The Beginning Begins At The End

Times were changing. You could feel the buzz, the excitement in the air. It was the beginning of a new era, a revolution over the old. The atmosphere was tense, frustrated at the waiting. People were talking all around, pondering the meaning of it all. No one seemed to know what was going on, but everyone thought they knew. Yet there I was, amid the excitement, in the tiny island I grew up in. If there was one place on Earth that wouldn't change, it was there. Five years had passed since I last stepped on the shores, and very little had changed. Literally, you might need a microscope to see the actual differences. I stood on the pier road, dreading the summer ahead of me. I was the centre of this revolution. It was my plans they were using, my ideas, my hours of hard graft. But I no longer had the funding to stay in the heart of the work. 

So there I was, watching the waves crash onto the beach. I sighed and dragged my suitcase further up the hill. Most of the cars had already left the ferry, some would have reached their destination. Even after all the new technology developed in the last few years, this island stayed frozen in time, the amish of the world now. The family house was in the largest of the townships, the one nearest the ferry terminal. I pulled my hood up against the wind that often battered these shores and trudged onwards. Why did they think I couldn't cope? Was it because I was just a little Ph.D. student? Why should it even matter? Frustrated, I kicked at the ground. What could be more annoying than being left here, everyone around with their smiling friendly faces, no one understanding what was happening? Sometimes I just wanted to fade away, disappear into another dimension. Anywhere but this place. The bay curving around, the sand, the rocks, the battered old pier? Once upon a time I enjoyed surfing, relaxing with a book outside, mountain biking across the island; now, my eyes were finally open. It wasn't just my life that was changing. Everyone's would. So there I stood, taking in every grain of sand. The tide was coming in. The wind was like tiny pinpricks of my own hatred attacking me. The road up was steep, but manageable on foot. Had I changed much since I had left this godforsaken place? I had cut my hair short to stop the endless tying up for experiments. It was now a spiky mess of ginger-brown. I didn't have the time to look after it, so I left short, little wisps of hair occasionally flying in front of my eyes. I had taken to seeing patterns in everything. Anything I couldn't see a pattern in confused me, I had to find out how everything works. I must have looked older, more mature perhaps. My clothing hadn't changed much. My senses were more alert, my eyes constantly flickering back and forth, watching the surroundings. I watched the gulls arching across the sky, their cries heard around the bay. 

At the top of the pier road, I took the path curving to the left. It passed the shops and a field of sheep before I lugged my suitcase up the driveway of our old house. The grass of the lawn was combed back by the ferocious winds, the lack of trees becoming more evident as I pushed open the rickety gate at the side of our house. I entered the house I had grown up in tired from a day of traveling, plans formulating in my head. I received the usual welcome: "Oh there you are, go put your bags away and come have dinner". I had to remind my mother that I wasn't just some friend of hers staying over for tea. Looking around the house, it was as I had expected. Nothing had changed. Sure, the walls had been painted, a few items had been moved around and there were different photos alternating in the frames. But it was still the same white-bricked old house I knew. Having spent the last five years in an actual city, the transformation of my surroundings was hard to get used to. 

Something had to be done. Something, anything. I would struggle to be redundant again, forced to be dependent on others. Independence had suited me well, had left me with time to do what I wanted, when I wanted. The very next day I started my plan. Pacing the halls, collecting bits and pieces, wiring? How I managed to find half of the components I don't know. The next few days and weeks were constant work trying to obtain everything. It felt like I had been there for months, or years, all over again by the time I eventually had procured everything. But one day I stood in my room, admiring my handiwork. The cat's tail brushed past my legs and meowed at the machine. Admittedly, everyone in the house, in the area, was intrigued by what I was up to. I had told no one. There was no point. People couldn't believe what they read in newspapers, they couldn't believe what I say. Even this one time when both were telling the truth. What a unique opportunity they were missing out on. I felt the whole event was blatantly obvious, but then I had been entirely surrounded by it all. 

The cat, black speckled with white, trampled over the console, wandering around and turning to chase its tail on a spot only I knew could be fatal. I could have tried to stop her but it was always good to test a hypothesis. 

There was a loud beeping, whirring and clicking. I stepped back to watch. Behind me, a voice floated over, asking what the noise was. "It's fine mum, I just dropped some stuff" I yelled, not even looking around. The cat vanished. It was gradual, but a minute later all that was left was the sprinkling of dust on the mat. There was no sign of whether it had worked, that was the moment I realised that the only way for me to know for sure that my contraption worked was for me to test it out with myself. 

I took a deep breath. Walked to the panel, my fingers moving swiftly over the keypad. This was it. The machine was configured. I bit my lip. Finally, the test. To say I was nervous would have been an understatement. How could I know how any of this would turn out? The moment I stepped on the mat and the whirring started up again. It took almost five minutes for the process to be completed. 

My head hurt. I realised I had been clenching my eyes shut and opened them. Squinted around me. Where was this place? Or, I corrected myself, when was I?

Reviews

[BlueFox]

Interesting premise! I hope you continue, you are quite skilled at delving into a character's state of mind, one line I particularly enjoyed was 'The wind was like tiny pinpricks of my own hatred attacking me'.

[Tay]

Aw, thank you :3 It is slow progress with this, but finally having an app for editing text documents on my phone does help.