Doomsday Diary

Left standing in a whirlwind, a scattered breeze, on the other side of the time portal. I found myself looking around to see what I could tangibly recognise in my new reality, something that would anchor me to sanity, a reality I could familiarise myself with.

If there was just one thing, it was a locket that was staring up from the rubble in front of me, answering my call for normality and reaching out to me, offering me something I could relate to.

Somehow where I had bounced through the portal, I landed on immeasurably diffident rock, but unlike the rock we know in our current - (or should I say your current) space time continuum, this was somehow malleable and soft, but it appeared hard, like the surface of shiny, durable plastic, akin to PVC and somehow cherry in colour. Each time I stepped down, a cloud of dark cherry-like dust would cloud up and make me cough. It wasn’t heavy, but it got into the lungs and stayed there.

Getting back to the locket, it was heart shaped and gold, with a woman’s face on a photo inside. It took me only seconds to find the mechanism that sprung it open to reveal her smile; so striking that it went right to my core, I have never felt that way before, just by looking at a face, immortalised in gold, it was both eerie and beautiful, and my brain, which was stuck in the past (the now present) and been dragged into the present (previously my future) couldn’t catch up with who this was and what space time continuum it belonged to, but there was something so pure about the countenance of this woman that it will always stay with me, I was entranced.

I should have begun this story by introducing myself, so I shall do so now, my name is Clement Price, and yes, everyone has their price and mine has always been high, probably because of a strong sense of self instilled by my Dad and also of self worth and admiration on my mother's part, I was the apple of her eye until she passed away to cancer last year, or in the case of “now” 100s of years ago; what a solemn thought.

Something about this locket lady made me think of my mum, a story was unfolding in her eyes; a thousand beautiful pockets of emotion held in between the spaces and lines of her turquoise iris.

I had to find her, I had to know her story, and in that moment, I stood resolute, I had to know, where, how? Who was this beauty and what could I find out in the spaces between her Iris and what knowledge was buried in the depth of her pupil - that black hole.

What I also would like to address before I go any further was that at the moment I got sucked into the future and found the locket, I had no recollection of how I got there, to me it felt as if this was the first moment of my life, even though I knew there was something that had gone before, I felt it was only a distant dream and mostly a mystery, like when you awake from dreaming and have so many sensations that prove you’ve been through something, but you’re only left with minor details, snatched of memories, but the overall picture is hazy, somehow I felt that the locket must be a clue, maybe even my answer; my key to figuring it all out.

Scratching my head at the situation I found myself in, I looked for more clues, why was this woman so beguiling, what was I doing here? What was I doing just before the eerie call into the future, to lands unknown, why was the atmosphere so musky and dusky red?

Was there life here? There had to be a reason I came and I begged to find out. I walked for what seemed like an hour, although time eluded me, so it could have been less. Through a similar landscape of rubble and dust until I actually physically stumbled over myself, topsy turvy and into a bunker with a thud. I just fell over my feet and straight into it, slap bang in the middle of a huge hole, purposed for survival. Inside I met a man who was withered and old, I approached him carefully as I think I had given him a start.

“Excuse me” I began, not wanting to come over too strong, “can you tell me what year it is?”

“What year? You mean you don’t know?” He replied as he looked at me bemused, he looked at my face, and then looked at the locket which I had at this point hung around my neck.

Staring at me, he said, “it is you! it is you, you have come!" At this point, I worried that the bunker had played havoc with his senses and turned him to insanity, the craggy walls crowding into his subconscious.

“Boy, don’t look at me as if my mind is deceased, no no my dear friend, I’ve looked upon the lady whose face adorns your locket.”

“How do you know about this locket?” I responded now both elated that the wizened old man was compos mentis and also that he knew about the locket.

“I knew Sarah, she vanished into thin air promising us that she would send someone here to fix what she had started.”

“What, was her last name?” I will pause here to explain why I asked this question, you see my mother, who as I mentioned before bore a striking resemblance of the lady in the locket, her first name was Sarah, and if he replied Fitzpatrick then I would know that my mum had been here before me, maybe this is how, somehow, I now found myself here; that by some strange phenomena, she had set it up that I would follow in her footsteps, to do what she could not do.

But why?

“Fitzpatrick.” He responded, cutting into my racing line of thoughts.

“Then, she was my mother; I am her son, I am Sarah’s son. How did all this happen?”

“We don't have a huge amount of time to discuss it all, she left about 40 minutes ago, she must have dropped the locket on her way out, or planted it where she knew you would land, but she has brought you back to at the exact time, so there's not a moment to lose, she knew we had very little time, the only way that we could be saved is if you were to come straight back. The key to all you need is in the locket” were his last words and with that what followed after was a series of things rapidly unfolding:

‘You have no time,’ his last words, said with a sense of urgency in his voice. I will glide through the following moments in a sweeping motion if only to depict exactly what it felt like to live through them, a way to replicate and prove what time space travel can feel like. A folded handkerchief of moments concertinaed against each other.

I brought the locket to my face for a closer look and realised there was something on the back something I hadn’t seen before, it was a series of little timers that, I as I examined them, I began to understand, the first one, had drawn me here; it seemed as if it had burnt out by the time I arrived. The second was counting downwards and when it got to zero I was whisked into a room that shone white light and almost blinded me, I looked around the room and spoke into the echoey chamber. “Who is there?”

I felt like there were beings who could hear me, but whom I could not hear, I spoke again, “I come in peace, I come to bring healing. I don’t really know what I am doing….” Just then, the locket’s next timer came to 00:00 as soon as it did so it began to sing a note that was so high frequency it resounded out into the atmosphere and shattered any grey area that may have tried to find its way in, this scary and eerie room which seemed to have previously thundered some kind of pollutant, was now filled with purity and clarity and when the locket reached an all time high, there was a noise that indicated something in the room had shattered, and the beings were let loose and came towards me, as they began to surround me I felt nothing but peace, the sense of an embrace and a one-ness.

I then experienced what I think telepathy must be like because no words were spoken, but only looks of love, appreciation and gratitude, it wasn’t long before I realised that this wasn’t the final destination, I was carried by these beings, long and statuesque, silf-like and willowy that seemed to move like the wind and although they were seemingly transparent and hollow, they could carry solid objects with no issue, I was carried on the breeze of these ghost like creatures, and felt at one with my surroundings, they took me in a matter of moments, far from the crust of the PVC earth to a mountain that was turquoise and transcendent. There I stood in front of them and they looked at me like I knew the answer. I was waiting for the penultimate timer to countdown but it was far from its end. In fact as I looked again I realised that this one was going upwards, what was going to happen?

I looked around to find a clue, in a matter of moments I saw iridescent etchings in the rock, it was a number; 17:90 and looking at the timer I realised that it was nearing this number 17:86 I had a few moments to act. Next to the number in the turquoise rock was a heart-shaped gap where the locket could be attached. I quickly attached it just in time as the number 17:86 was spinning on, then as we reached 17:90, 4 seconds later the locket changed to a turquoise colour and water rushed out of from the place where the numbers were previously displayed, out flooded a waterfall of such divine essence the very smell was sweet like tiramisu and I felt like standing next to such a place was better than any desert I had ever witnessed.

The beings were transfixed and we saw the earth's crust change from hard PVC; dusty, dusky, arid, to a scene awash with glorious foliage, trees, animals, fish, it was moments, between complete destitute nothing, to absolute and pure Eden.

The beings were splashing the water, experiencing joy as the earth was replenishing itself, the locket detached from the turquoise mountain and found its way to my neck, the last and final timer was ready to finish it’s descent 00:05, 00:04 (each time the number went down I felt the background of my current reality blur a little more until) 00:01, 00:00 I vanished and found myself in a hammock, in my backyard. Swinging gently from side to side.

Something materialised in front of my eyes in the air above my horizontal body,

It was a piece of paper, I held out my hand to reach it.

Dear Clement,

If you’re reading this, the locket has brought you home safely, and everything went according to plan. I am sorry that your Father and I had to sacrifice ourselves to give you this life and to return the world back to normal, I have written a book that fully explains all the ins and outs, so when you're ready, you will find it, but as you’ve been through a lot, just lie back in your hammock and know that you have just saved the world from absolute destruction and I couldn’t be prouder of you!

Your loving Mum,

Sarah Price (Nee Fitzpatrick.)