Authors: M.D. Hall
He pulled away in his old, but not yet battered estate car. ‘Why Manchester? We were meant to have an AG port here in York, I mean,’ he was beginning to sound exasperated, ‘sixty miles, and even then you’ve got to take a jet…and no direct flight!’
Nathalie shook her head, still smiling. ‘Look at it this way, I will be one of the last people ever to take this journey, it is the last flight into Beijing by jet, and I can use the time to relax.’
He knew exactly what she meant, the weekend had not gone the way they had planned. What was meant to be a quiet Friday night in, followed by Nathalie taking the AG - still from Manchester - on Saturday, took a different turn.
At precisely seven-thirty on the Friday evening, the door bell rang, neither of them were expecting visitors. Nathalie was upstairs finishing her packing, and Jon had just taken a couple of sea bass fillets from the fridge.
As he opened the door, his best friend, Roger Turnberry and his wife Samantha tumbled into the hallway. With the door still ajar, Jon turned towards them, Nathalie was already leaning against one of the newels at the bottom of the stairs.
Both Roger and Sam were beaming. ‘We’ve done it!’ Roger almost shouted.
‘Done what?’ asked Jon, and like him Nathalie was smiling, infected by the good mood of their friends, although neither had any idea why.
‘Got pregnant!’
That was when the celebrations began. The sea bass went back into the fridge, and Nathalie made a quick call to their favourite restaurant, luckily, for a Friday, there was a cancellation. Within the hour they were sitting around a table munching on bread and talking, as friends do, about nothing in particular and had a great time. They lost count of the toasts, sparkling water for Sam.
Towards the end of the evening Roger got up, and began to make his way to the toilets when he tripped over a handbag strap, that had strayed into his path from under another table.
An hour later the four of them were in Accident and Emergency. Five hours after that, Jon and Nathalie were taking Sam home with the promise they would return with her later that morning to take Roger, and his cast home.
On the way to the airport, Jon flicked on the wipers as the heavens opened. Within moments the road was awash, and he had to slow to crawling speed. He half turned to Nathalie and, winking, said. ‘You know this is all down to the North-South divide?’
She sighed. ‘I have no idea what you are talking about, North-South divide? I am not even sure I want to know.’
‘Too late,’ he grinned. ‘You can bet all the towns in the South have got AG ports, we’re only an afterthought up here.’
‘I see,’ she replied, ‘you only mention this when it starts to rain?’
‘Because they’re probably responsible for that as well.’
‘The people in the South?’
‘No,’ he replied, in a mock patronising tone, ‘not the people, the Government, they’re happy we get all the rain, then we have to ship water down in trucks so they can water their landscaped gardens. I’m convinced they’ve got satellites that can steer the clouds about!’
She tried to keep a straight face but failed, miserably. The rest of the journey saw them laughing at the most absurd things, and in no time they had arrived at their destination.
He watched, as she walked through departures at Manchester Airport. She kept looking back at him until she was out of sight. He waited a little while, in case she had forgotten something, or he was needed; she had not, and he was not.
Once back in his car, he drove to a spot he guessed would be on her flight path, and waited until a steadily rising plane flew overhead. It was climbing into a beautiful sky, mostly blue, with small cotton wool clouds, dotted sparsely here and there, replacing the unbroken grey rain clouds that accompanied them over most of their long drive. He was missing her before he lost sight of the plane.
This was the first night he had slept alone for five weeks. Each time she went away, the first night always found him sleeping fitfully. It never ceased to amaze him how someone he never knew twelve months ago, could have such a profound effect upon his life.
Δ
∞
Jon opened his eyes, it was probably the third time he had woken that night, but this time was different. He did not find himself looking up at the ceiling, in their bedroom, he was in a place that was not home, and he was not lying down, but sitting. To make matters even odder, he had no idea what he was sitting
on, because he had no sensation of contact, and could not feel the floor with his feet.
Maybe, I’m floating,
he thought. He looked down and, sure enough, found he was in a chair, which seemed to be firmly anchored to the floor.
OK, so I’m not floating, but I must be dreaming,
most of his dreams were weird, but this tipped the scales. As it was a dream, he decided to run with it and see where it took him.
A cursory examination of the chair showed it to be plain and simple, in the style of a recliner. Touching his right leg, he felt sensation in both his fingertips and his leg,
odd that I can’t feel the chair, but can feel my leg.
This should have confirmed that he was in a dream, but a slight doubt began to creep into his mind,
what if it isn’t a dream?
He was wide awake, which meant this had to be a dream. Invariably, when he woke, he was sleepy and - he would have to admit, if he was brutally honest - occasionally grumpy, but wide awake, never. He tried to rationalise what was happening, and even that felt odd.
I shouldn’t be rationalising, I should be panicking
. That realisation should have worried him, but reason seemed to be back in his bedroom, where he was asleep. He wondered whether nipping his leg would wake him, no, it just hurt,
but what does that mean? Why shouldn't I be able to feel pain, in a dream
?
But
,
if I’m not asleep, then I’ve just woken up somewhere other than where I went to bed, with no sensation of being moved. No, it has to be a dream, doesn't it?
Looking further afield, he found he was in a large room, about the size of a basketball court, but without a point of reference it could be a tenth, or ten times that size. Except for the chair on which he was sitting, there was a complete absence of furnishings.
Diaphanous colours suffused the walls, or what he thought were walls because they seemed to lack substance. None of them had corners, that he could discern, and as his eyes were drawn upwards, the walls appeared to be merging above his head, how far above there was, again no way to tell, or maybe they were not merging, they went so far up they just appeared to merge?
As for the floor, it had a milky translucence, but thankfully appeared more solid than the walls.
Sitting back in the chair, he thought again about his situation. He had gone to bed in his own house and woken up in, for want of a better description, a room without corners to walls, that were neither curved, nor flat and which extended ridiculously upwards. There was even something odd about the floor. To top it all, he was sitting on a chair he could see, but not feel.
The whole situation was bizarre, but in spite of himself he began to dismiss the possibility of it being a dream. Some part of his mind was forcing him to accept that it was real. Certainly, the sensations were vivid and persistent for a dream, and had remained fixed and solid. He was in good health, so far as he knew, and had drunk nothing the previous night. He was not on prescription meds and had never taken recreational drugs. He was certain of only one thing, wherever this place was, it was unlike anything he had ever heard or read about.
To finally reassure himself that what he was experiencing was ‘real’ he sat forward and, tentatively at first, placed his right foot down on the floor, it was as he thought and hoped, solid. Whoever had brought him here was taking great care to ensure his well being, they were not about to let him step onto thin air.
Standing up, he began to walk towards the part of the wall that seemed nearest. It was more than a little strange, as his bare feet made no sound and still there was no sensation of contact, which made his first few steps very difficult. He almost stumbled a couple of times until he forced himself to trust that each next step would be on something solid, and flat. Thankfully, over the next few minutes the strangeness gradually dissipated. As he continued walking, he noticed the floor did not show any reflections from the walls. More time elapsed, how long, he had no idea, but it seemed a while,
so much for a basketball court,
he thought.
About to give up, he found himself at the wall.
What if I touch it, and get a shock?
he wondered.
Either this is a dream, in which case I can’t get hurt, or it isn’t and I can. Whoever brought me here, if this isn't a dream, could have harmed me already.
Mind made up he, very slowly, reached out with his right hand and touched, nothing!
It was not that his hand went through the wall, the wall was simply not there any more, and he was standing in a simple, white room: white walls, white floor and white ceiling, with two white armchairs in the middle of the floor.
Sitting in one of the chairs was a woman, although, to say a woman would be an understatement. She was the woman a man might dream of, but cannot recall when he wakes. He knows, in his dream, that she is the perfect woman, without knowing why. Yes, she is physically perfect, as many women are, but there is something else about her, beyond his capacity to describe. Upon waking, there is a fleeting moment when the memory remains, but it fades, and too quickly is gone. Well, this was like not waking from that dream.
Without seeming to move, he was sitting in the other chair, his host looking at him with an impassive face.
She spoke, and the sound of her voice was the most mellifluous, serene sound he had ever heard. He knew she was speaking in English, but he had no idea what she was saying. Later, he tried to remember those initial words, but they remained out of reach.
Instantly, his perception of the woman altered, while she was still unutterably beautiful, the ethereal woman of his dreams was gone. He felt at once, both loss and relief, the loss of waking from the dream, the relief of again being in control.
She was fair skinned and fine featured, with long brown hair swept back and held in place by something he could not see. Her eyes were unlike any he had ever seen, electric blue suffused the entirety of her eyes, not just the iris and pupil, but also the sclera.
Dressed in a simple, yet elegant white robe, she wore no adornments such as rings, necklaces or bracelets; her feet, like his were bare. She put him in mind of a faultless classical sculpture and, like a sculpture he realised what was missing. Her expression was unreadable, those same wondrous eyes gave her the cold, emotionless appearance of a statue.
When she next spoke, her voice had changed, the earlier dreamlike quality gone, her voice was now flat, conveying no more emotion than her eyes. ‘I did not appreciate the effect my appearance would have upon you, and have,’ she paused briefly, as if deciding what to say next, ‘adjusted your perception of me. I need you to be fully aware of what is happening.’
‘My what?’ was the only response he was able to muster.
‘You need to be patient whilst I show you some things which will, shock and even frighten you. Then, when I have your full attention, I must tell you something.’
‘Why not just tell me now?’ he asked.
‘Because,’ she replied, ‘you are confused, and I need to gently introduce you to what you need to know.’
She had a point. While, deep down, he knew he was not in a dream, this reality was just as strange.
‘It seems,’ he looked around the room and, returning his gaze to the woman opposite, tapped one of his temples with his fingers, ‘that you're more than capable of planting that information right here.’
The impassiveness of her face remained unbroken. ‘Manipulation is something we try to avoid. We believe in the free exercise of will. Occasionally, there are times, as you have just experienced, when it is necessary to make adjustments, but we try to limit such incidents.’
‘We?’
She ignored the question.
‘Where am I?’ he asked, looking around the room before returning his gaze to the woman. ‘Why have you brought me here?’
‘You are one of a small number of your race who fit the necessary criteria.’
‘My race? What criteria?’
‘In time, it will be explained to you. As to your first question, you are no longer on your planet.’
This last statement, however outlandish, did not surprise him, and once again that worried him.
‘So, I’m on a space ship?’ he asked.
‘No,’ she replied, without elaborating.
‘And you are?’
‘A Custodian.’
‘What’s a
Custodian
?’
She did not reply.
‘I’m Jon.’
‘I know,’ she replied, matter-of-factly.
‘And you are?’
Silence.
When it became obvious that no reply was to be forthcoming, he pressed the point. ‘You must have a name.’
‘My kind have no need for names.’
‘Then how do you address each other?’
‘Without the need for names.’
‘Well, that’s no good. I’ll give you a name.’ He looked at the strange woman, and had no idea what to call her. What name could he give to a being like this? What could possibly suit what she appeared to be, never mind what she actually was? Then it came to him, the one thing she wasn’t was plain. He thought his choice was just the tiniest bit ironic. ‘
Jane
, that’s what I’ll call you, unless you have any objections.’
She maintained her silence, neither approving, nor disapproving. He decided it was time he moved on. ‘I don’t understand any of this. I’m sure you’ve made a mistake,’ in the absence of a response he continued. ‘You can’t just take someone against their will,’ he knew the argument was feeble, as she had clearly demonstrated she could do just that.