The Gift of Time
This is a short story I wrote a while back, Just want someone to read it , I think its pretty good.
It seemed no matter where he looked John could not find another living person who possessed the same unique gift that he had. It was sometimes a blessing, others a pain in the ass. It just wasn’t normal to reach through time and space and insert people, that in normal sense of the word, did not conceivably exist. It broke a few laws of physics. In most brains with the extreme unparalleled minds, this just seemed inconceivable.
John lived an otherwise thoroughly average life. He had average days and an average family. They lived in an average red brick house in the middle class section of Dublin. John’s family did not believe in such things as John would often about his many adventures, while reading the evening post. John had claimed to parley with the first emperor of Rome. This seemed as likely to everyone as try to teach a blind man to see.
John; being an overly average looking Caucasian male with red hair, did not receive the attention he deserved. John did not care, for he could be sitting at home while ubiquitously sailing with pirates in the red sea. He was not combined to our world or timeline.
John could see things scientist had just hypothesized. He had seen parallel worlds, many different versions of the same event, different variables. He had talked to his parallel self, as much like him to the devil. He could see world’s being made and destroyed. Planets being overrun by creatures dark as night itself. This both horrified and fascinated him. He had tried telling scientists and others about it, more than once he was accused of being high on LSD. John did not do LSD.
John saw intelligent beings much like ourselves living on worlds like our own. One species he came across while on his mind journeys was very human-like. The exception was that they were enormously tall , having no visible mouth and large unblinking eyes. These pale specimens were completely mute.
The tall people called themselves the Unspeakables, John was to learn. They communicated to him in him in his mind , in vivid imagery and voice. They told him they had to two genders, though they looked the same to John ; tall, pale, bald and walked with a graceful gait one would not often associate with man.
It was from the Unspeakables that John learned the problems of humankind. They knew the comings and goings of man in many different times, many different worlds. The peace loving Unspeakables denied the notion of power. They had no governing law , no rule and and believed in no deity. They were powerful beings, by human standards; but, never saw it as power.
John could not fully comprehend this, he was always taught that the men with the power were the most successful. John generally mistrusted his leaders; but, he always thought power needed to lay somewhere. John was not a powerful man, so he often fealt unequal.
The Unspeakables also questioned the science of man. They taught John that not every question needed answers. They said that in striving to answer everything, people were failing to understand the little things, like living with the land not off of it.
John had already seen things that blew fist sized holes in his understanding of things. He had seen living structures, it was all too confusing.
Many years after his first encounter with the Unspeakables, when John was nearing the end of his earthly years; he went on a trip. It was not a normal trip by any definition. At this time he was a very old man, his mind gone from dementia; living in a nursing home in Orlando, Florida. This trip was unlike all others because he had fallen into a coma from which he wouldn’t awaken. He had wires and tubes attached to his body and a ventilator on his mouth, he looked eerily peaceful.
This was a trip John had seen coming his entire life , even as little boy growing up in Northern Ireland with parents in the IRA. He knew how it all was going to end, he would meet a species of beings called the Coratti. They were segmented worm like creatures with a human like face and a serrated, ridged back.
The Corati were unlike the Unspeakables, they believed that power was everything. The Corati a patriarch, an extremely obese worm of many hues. His facial features were hidden behind a mask of bleached bone, it made John shudder. The Corati spoke to John in a shrill voice that made his skin crawl.
“We know who you are!” said the fat worm, plainly, “We also know the years of humans are few , and that you are an infinitely stupid race”
John stared dumbly at him, he did not know what to say, he was kind of insulted. Frankly; he was also scared to death of the Corati, especially their beady black coal coloured eyes.
“I’ve watched your race grow up, laughed at them, shared their pain.” The patriarch said, his bone masked face was wiggling inches from John’s face.
“We know, John, that you have talked to the ones who lack, what’s your word? umm...mouths, yes.” one of the patriarch’s supporters said, his name was Uthraka ; which meant one eye, he was missing an eye, “their views may seem smart to you; but, we need power to survive, society is built on power and on the backs of lower men.”
“What would Rome be without power,?!”, Uthraka exclaimed,”It would not exist , without power you would all still be hunter-gatherer tribes”
John fealt like he was being given a history lesson by a bunch of extraterrestrial worms. John had lived history; he had fought the Huns, seen the Boston tea party and dined with the great Sir Winston Churchill. He had also lived events that were yet to come, he knew what society would end up as and it was not pretty, but it was way beyond his lifetime.
John still did not trust the Corati, he had genuinely liked the Unspeakables and thought their teachings were more peaceful than those of the Warrior worm people. He knew the Corati did not want to kill him at that time. They had plans for him. He lacked understanding of their complex minds.
John knew the voice of the patriarch, Sykakta was the last voice he would ever hear. His old earthly body was dying. The John talking to the worms was ageless, the earthly John was a sickly ninety-five year old shell of a man. His life a bunch of tubes, wires and bags holding life fluid.
The young John stood at the base of the mountainous throne of the patriarch, the leader was huge, much bigger than rest of the Corati. He hated them for taking spite at his race, that they were totally underestimating humanity. The worm people surrounded John in a circle.
“It’s time for why you are here, you have heard both the stories of the Corati and the mouthless, it is up to you to decide what you believe.” Sykakta rasped at the ageless John; who looked like he had as a teenager, slender with a thin orange beard.
“I believe mankind can make it’s own decisions.” John said, his voice barely a whisper.
It was at this time that John’s earthly body gave a great shudder and his lessend to barely a hiss. He slowly drifted away into death. He was not dead at least not according to the Unspeakables. He would live among them, immortalized with wife and child.
Enter John Jr. son of John
John’s son, John Jr. finds his way into our narrative at this time. Like his father John Jr. was a very average man of average height and build. John Jr. had average intelligence. He also possessed his father’s unique gift; though, he always denied it, not wanting to be labeled an outcast like his father.
John Jr. liked to spend most of his trips exploring the stone paved streets of ancient Rome. He had always hoped he would find a chance to walk these very same streets with his father. John Jr. had been present at the sacking of Rome, seen the buildings ablaze, smelled pungent smoke. It scared him straight.
John Jr. was forty-five when his father “died”. John had seen him slowly slip away. He watched his beloved father stop breathing and lose his colour. He hated John for for leaving him. The man had seen his father alive with the Unspeakables, it sort of just flashed through his mind.
John Jr. loathed his father; John never visited his son when he was on one of his mind trips. He hated the Unspeakables for taking his average father from him He was constantly brooding with anger. People would often ask the cause of his anger, John Jr. couldn’t tell them, no one would believe.
John Jr. had formulated a plan in his mind where he would find and kill his dead father. He lived in a void that he thought would only be mended if his father was actually, dead! He knew exactly where to find him, he would hunt him down and put a blade through his wretched heart. He did not know how to kill an immortal, which John had become.
John Jr. paid a visit to the Corati, their beady black eyes frightened him. He had also had to listen to their usual speech. The guy did not care about what they had to say, he never really thought too much about anything. The Corati knew precisely what he wanted, they knew everything that was going on. The Corati; though primitive in looks possessed brain power unknown to any of mankind.
“I have a request of your people,” John Jr. demanded of Uthraka, sweating bullets.
Uthraka gyrated towards him, his one coal black eye staring him down. John Jr. fealt very, very tiny. Uthraka was roughly seven feet long with a girth of three feet. The ridges on his back were remarkably grandiose.
“We know what you want but, why do you want to kill your father?,” Sykakta asked, curious of John Jr.’s intentions.
“He abandoned me , he would never visit”, John Jr. cried, “He chose them over me.”
“We will give you the method to kill your father but, in tun you will bring a new dawn to mankind,” a short thin worm named Exkyat said to him, his voice sent shivers up John Jr.’s spine.
“I do not understand but, I will not be a pawn in your game of chess if that is what you want of me,” John Jr. said.
“It is not for you to understand, it is for you to do!,” Exkyat replied to him.
“Here, take this and kill him,” Sykakta said, a long serrated blade appeared in John Jr.’s hand, the blade was conjured by Sykakta.
“The blade will not kill Unspeakables, this may prove to be a suicide mission for you, go out with a bang.”
Exkyat stared John Jr. down, “Frankly, we don’t care if your life is lost, you are an expendable resource; it is your father we want he dared to defy us”
John Jr. accepted the gift and took a trip in time to visit the Unspeakables; he had also visited them in the past. He had a deep hatred, it was driving him mad. John Jr. could think of nothing other than killing his father. He did not want to be a pawn on the Chessboards of the Corati.
John Jr. did not take long to find his father. He did not think highly of them. He looked at his father. Both he and his father looked ageless, John had not aged in the three earth years he spent with the Unspeakables. He still looked like a man of only eighteen years. John Jr. looked at his father in absolute disgust.
“I know what you have come for, do not play into the hands of the Corati, I have seen their plans succeeding it is not good news,” John said to his son, a look of regret in his sad eyes, “Goodbye my son.”
John reached his hands out to John Jr., beckoning the end. His son raised the blade high above his head. He gritted his teeth. His stare was cold, he could see no fear on his father’s face.
A blade burst through John Jr.’s chest; his eyes awash with disbelief, the serrated blade slipped from his fingers and scattered to the ground, disappearing completely.
Soreph, John’s wife stepped back. John Jr.’s dying body slid to the ground, his eyes locked in disbelief and hatred.
John’s cries echoed through the night, piercing the veil of darkness.
