Tales from the Diagonal

Around a quarter past two on a Tuesday in March, the gravity in Irene Penrose’s front room went out. It was a relatively minor inconvenience -it lasted less than a minute, the only casualty a porcelain kitten- but it’s generally accepted that this was where reality first started to fall apart.

Thompson Lamp – Why there’s an angel in my birdbath.

Tales from the Diagonal #113 – Will Solomon

It was a couple of weeks ago that Will Solomon started talking to himself. Not in a crazy way, no, though people had always thought him a little odd. When he was a boy, little Billy would carry around a single walkie-talkie. No one knew where he got it, and no one knew where the other one was. Sometimes he would occasionally talk into it, this tubby, scabby-kneed boy swinging his feet over the side of the bridge (Breaker, breaker. This is Captain ForceField. Over). Sometimes he’d just listen to the static. It comforted him. Even now, in his 40s he would listen to it going to sleep. He called it listening to the edge of the universe.

Two weeks ago, the edge of the universe started talking back.

It sounded like a little boy. Saying Breaker, breaker. This is Captain ForceField. Over.

Now when you’ve discovered a conduit to your earlier self, you might be tempted to tell him to do any number of things: win that lottery, patent that idea, go out with that plain girl who will one day blossom. But after the world went a little bit wrong, the government created the Chronological Protection Agency to follow up on any little niggles in time. Follow up, and remove. So Will was very careful not to make any big ripples in time.

Until he wasn’t. And so here we are.

‘Thank you for taking the time, Mr Solomon’ said Agent Carruthers, as he tucked away his badge and sat down on Will’s deep, crumpled couch, ‘you must be wanting to get out and do all sort of things.’

Carruthers smiled, showing one grey dead tooth among a row of brilliant whites. He was dressed in a cheap suit and tie, with an outsized black watched strapped to his wrist. Will smiled back, standing, his eyes darting around his living room which could be called -and let’s be generous- ‘cluttered’. Old newspapers and boxes were stacked atop table-tops which were themselves atop other boxes, dust danced in the sun from half-pulled blinds, and the room had a grim archaeology of dirty plates and containers from meals in the distant past.

Will scratched his overstuffed, stubbled cheek, and gathered himself to respond:

‘um, sure, no. I’m not- what? Sorry’ he managed.

‘I hear you’ve come into some money. $20,000. What luck.’

Will murmured, and looked around again. Where was it? Where had he left the walkie-talkie?

‘Won’t you please sit down Mr Solomon. You’re making me a little nervous.’

‘Sure, sure.’ Will pushed a stack of papers from a cracked green chair, and sat himself across the coffee table from Carruthers. Hands between his knees. ‘Sorry, didn’t get a chance to clean up. Heh’ -where was it?!- ‘heh heh.’ Maybe still in the bedroom. The bedroom was safe.

‘You got a bit of windfall from some shares.’

‘oh, yeah, no, I don’t know - I’ve had those since I was a kid.’

‘Yes, I know you’ve had them since you were a kid but you didn’t have them since you were a kid yesterday.’ said Carruthers, looking straight into Will’s eyes.

Will nodded. Got to be in the bedroom. Maybe the bathroom.

‘When a person’s time-stream has changed, it leaves.. streaks.’ Carruthers broke his gaze, sucking at his dead tooth ‘but sometimes it’s no one’s fault. Just happens. Who can say these days?’

Will nodded, put his hands on his knees, then back between his legs. Bedroom or bathroom. Or outside. Either way, it’s not in here. Certainly not. In here.

Carruthers caught him looked around, and leaned in.

‘But you haven’t deliberately messed with your past, have you?’

‘Lord no, why? How? How would I ha ha-’

And it was here, mid-laugh, that Will found where the walkie-talkie had got to.

From atop the coffee table between them, beneath a black notebook and used cereal bowl, a small, crackly voice filled the room.

Breaker breaker, big man.

An unusually loud silence followed.

And followed.

And-

Breaker-

Will hastily grabbed up the bowl, notebook and walkie talkie and headed straight through the kitchen door, yelling out of his shoulder ‘sorry, just let me clean this out of the way cleaning up some mess I’ll just put this away and let’s have a cup of tea and while we’re at it scones.’

He dashed through the door. Dumping the plate in the sink, he pressed himself into the far corner on the kitchen, next to the glass door to the veranda. He gripped his notebook to his chest.

Come in, come in crackled Billy’s voice.

‘Shut up, shut up’, Will hiss-whispered into the receiver.

Ttt, all right, shit

Breathlessly, Will watched the door to the living room. What was Carruthers doing: would he stay, was he following?

After a few seconds, not taking his eyes off the door, Will lifted the walkie-talkie to his lips: ‘Go get dad’s black notebook. The one you wrote the shares down in.’ Breathing heavily, he flipped open the notebook to the last page. It read, ‘Buy Apple, 1993’ in teen scrawl.

‘Mark it when you’ve got it.’ he whispered

One second. Two seconds. Three-

‘Are you all right, Mr Solomon?’ a voice jumped from the other side of the door.

‘Yes, perfect.’ Will blurted, ‘Thank you. Thank you for your.. service.’

Will glanced down at the notebook. Faded dots were appearing on the page, as if someone was now tapping a pencil against the paper long ago.

‘I need you to make a note. Something very important. Something you need to do every day.’

Ttt what?

The door slowly started to open.

‘RUN!’

Will dashed out the door to the veranda. He grabbed one of the half-broken deck chairs. Jammed it under the handle. Looked up to see Carruthers’ face, amused. Suck of the tooth.

Will waddled rapidly down the backstairs, shouting into the radio: ‘I need you to run! I need you to run! Everyday!’

You run, I’m watching Turtles.

Reaching his back gate, Will wrenched at the latch with one hand. Out of here, down the alley, and away. His chest was already starting to hurt.

‘I need to get fit right now! You need to practice running! Everyday right! Can you do that?’ his yanked open the gate, slicing his fingers on the latch.

I guess

The glass in the veranda door smashed behind him. Carruthers was coming.

‘Then let’s go!’ Will yelled, and sprinted off down the laneway behind the houses.

He made it about 50 metres. Clutching his chest. Leant. Against the wall. Might vomit.

‘you .. little.. bastard.’ He spat into the receiver, ‘you… didn’t… run at all.. did you’

Ttt dunno. Could have.

‘did you… even write it… down’

Give us a sec

Will flipped. Last page. Watched as a large GET FUCKED BOOMER appeared.

The gate creaked. Agent Carruthers had entered the laneway. His jacket, dusted with glass, was wrapped around his arm.

‘Too late,’ Will hissed into the receiver, ‘you still go to Tae Kwon Do?’

Nup, stopped

Carruthers hung his jacket up on a fence post. He moved towards Will, rolling up his sleeves. Showing his hairy forearms and fat black watch.

‘You need to go back to it’

Not what mum said.

‘Hand me the radio, Mr Solomon’ Agent Carruthers stated.

‘Fuck mum, go back, go back.’

…crackling…

‘It’s cool, Tae Kwon Do’s cool.’

…crackling…

Carruthers came closer. Sucked at his tooth.

‘You can be like a ninja.’ Will urged down the receiver.

… like Turtles?

‘yeah, yeah, like turtles. Write it down, remind yourself, write it down now!’

Carruthers came closer and closer.

Will looked down at the page. The words ‘TKD- Blue belt’ appeared.

He laughed triumphantly: ‘Blue belt’s the highest yeah?’

Ttt sure mate sure.

Carruthers was almost upon him - ‘Let’s have the radio, Mr Solomon’

But Will had changed. He could feel it. His gut had shrunk, his arms tightened with several years’ unearned effort. And the moves, he now knew moves-

‘Well, why don’t you come and take it!’

He lashed out with a savage blow-

-which Carruthers easily blocked, shoving him back several paces.

Will held up the walkie-talkie, never taking his eyes off the chuckling Carruthers: ‘blue belt isn’t the highest is it?’

Ttt

Solomon watched ‘Blue’ on the page get scrawled out into ‘Brown’.

‘All right!’ Will stood up, even better, even stronger, with even more moves. He charged again, even landing a few choice blows before Carruthers, no slouch himself, hammered him in the chest. Will fell to the ground, the walkie-talkie scattering across the concrete. Carruthers stepped over him towards it.

‘That’s not enough: go the full black!’ Will screamed, ‘Black with all the bits!!’

Carruthers picked up the walkie-talkie, his head cocked. He looked at its settings, then at his watch.

They’re called dahn

‘all the fucking dahn then!’ Will finished

Ttt

Will didn’t have to look at the book to see the brown belt had been scratched out, and ‘Black Belt’ written in, with ‘all the dahn’ passive-aggressively underlined. Carruthers didn’t need to see it either, as Will, now jacked, trained and with possibly a deeper voice, delivered a two-handed punch into his back.

Carruthers slammed hit the wall and spun round: ‘That’s a bit more like it, Mr Solomon.’ he grinned

But the grin disappeared from his face as a black-belt level fist hammered into his face, a left chop to his neck, a sweeping kick to the knee. Bleeding now, Carruthers crouched back against the wall, walkie-talkie still in his hand.

‘Very well Mr Solomon,’ he spat out blood and smiled. He took one last look at the settings on the walkie-talkie ‘let’s do this another time. All yours.’

He tossed the walkie-talkie to Will, and clasped his hand over his watch. Will caught the walkie-talkie- and turned back to see…

Nothing. Carruthers had gone. All that remained was a slight streak on the wall, or in the space just in front of the wall.

-----

‘Did we do it?’ little Billy shouted down the walkie-talkie, pencil still in his hand, ‘or do we need to like, invent a new belt.’

I did it … thanks. crackled Will's weary voice.

‘Hell yeah. any time, big man, any time’ Billy set down the walkie-talkie and practised a couple of kicks and punches in the air of his bedroom, ‘ain’t no one messing with us!!’

He stopped. He heard a sucking sound behind him. He turned to see a smile of white, grey and red.

Hey, you there, you there?

’Master Solomon’ the man said, ‘thank you for taking the time.’