Tynnin's Monocle

Nothing exceptional yet truly extraordinary. That is how it always went with Tynnin. Caught up in daydreams and bored of the present, he searched for meaning in the past so that he could live for the future. An archeologist by trade, he branded himself a relic hunter and rightly so. Every child had heard stories of ancient lost treasures and ceremonial tomes imbued with magics -capable of wonderous things not known in nature and scattered around the globe- but very few had ever encountered even one of such things. Tynnin was part of the exclusive list. Yet he had more than a few devices in his dusty dwelling that was filled from the floorboards to the star-carved ceiling with archaic trinkets. He had an affinity for the old metals and the leatherbound. Some were benign and some spectacular. His petrified bristlecone pine desk was littered with pages covered in ancient text. It is believed that this desk of elder wood was struck by lightning as it was cut down, twisting life back into it with a wisdom born of time still emanating from it. The walls that weren't covered in books were home to the ever-increasing pile of treasures he had gathered all across the world during his 55 years of adventure. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that it should have taken twice as long to learn, travel and gather so many trinkets for any one person. Deciphering glyphs and runic symbols alone were a painstaking process. Tynnin's dark, sunken-in-eyes sitting on sags of skin more wrinkled than his trusty leather satchel told that story better than words could. Yet he still held a lovely bit of youth to his tired body.

Tynnin sat in his favorite chair, spinning a tektite glass monocle encased in a super reflective osmium metal alloy. It was surprisingly heavy for its size and had an electric feel to it, as if magnetizing to the flesh or creating its own gravitational pull. It was a subtle sensation, but it stirred a certain romance in the soul of its holder. He kept it with him wherever he went, whatever he did. Always swiveling it back and forth between his fingers, usually under the cover of his jacket pocket. It had taken years of practice, trial and error to learn that a controlled spin of the monocle could speed up time or slow it down depending on the angle you held it at. Time-bending was incredibly useful for quickly passing the lull between meaningful moments to slow down time in a pressure setting. Most of all, he loved it for the soft and tender moments. He thinks back to when he got to hold his mom just a bit longer on her final days.

After decades of practice with the angles and the motions he had figured out that it could do more than bend the stream of time...

...He could break it. He could see her, she could see him.

A low humming began as the monocle revolved over and over, gaining energy as his rhythm met its heavy pull in a kinetic dance of time. As the swooshing leveled out and the hum reached its climax, everything around the monocle became a blur.

He smirked, harnessing a warmth brewing in his belly. "whaddaya say, girl, one last time?"

"Brrrruff" came the drawn out and excited vocals of his trusty sidekick Misty, who was already tapping her nose into her own pair of adventure goggles. Misty was a 17-year-old long haired chihuahua but he had gotten her 15 years ago. Back when he was ready to slow down with his treasure hunting. She was the color of dense fog on a lush tree mountainscape. She was kind of blind in one eye, so she always had to cock her head at you to get good eye contact, only adding to her charm. She was adamant about eye contact during conversations as if really understanding every word spoken to her. He knew she did, but best friends always know that kind of thing.

Tynnin raised an eyebrow as if curiously inspecting his pup's reaction before shrugging. "I dunno lil M, sounds like you aren't interested?" Misty's second "brrrruff" was cut off by her own sneezing and tap dancing, a trademark for her excitement. She was slowing down just a bit these days but still had the mentality of a puppy.

The hum and blur started to drown out any sound outside of itself. He took a last deep breath and lifted the murmuring monocle up to his eye. His vision contorted as the device moved closer and closer to his face. It quickly snapped to his face like a magnet as little barbs dug into his eye socket. The monocle didn't lose momentum as it began to fuse to his flesh, sending out a veining black and green color through his skin from the origin. Her eyes were fixated on him.

Tynnin reflexively cried out but quickly gathered himself amidst the growing pain. He opened his free eye that had been gripped shut and found Misty at his leg with goggles in her mouth. He fumbled his hands just a bit but got them onto her just in time. he lifter her into his empty satchel and kissed her head gently, whispering sweet nothings. She licked him back in agreement.

What happened next was hard to explain but beautiful in every way. As the monocle finished its duty of truly opening Tynnin's eye and began glowing a fierce and dangerous green, the world around them blurred and bent in a frenzy. Tynnin held his satchel close and counted slowly to ten, trying not to black out like the first few times.

"One, two, three," It seemed to not bother Misty at all, as if she was already in tune with true existence.

"Four, five, sii" he felt crushed between mountains, gasping for a breath that didn't exist.

"Sevvhnn, Ehhhhh, Nnnnnnn" it became more of a grunt than a vocalizing of numbers. All he could taste was metal. He heard his hearts last push of blood like a gunshot before going quiet. Then everything went quiet. His veins became cold, then non-existent. He wanted to struggle but couldn't understand what that meant. As his senses were exiled, he had no choice but to embraced it. When the final count of ten should have sounded, instead the world around him shattered into infinite shards of paned glass, each a window into different places, different times. Like a nuclear shockwave that was silent at first, a thunderous boom finally brought him back from limbo. He felt eternity all around him. He was left floating in a blackened space that slowly began to light up by the never-ending stars of the cosmos like fireflies in the summer night blinking in and out of existence. The entropy of the monocle finally gave way, and the universe entered a serene state, the windows calming to a slow spin and orbiting around them.

As they floated through the blackness towards the shards of time, there was a low glow that followed behind them, like a leash to his point of return where the monocle sat and waited. Next to Tynnin was a brilliant shimmer of unexplainable color and texture, which he knew to be Misty. He looked down at himself, only to find the same fate. They were nothing, yet became the collective everything.

They made their way through the dancing glass, hearing whispers of each moment they passed by. Tynnin let Misty lead the way to whatever existence she wanted but knew exactly where they were headed. Of every single possibility, she always chose this one. They made it up to the hole she was looking for and peered in. He slowly lowered her into the moment in time that she desired.

Her colors began to grow, becoming bright and saturated and warm. This was her favorite moment. This was love.

She landed on the cold hard cement as the scene unfolded. A spry middle-aged man with peppered hair slowly moves through the hallway till he gets to Misty, separated only by metal bars. He drops to a knee and smiles gently with open palms out. The connection was instant. He turns his head away from her for just a moment before speaking to someone beside him.

"I'll take her."