Visitors in Time

Two boys make their way to their new discovery, pushing their bikes through the long grass of the paddock. Still wet from the river, with shirts slung over their shoulders, the sun drying their bodies. The older boy Caleb speaks to Joseph a few feet behind him, “You going to go see Guardians of the Galaxy 3?”.

“Hell yeah, it looks sick. Have you read the comics?”.

“I don’t have time to read. Just gimme the video game or movie”.

“Oh man, you’re missing out”, Joseph shakes his head.

They arrive at an old run-down barn, lean their bikes against the wall, the red paint peeling off to reveal the timber's true colour.

“I can’t believe we’ve never seen this barn before”, Caleb says.

“I know, I can’t remember it last summer”.

“And all the summers before that”, Caleb replies putting on his shirt and looking up at the structure towering over them. Joseph distractedly pulls his own shirt over his head, noticing the chunks of wood broken off the red structure. Caleb pulls the front door and beams at Joseph, “Dude, it’s unlocked”.

“I guess we should check it out”, Joseph shrugs.

Caleb leads the way, stepping inside. Stables run down the length of the barn on either side, with a walkway down the middle. Hay and straw litter the floor. Joseph tentatively steps into the vacant and cold space. He leaps as the door slams shut behind him. Although Caleb’s heart is pounding from shock, he manages to speak, “I’m sure that was just the wind”.

Joseph still holding a hand to his chest, looks across at Caleb and laughs “That scared the shit out of me”.

“Hello Joseph and Caleb”, a voice echoes through the barn. The boys bodies tighten, their laughter evaporates.

Caleb pushes his feet into the ground. His chest feels tight but his voice meets the echo, “What the fuck. Who’s there?”, Caleb shouts.

“We’ve met before, in the future”.

The boys look around in a panic trying to locate the voice.

“I know all about you both”, the voice speaks across all areas of the barn. “From observing you through the past”, the voice suddenly whispers into both the boys ears.

“Arhhh, fucking show yourself already”, Caleb screams rubbing his ear.

Joseph runs to the front door, goes to push it open but slams against the old hardwood door.

“I am sorry Joseph but, I have to lock the door to keep you both safe”.

Joseph barges desperately against the door. He fumbles and searches for the lock in the half light but can't find anything.

“I am the door Joseph, I am everything in this structure around you”.

“What the fucking fuck?”, Caleb yells.

“I have come to realize, that a barn house is quite inviting to humans. I need to show you both something. The door is locked for your safety so that you don’t fall out”.

Suddenly the ground beneath starts to shake, Joseph looks to Caleb, terrified and filled with regret. Caleb’s face starts to lose confidence as the hay on the floor begins to move. The old barn lifts out from the ground and rises into the air, taking a huge clump of the earth with it and knocking the boy's bikes to the ground below. Panic takes over. Caleb screams but Joseph’s throat is strangled by fear, they cling onto whatever they can. A swarm of rats runs past, they look at each other and scream another octave louder. The rats squeeze out through cracks around the barn and fall forty feet to the ground, running into the grass. The barn stops rising, now higher than a five-story building, levitating in the air.

“I have something important to show the both of you”, the voice says.

“What are you, and why are you doing this?”, Caleb says clinging to a stable door opposite Joseph.

“Now you’re asking the important questions Caleb. The ‘what’ I am isn’t important, the ‘why I am here’ is. The answer to that is your future”.

Joseph steps down from his clinging position, “So you’re like, some kind of time-traveling shape-shifting alien”.

“In a way yes. I can take different forms. I do not belong to what you call earth. Alien? Only in that you do not understand me. The comic books you read Joseph certainly fuel your imagination”.

The boys both look at each other in puzzlement.

“There is much you do not understand - and soon it will be too late”.

Caleb now steps away from the stable and stands next to Joseph, “What will happens in the future?”

“I will show you the future, provide information about the past and the present. In the hope to influence you both enough to prevent what’s to come”.

The walls of the barn begin to deteriorate and disappear. The boys are left standing on the slab of dirt still levitating high in the sky, they both step back and crouch low to the ground, shaken by the old barn’s sudden disappearance.

“Don’t worry, there is no need to hold on this time”, the voice says.

Below them, the earth began to spin, slowly increasing in speed, until like a blur everything shoots by, trees, houses, roads, buildings. The sky flashes like a strobe light from night to day, sun to stars, rain, and wind. Joseph and Caleb shut their eyes. Caleb clenches his fists, Joseph covers his face with his hands.

The voice finally speaks again, “You can both open your eyes, but be prepared for what you’re about to see”.

Caleb gradually opens his first, his eyes adjusting to the world below him. His mouth drops. Joseph looks from Caleb's face to the world below. They’re both floating above what seems like the ocean, the sun has been blocked out by dilapidated skyscrapers all around them. These architectural wonders of the future aren’t the marvel they should be, every glass window shattered, chunks of the buildings have been broken away, revealing scattered and mouldy furniture inside. There is no sound or movement. Even the ocean is still and silent.

“This was the city you called Sydney”.

“What happened?”, Caleb asks.

“Everything has been destroyed. The trees, the species that cared for the ecosystem, the atmosphere is suffocating.”.

Joseph almost speechless, “My uncle lives in Sydney”.

“There is no one living anywhere on earth anymore.”

Joseph falls to his knees as he sees the tips of the Sydney opera house sticking out of the ocean. The voice continues, “Now you know what’s to come, let me take you back long before your ancestors named this land Australia”.

The ocean below them lowers, subsiding to reveal the city once again. Every manmade structure then crumbles into dust, tall thick trees appear everywhere creating a rainforest around Sydney harbour, bursting with wildlife. Birds flock in all directions, lorikeets, rosellas, and parrots of all different colours.

“Caleb, when did your history begin?”, the voice asks.

Caleb looks around in the sky, “When Captain Cook arrived”.

“No, your ancestor’s history in the country named England began over thirteen thousand years ago at the end of the last Glacia period”.

“Oh okay wise old spiritual alien thing, I was born here in Australia so this is my country”.

“Look down at the coastline Caleb, you too Joseph”

The boys look down and see a large group of indigenous people on the beach, three men dance, while a man sings his tribal Dreamtime story with clapsticks. Joseph sits down on the edge of the dirt slab to continue watching, with nowhere else to go Caleb decides to sit next to him. The man’s songlines in language pass through the boys, Caleb's eyes widen as his body stiffens up. Mesmerized by the body movements in the dances incorporating their totems, a vision of a white-crested Cockatoo appears to Caleb. Soaring over the dancing Aboriginal man, the giant bird moves its large wings in sync with his arms. Something happens in Caleb, although he has never heard the words of this language, he not only feels every word that is sung but he understands the knowledge being passed through him.

“Caleb”, the voice echoes.

“Yes”, Caleb responds waking out of his trance.

“This is the Gadigal clan of the Eora nation. There are over six hundred different Aboriginal tribes on this island you call Australia, dating back sixty thousand years, all with their own unique cultures, traditions, and languages. I’m going to take you both back to the present day now”.

Neither of the boys responds, they decide to stay seated in the dirt, closing their eyes and breathing almost in a meditational state. The earth below them once again changes, traveling past in a blur.

“You may both once again open your eyes”, says the voice.

Joseph and Caleb are now back standing amongst the grass in front of the old run-down barn, their bikes back against the wall.

“We are all visitors in time and place. Our purpose is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love, and to leave. Time is simply a measurement, the indefinite continued progress of existence and events. What happened billions of years ago impacted today, and what you do now will impact everything to come”.

The old barn in front of them vanishes, their two bikes fall to the ground once again. “thank you again, Joseph and Caleb”.

The boys stand in the empty paddock.