Interesting Times

Jasper Brown has become stuck in time and finally, he can see the future. It ripples about twelve feet away in the surface of the water. Like a ghost of a reflection, he can see through it, see the world, but its still there. The future is still there. He smiles and waves, and it waves back at him. All the fear is gone, the future just doesnt seem so bad. He smiles as he lays back into the cooling darkness. He smiles at the stars and the thing that swims between them. He smiles an awful smile, because he knows that he is not alone.



The Chinese have a curse. He says as he sets the beer down on the bar and pops the top. May you live in interesting times. He slides it down the length and watches as Jenny catches it.



Well, we dont have to worry about that here. She says as she takes her first sip of many.



Thank God.



She shakes her head. She doesnt understand.



He'd been away. He'd been to the city. He'd had times when the future had seemed so clear, so bright. Lonely, desperate, anxious, interesting times. He'd had fear as a room mate. But, when the future came looking for him, he ran. Back home. Back to Fairport.



Jasper is an old man's name. She says as she finishes her beer and motions for another. You're just an old man, trapped in a young mans body.



He smiles. She's right. He's just an old man who hides out in the Port Pub, bartending. A refugee from the future.



So, how's my husbands boat. She says as the new beer slides into her hand.



Ah, the boat. The old wooden row boat that had baked in the sun in Thad Johnson's back yard. It's gray sun rotten planks and peeling lead paint skin. The trash of history, just like him. He'd bought it immediately. Thad and Jenny had laughed in his face and told him to just take it. But, he wanted to pay for it. It just seemed right. He loved it at first sight and new that it had value. A soul even. He had lovingly caressed and cleaned and painted her battered hide. Scraping and sanding for a year. A year well spent. And every day as the sun was rising and kicking the fog off the glass calm bay, he would row.



What do you do out there?



Disappear. He says.



I guess we've all got our ways of doing that. She finishes her beer and waves for another. And he smiles, because this is what a life is like without a future, but it's a sad smile.



He would row out into the mist. He would row until the shore left him and then the houses. He would row until it would just be him. Him, the boat, the mist, and the water. He would row until the past and the future were long gone. He would row until even, the now, was in the past. And then he would sit and listen.



Until today.



Today it was waiting for him. Waiting in the mist.



It was another boat, that was his first thought. Another boat intruding on his nothingness.



Hello? He calls out, and nothing answers him. Not with a voice anyway. As he stares into the white empty musings of the mist, he realizes that something is coming. Something, horrible. Something huge and terrible. And then he knows. Knows for sure. Its found him. The future has found him.



The mist turns and burns away scampering to safety, and he realizes that it's in the water. It's in the water under the boat. The world is coming back, the now, and he feels his old room mate back in town. He feels the epileptic shiver of cold deep inside. And he's all alone, but he's not because it's in the water. Not under the water, but in it. His arms stopped rowing a while ago, and now, now they won't start. And he can feel it piling up around him. He can feel the future thickening the air, even as the mist flees in terror. It wraps itself around him in an anaconda's grip and gently, gently forces him to look over the edge.



He can see his face reflected in the water. His eyes are wide. Wide like a puppy being dangled over a ledge. Pleading. Thats it. His eyes are pleading with him. Pleading in terror. And his face, his face is old. No, ancient, with potential like a baby's face. But his eyes, his eyes are brimming with fear.



He reaches out wanting to comfort himself, hold and protect this ancient child, this dying fetus that is his future. He reaches out, and it reaches back. He can feel the cold arms wrap around him in a wet embrace. Slowly, he sinks through the future, through the now. He floats by the past, watching it grow up toward the surface like seaweed. He lets out a bubbling sigh, and Jasper Brown, the old young man becomes stuck in time. But he's not alone, and as he turns his face away from the future, shimmering at the surface, he sees the leviathan waiting for him. He sees it twisting in the darkness and he will be never alone again. And he thinks to himself.



Thats interesting.