In the room there is a surprisingly narrow bed. My Mum is sitting on the bed, her back is supported by large white pillows, and her legs are covered by a pastel blue blanket. My Mum’s hair is dampened with sweat and her glamorous face is flushed pink, yet beaming with happiness. In her arms she lovingly cradles a tiny bundle with a full head of jet-black hair. My Dad places me down on the floor next to the narrow bed.
‘Look Robert…Say hello to your new baby brother…Say hello to Christopher,’ he says proudly in his strong Middle Eastern accent.
The concept of a new baby brother fills me with strange feelings. I need to look at this Christopher in greater detail. I use the metal frame of the bed as a scaffolding and attempt to haul my little body onto the mattress.
‘Robert…careful…Robert,’ my Dad pleads quietly.
Too late, I lose my footing. My chin smashes hard against the cold steel. My developing teeth pierce the flesh of my tongue and my mouth fills with peculiar tasting blood. I start to cry loudly. Christopher, disturbed by the commotion starts to cry with equal volume. The clean and spacious room rapidly descends into chaos.
‘What did they say?’ I ask Chris.
He passes me a crumpled piece of paper, barely filled with just a few lines of text. I read the words out aloud.
‘The ultrasound scan reveals several hypo echoic lesions in the left testicle. There is strong evidence of hyper vascularity surrounding the lesions. The ultrasound scan also reveals a spec of calcification in the left testicle. Significant pathology is suggested. The patient requires an urgent appointment with the urologist.’
My eyes now also begin to fill with tears, but I do my best to disguise them. Despite the complex terminology, I understand exactly what the text means. I have been obsessively surfing the web, swallowing any piece of relevant information on the subject that I can find. Each word detonates inside my mind like an explosion. I silently ask myself how such devastating news can be limited to just a few lines of text.
I place a comforting hand on Chris’s shoulder. He looks at me. He is terrified. I am terrified.
I arrive in the small garden of the council house on Church Lane, my first home. Chris is with me. I am six years old, he is four. It is the early evening. The sun is setting. The air is mild, fresh and sweet. We are dressed in matching white shirts and black bow-ties, smart black trousers and black plimsolls. Our parents are in the house entertaining guests, family, Aunties and Uncles. We have been dismissed to the garden like a pair of over boisterous puppies, in order to burn energy before the inevitable and thoroughly detestable bedtime. Armed with our plastic Thundercats swords, we duel for some time, but the duel becomes one sided and I bore of slaying my brother, only for him to miraculously return to life and ambush me again and again. I devise a cunning plan.
I convince Chris that the real reason we have been dismissed to the garden is that my Mum requires us to undertake a special and dangerous mission for her. The giant Buddleia plant, green and purple, once her pride and joy, is now growing out of control. It is becoming dangerous, a threat to all of our safety. With our Thundercats swords me must tackle the giant plant and destroy it, before it is too late. He agrees without hesitation and fearlessly attacks the Buddleia; I assist him and before long the giant plant is vanquished, reduced to a mess of leaves and twigs. Mission accomplished.
At this point my Mum comes to the back door to enjoy a quick smoke with my Uncle Jacques and ensure we are not causing any mischief. Upon surveying the damage, Jacques flashes an uneasy smile and quickly heads back towards the house. My Mum instantly realises what we have done. In shock, she loses her grip on the large glass of red wine she is holding and it smashes loudly on the patio. Her face fills with furious anger.
‘YOU PAIR OF LITTLE SHIT-POTS,’ she screams, louder than I have ever heard before.
I place a comforting hand on Chris’s shoulder. He looks at me. He is terrified. I am terrified.
I begin repeating, word for word, positive facts that I have come across during my obsessive web surfing…
‘You know, if caught early it is almost ninety five percent curable…Often, surgery is the only course of treatment necessary…Lance Armstrong was in the later stages of the disease and he went on to win the Tour de France…’
Chris’s terrified facial expression softens a little. He composes himself. He says calmly…
‘It was a one in one hundred and fifty thousand chance that a boy of my age would have it. It was a one in one thousand chance that a boy of my age and with my symptoms would have it…How do you fucking know I won’t be one of the five percent who fucking die from this shit?’
Terror is once again etched across his face. He looks away from me.
‘When we get home, you have to tell Mum and Dad for me. If I have to talk about it I’m just gonna get upset. OK? He asks.
I find myself at school, in the crowded, noisy gymnasium. The temperature is high, humid and oppressive. The atmosphere is a confrontational one, tribal almost. Chris warms up with the rest of the senior basketball team. He is fifteen, the youngest player in the squad. He is also undoubtedly the most talented, the starting centre, arguably the most crucial position on the court. He has been a key component to what will be an unbeaten season if the team overcome their arch rivals in today’s game.
This is the first time I will see Chris play. I play football; I like to think I’m pretty good. Yet my teams have never been as successful as his. My Dad often misses my games, work commitments and what not getting in the way. Totally understandable I guess. He never misses Chris’s games however. Basketball is his passion, his sport. He never hesitates in letting us know…
‘I could have been a professional you know? I should have been a professional you know?’
So perhaps out of some strange form of sibling rivalry and a little bitterness and jealousy, I have never seen my brother play until now. I have butterflies in my stomach. I feel a rush of adrenaline as if I am taking part in the game myself. My Dad stands on the opposite side of the court, looking on with eager anticipation.
The game tips off. The opposition are in possession of the ball. They move it around the court fluently. Chris’s opposite number, a tall, powerfully built Nigerian boy, receives a pass on the edge of the three-point line. He dribbles the ball once and then clasps the ball safely in his large hands and takes two giant strides towards the basket. Chris stands in his path. I wince at the thought of a collision, certain my brother will come out second best.
The powerful boy leaps impressively into the air with the intention of laying the ball up into an unguarded net. Chris rises majestically, matching his opponents jump. In a brilliant defensive play, he swats the ball away with such ferocity that it smashes into the side wall of the gymnasium. The noisy crowd of spectators erupt. My Dad jumps up and down wildly. The entire building shakes as if struck by an earthquake. Chris’s team mates offer him congratulations and high-fives, but he dismisses them, urging them to concentrate on the game. My body is overcome by an unusual cocktail of pride and guilt, disappointed in myself for ignoring my brother’s talent for so long.
The gridlocked traffic is beginning to disperse and I am able to accelerate. I begin to drive recklessly, longing for the comfort and familiarity of our house, foolishly believing that being at home will ease the grim situation. I am dreading the thought of telling my parents about Chris. I foresee the stunned expressions of disbelief and the tear filled eyes and the phone calls to Aunts and Uncles and the endless questions.
I weave in and out of lanes of traffic hazardously. Other motorists beep their horns and gesticulate in my direction. I am oblivious to them. Before long I am careering through the backstreets close to my home, negativity cripples me. Chris has not spoken a word for several minutes, he just cries quietly. I can offer him no words of comfort. I feel inadequate. Nothing I say to him will make things better.
I am a middle-aged man, in my late thirties perhaps. My hair has thinned slightly. My once athletic frame is a little soft around the centre. I stand on the patio of an impressive garden on a warm spring afternoon, the lawn is expertly trimmed and colourful flowers line the perimeter. At the back of the garden stands a giant Buddleia in full bloom, it is quite a sight. My parents, now an elderly couple, sleep peacefully on deckchairs next to where I stand.
I hear the sound of a doorbell ringing and dash through the modern kitchen and cluttered hallway to answer it. I am greeted by a beautiful woman, in her arms she cradles a tiny baby girl wrapped in a pink blanket. I gesture for her to come in, she smiles and gives me a kiss me on the cheek as she enters. A man follows her, his hair, like mine is thinning, his waistline is slightly expanded. It is Chris, my brother. He is alive. He is healthy. I hug him tightly. I don’t want to let go.
My car bounces on to the driveway. I remove the key from the ignition. Chris and I remain silent for a few more moments. I look at him and tell him…
‘Everything will be alright you know. I know it will. It has to be.’
He pauses momentarily and then smiles a hopeful smile.
The dog comes bounding towards the living room window, he clumsily clambers on to the sofa and places his big front paws on the windowsill. He waits excitedly for us to come inside and play with him. His face carries the same clueless and content expression. Ignorance is bliss.
