Elaine

I’m not the type of person to exaggerate things, but I guess you might think me of doing so. I’m a humble girl. I live with my blacksmith of a father and baker of a mother down in this little straw-roofed village hut in the middle of the highlands. On most days my mother would tell me to go down to the windmill to collect some flour. I would run past the sheep saying good morning to me in their noisy way past the farmers who took care of them, taking careful steps not to slip on the downhill cobbled path. Every day I would pass the local tavern, the apothecary’s house, and more village houses before I’d get to the windmill. Old Marlene would always be there to greet me, knitting scarves for the upcoming winter on her chair. She would always help me to get the flour from the windmill. She’s a very nice lady.

On rainy days we would stay mostly indoors. Father always put out his barrels to collect the rainwater so he could use it to cool the tools and weapons he forges for a living. Mother would spend all her time inside baking some bread in the furnace for us to eat, always extra so she could sell it. It was one of these rainy days that I met the strange girl.

The clouds were dark and thick, and the rain was a torrent. I was helping my mother and father, bringing things inside. We had this straw-roofed overhang that covered most of our things already, but it wasn’t enough. The rain was reaching it and the floor was getting wet.

“Annie, can you take care of the rest?” said Mother, who was holding a basket of bread by the door. “The storm could get worse. Be careful.”

“Yes, mother,” I said. “Leave it to me.”

She nodded her head and closed the door. For once it would have been nice to say no, or to say I’m tired, but I knew better than to refuse Mother or Father. They’d insult my dignity, and Father would ramble on about wishing he had a son. Someone that could lift his tools and weapons better than I could. He always said that.

The weather was definitely getting worse. I saw large puddles forming on the streets, and I wondered if a flood was eventually going to come. Once again I wished I had some siblings to help me with these chores. An older brother could have been nice, or even a few younger sisters. It bothers me that every other family here has a bunch of kids. They’re all younger than me too. They always play with each other, and they don’t really feel comfortable when I ask them if I could join. I suppose I wouldn’t either, but it gets lonely at times.

So, I continued to bring things in, like swords and axes, buckets or iron, baskets of bread and weaved clothes. All of a sudden I saw this strange flash around the corner of our house. Yes, it was that bright. At first I was stunned to do anything. I stood there in the pouring rain, scared to approach where it came from. It was in between this alley of two village huts, darkness shrouding it as it was covered by house roofs and porticos from any light or rain. I saw a few barrels there, and perhaps whatever made the flash was behind them.

I considered calling Mother or Father, but I expected to be scolded by Father after we’d find out it was just a raccoon or something like that. And then he’d say he wished he had a son that wasn’t scared of a tiny animal making scuttling noises in the dark. Well fine, Father. I’ll figure out what it is myself.

I looked around me. There was the village well in the centre, a few lit torches, and closed doors. Hanging signs on houses were getting soaked by the rain. I saw no one. Everyone was inside. I looked back at the dark alley and breathed. I took a few slow steps toward it to see what was there.

“Curse this machine,” said a female voice behind the barrels. Along with it came the sounds of clanking metal and machinery, like Father pounding his hammer on a piece of metal on his anvil.

“Who’s--who’s there?” I said.

The voice suddenly went quiet. I even heard her breathing stop. She must have been as scared as I was, so I said, “Relax. I’m not going to hurt you. Who are you?”

As I said the words, I entered the alley and took a look at the mysterious person myself. It was a girl, much older than me. She wore some clothes I’ve never seen before, although I knew what materials they were made of. She had some sort of leather jacket and leather boots, as well as a leather cap with dangly things on the side, and some spectacles on it made of glass that looked like they’d go over her eyes. She was kneeling next to a strange machine the size of a mine cart, but upright. Enough to fit a person in it, and also made of strange materials I was not too familiar with. She had been whacking it with a tool in her hand that didn’t look like a hammer, but it had these strange claws on each end.

At first she was surprised to see me, but then she quickly got up and dusted her pants. “Hi,” she said.

“Who are you?” I asked. She was very peculiar, to say the least. 

“The name’s Elaine. Time-traveller extraordinaire! Nice to meet you.” She held out her hand. I’ve seen it before, something that knights usually did when greeting each other.

“I don’t have any weapons,” I said.

“Weapons?” Her eyebrows knitted for a moment and her eyes seemed lost. “Ah, I see. I must be in the medieval era. My apologies. You are?”

“I’m Annie. Who are you? What’s that machine over there?”

“I believe I’ve answered the first question already.” She glanced at the machine in the corner. “But I suppose I’ll have to be more specific about who I am. I come from a time in the future where steam powers the world, my friend.”

“The future?”

“Yes. This machine over here is a time machine. It connects to the continuum and allows people to travel through it backwards or forwards. But that’s not the point. I’ve been using it for my mission, but it seems like it’s out of fuel right now. That, or it’s broken, which is why I’ve been whacking it with this wrench. The gauge meter still says it’s full.”

I nodded, pretending that I understood everything that she said. She didn’t seem dangerous. She even seemed friendly. I wondered whether she was telling the truth or if she was just crazy, although I’ll admit I’ve never seen any of her clothes or the machine before. Perhaps I could trust her.

“What’s your mission?” I asked. 

She was tinkering with the machine at the moment. “My mission? Oh, I suppose that’s important to tell, too. Dr. Winston said I shouldn’t reveal things like these to strangers, since it could trigger effects involving butterflies or snowballs or something, but who cares? No one listened to him at the convention. Boy, that man was obsessed with butterflies and snowballs. Anyway, my main goal in life, my personal ambitious quest, is to find true art.”

“True art?”

“Yeah. I want to find creations with true meaning and beauty in the world. I’ll travel the seven seas if I have to, or climb the tallest mountains and the deepest valleys. I’ll even travel across time and space if I have to! Which I’m doing now, I suppose.”

I must have not sounded impressed. “But, what exactly are you trying to find?”

She shrugged. “Who knows, kid? I don’t think anyone does. But it’s no use sitting around doing nothing. At least I’m searching, no matter how long it’ll take. For me, true art is something that is man-made, meaningful, and profound. I’ve been everywhere in the past looking for it. I haven’t found anything too promising, but I’ve found a few things that are worth mentioning. Did you know there are these colossal structures made of giant limestone bricks in Africa? It’s quite a while ago, but they’re still there, right now. I’m sure they’ll still be there for ages to come. Or, did you know there’s this giant wall that spans across all of China’s mountains? If my pinpointing is close to exact, they’re still building it as we speak. In my time, it’s finished though. And it’s a masterpiece! A true feat of human construction. Tourists visit it all the time. Oh! I can’t forget the time when I went to Vienna, a couple hundred years in the future from now if you’re curious, and saw this fantastic deaf man who played some beautiful pieces on the piano. I don’t think you know what a piano is, though. You’re way too behind. My point is, they’re all close to what I think I’m looking for, but not quite.”

She shrugged. “I don’t know if I’ll ever find it, to be honest.”

Sympathy was never my strong suit, but I could tell this Elaine girl had been searching for a while now. Maybe she was getting tired. I put a hand on her back and patted it. 

“Hey, I think you’ll find it eventually,” I said. “No need to be cheerless. Have you been to the far future yet?”

Her eyes perked up. “No. No, I haven’t, actually. It’s a great idea. I was planning to after this jump, but it seems my machine is broken. It could take years to fix it. It’s happened to me before.” 

She seemed to be deep in thought for a moment. Suddenly, she gained a burst of excitement, grabbing my shoulders. “Say, Annie, if you help me fix this machine now, how about I’ll come visit you later? Only when I’ve found something truly worth feasting your eyes upon.”

“Sure,” I said calmly, even if she was practically shaking me at this point. “Alright. I don’t mind helping you. But what do I do?”

“I have a plan.” She looked up at the sky. As if she expected it, lightning flashed and lit up the clouds for a moment. “I’m going to need some iron.”

We spent many days working on Elaine’s plan. The time-traveller extraordinaire explained that lightning was an easy way to get electricity in practically any era, as long as clouds and static friction existed. She said it was proven by this one man, about two or three hundred years into the future, with a rod, the same one they were building now, and the man even helped create one of the greatest nations on Earth. At least, that’s what its citizens think of themselves, she said. Once more, I held a rather mild interest in all of these things of which I knew nothing about. She’d tell stories and stories of the past, seemingly having an endless number of them, as we worked on the lightning rod. She told me of these Pacific Ocean voyagers--an ocean I have never heard of before--who settled these countless islands, dealing with the stormy seas, as I secretly stole some of my father’s smithy iron for the rod. She described this great, ancient empire full of llama riders in this entirely new western continent I didn’t even know existed that was prosperous without written language, as I thought to myself how I’d continue keeping Elaine a secret to my village as the lightning rod grew taller and taller.

“All these cultures had art, music, dance, cuisine, all that,” said Elaine. “Beautiful. All of it.”

“But nothing of what you seek? None of it entertained you enough?”

“None of it.”

Once we finished the lightning rod, I helped Elaine move everything to a new site. A suitable place would be a tall hill, preferably without any trees, and that’s what we looked for. When we found one, all that was left was to wait for a stormy day, when the clouds would get angry enough to grant us this gift of electricity Elaine always spoke about.

One night, we sat on our hill, her time machine and our lightning rod project behind us, as we stared at the big, bright full moon in the sky. Elaine sighed, staring at it with romantic eyes. “We’ve been there once. Or we will, in five hundred years, give or take. I’m not from that era, but I went there once and witnessed it. It gives me hope for this future where we explore all the stars.”

“What do you mean? The moon?” I was incredulous. “Golly! Surely you jest.”

She nodded as if nothing about it was surprising. “It’s amazing--everything that we have done, and everything that we will eventually do. We get a kick out of doing amazing things. Call it curiosity, call it some imperialistic sense of duty, call it hubris. Whatever it is, it’s amazing.”

I nodded, looking at her. Then I continued following her gaze at the sky. The air was cool, and it was beginning to rain. Just a slight drizzle so far. I felt the droplets on my skin, closed my eyes, and breathed in. I felt I was at the edge of something, but I didn’t know what it was. I was on this tall hill with Elaine, a time-traveller who had supposedly seen everything humans had to offer, on this quiet night. Above us was the sky full of luminous white dots. Below us were the fiery ones of the torches that lit up my village. This was an intersection of some sorts, and I felt it beneath my skin, within my very bones. 

I saw the people Elaine told me about, looking up at the same night sky. Polynesians on their beaches and sailboats holding their infants in their arms. People in Asia, in their kingdoms, holding the hands of their children, possibly also seeing fireworks in the sky. People in jungles, holding their blowguns, people in deserts, holding the reins to their camels, people in the Americas, holding devices to capture the sky as snapshots in time. People here, kings in castles, lords in houses, farmers and builders, daughters of blacksmiths and bakers like me, seeing the same sky. As I thought all this, the rain began pouring heavier. The wind blew harsher.

I thought: none of any of this, including the moment I was in now, was art?

“We might have to go inside,” said Elaine.

“Tell me,” I said, looking straight at her.

“What?”

“Please, pray tell. I’ve asked before, but I want you to be more specific. The truth. What do you want in the art you’re looking for?”

She exhaled, taking a moment to think. I awaited her answer patiently, feeling the droplets of rain on my skin getting more frequent.

“Alright,” she said. “I want something that makes me feel something. Something that draws out the emotions. But not just for me. For everyone.”

“That can be anything.”

“Exactly! It doesn’t have to be a book or painting, music or film, I suppose.”

“Why do you think you haven’t found anything of the sort?” I asked this curiously, in my mind the picture of the hill and the sky and the village and an intersection between all the roads of different cultures and peoples in the world. 

“I don’t know. Maybe I’m not looking in the right place.”

“You could be,” I said, thinking of the view right now.

“Nah, I’m probably not.”

“What makes you think so?” I asked, the view giving me a breathless emotion of wonder, pumping my heart with adrenaline.

“I don’t feel anything.”

The wind was howling now. Elaine stood up with her hands on her cap, stopping it from flying away. Then she held out a hand for me and I took it, getting up. 

“I think we need to go inside, now,” she said.

“Wait! Do you hear that?” 

We both stopped to listen. The rain was a shower now. In the distance, and I’m sure Elaine heard it too, was a sound--the crackle of thunder. 

Elaine looked at me excitedly, grabbing my hands. “It’s time! This is the perfect time! Quick, help me get the rod ready!”

Something about all this made me hesitate. Perhaps it was the thought I’d never see Elaine again, or the fact that such a serene moment was ruined by the rushed advance of the storm. But I snapped back to my senses seeing her prepare. She was taking off the tarp of her time machine, connecting the battery to the rod, extending the rod, propping it up. I ran to her and helped her.

“Will you come back?” I yelled over the wind. I was looking at her--she had put on her goggles--the rain blurring our vision as it pattered our faces.

“Of course! That was part of the deal!”

“It better not be once this storm ends, then. I’d hate to welcome you back in this weather!”

“I’ll choose the date, then!”

Something about her nonchalant attitude bothered me. And, after all the time we spent together, as she talked about the things she had seen, as I talked about my life at the village--I speculated, or perhaps I should say, outright knew, the reason she had never found true art all her life. And maybe never would.

Suddenly, a flash of light lit the air as if God Himself opened the doors to heaven--the air turned a hundred degrees hotter as this streak struck the tip of the lightning rod. Immediately, Elaine’s time machine sparked to life, whirring and whistling, blowing steam like one of those trains she’s told me about in the future. Elaine screamed in delight, raising her arms at the sky, as if to gather attention to this magnificent show of glory. She got in and started pushing buttons frantically. “We’re on!"

“Farewell!” I yelled over the wind. “I’ll miss you! I’ll await your return! Then you can tell me all about it, about what you find!”

“It was nice meeting you, Annie!” She saluted. “This concludes my visit! I promise, I will return! Goodbye!”

Her machine clunked and spurred, making mechanical noises as it closed its hatch. It began to levitate off the ground. Then it began shaking violently, and after a moment or so, a blue flash of light engulfed it all--sending Elaine back to her place in time. Perhaps that’s what she’d call it. But I knew for anyone, there was no such thing as their place in time. That thought stayed on my mind as I clutched my arms in the cold, dark, stormy night, staring at where she used to be, now at nothing.

#

Years have passed since the Elaine incident. Father passed away long ago to a plague, Mother had been taken away during a siege on our village by some invaders. I had cried over the both of them, mourned and grieved. Then moved on.

I found a good man to be my beloved, and together we created a wonderful family. We live in the same village. For years I have told him I want to explore the world, but he says it’s too dangerous for anyone to do so. That’s why people now settle in certain places and live there all their lives, and they’ve done so for generations. No one really leaves to go anywhere.

Elaine became a distant memory in my mind that I never told anyone about. I continued to cherish her and the stories she told me for the longest time, but as time does to age, and as age does to all of us, we forget these things that once made us happy in our childhood. So Elaine continued to live in the back corners of my mind for my whole life. Until the day she returned.

It happened very much like the way it did last time. A strange flash in a secluded corner behind some houses where no one went. Me checking it out myself, curious. Being surprised at finding a time-traveller with her time machine, all over again. But this time, I recognized her.

But this time, she was different! Her same leather clothes were burnt, smoke rising from them. Her eyes seemed jaded and faint, as if looking into the distance at something that had haunted her. She was slumped in her time machine, and she wasn’t getting up.

“Elaine!” I said, rushing to her aid. I tried helping her up but she refused me, saying it was too painful. “What happened to you?”

“I…” She tried to find the words. Her eyes were still full of shock. “I saw the future. The world. It was horrible.”

“Describe it,” I said, partly to help ease her pain, partly because I was as curious as anyone would be at this ominous experience of hers.

She shivered. Her hands were shaking, and she stared up at the sky, not looking in my eyes. “It has lost all meaning. In their art, in their lifestyle, in everything. Theatres built to entertain with popcorn flicks rather than inspire. Paintings like a child had spilled over a bucket used by the rich to hide the money that they cheated. Books more concerned with fantasies and plot twists than valuable lessons. I saw no meaning, Annie. No meaning to it all. No meaning to any of it!”

She said the last part with a vigour that caused her to wince in pain. I told her to not move, and that everything would be okay.

“No, none of it will be okay! We’re headed for that future now! I saw families splitting, fathers leaving, mothers aborting. I saw people choosing money instead of love, chasing riches and gold and mansions. I saw people fawning over celebrities like gods, ubiquitous like the light of the sun! But not like the stars, of which I had observed, were not able to be found in the night sky anymore. They were completely erased from the sky. I don’t even know how the future peoples did it!”

At this point I was horrified. “What? They’re my favourite view!”

“I’ve told you how much I love the stars, Annie! How one day I hoped we would reach them all, like how we reached the moon! But they’re gone! They’re all gone!”

She sobbed like a loved one had died. Her spirit was broken, weakened, past the point of return. I could see that now. I wondered what this world she described looked like. A world devoid of meaning? Of true art? I pictured a dark, desolate landscape. Kingless nations. Skies full of smoke. Rampant tornadoes ravaging the lands. The sun imperceptible in the sky. Drones of people worshipping this shallowness.

Then I looked at us now, like I had an outside lens to see through pointing straight at us. Of a grown woman of my era, cradling this time-traveller extraordinaire to give her comfort, her clothes and face and hair covered in soot, horrifyingly recalling a meaningless future world. As if, I don’t know, one could put it in a painting. And never sell it, but let all others see it for free.

It was then that I made my decision. “I’m coming with you. Back.”

Elaine looked at me stunned, unsure of what to say.

“Take me there. I want to see it all myself.”

“What about your life here? What if you never return?”

I have long since believed that no one has a place in time. I very much wanted to go with her. But what about my husband? What about my family? What would they think? They would not understand any of this, about this grandiose sense of emotion I felt right now, of exploring the world with Elaine, leaving behind my life at the village, all for a greater purpose. Selfish or so, one could call me. But arrogant? No. Devoted.

“I’ll help you find meaning in the world you saw,” I said. “I swear it.”

“How? There was nothing of it, I promise you.”

“I think I can. You’ll need me. You’ll need all the help you can get.”

“I never want to return to that horrid place.”

“I know. But if you trust me, I can help you find the true art you’re looking for. In that place. It’s more important than ever if we choose that place.”

“There’s a chance you won’t come back.”

“I’ll take it.”

With my help, Elaine picked herself up and got to work, recalibrating the time machine. It seemed to whir with the same energy and life as the night I remembered on that hill with the storm. I wanted to see these horrors for myself, and I was determined to prove Elaine was wrong.

“Why did you choose now to come back?” I asked her while we prepared the time machine. “Of all times, why now? You could have came back the instant after you left on that hill.”

“Oh.” She coughed. I propped her up, easing her pain. Then she smiled. “I wanted to see you all grown up. And that if you’d remember me. That’s all.”

Alright, I thought. Maybe, just maybe, it would not be so hard to convince Elaine--this time-traveller extraordinaire, about to take me on this voyage to the distant future, who had seen everything the people of the world had to offer, that true art full of meaning did not exist.

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