5
It was a really stupid argument about a toilet seat that caused me to begin my Time travelling adventures. It might sound funny to you, but it got way out of hand.
I tell you, if I could turn back the clock and live that day again... well, I'd do things differently. I'd say things differently, or not say them at all. Some things really are better left unsaid. But at the time, it was the final straw. Now it's too late. I'm stranded in the year 2040 and I'll probably never get the chance to put things right. It's all water under the bridge*, so the saying goes.
[* Not a lot of people know this, but the saying 'water under the bridge' as used to describe unalterable past events, was actually coined by a time travelling friend of Isaac Newton to perfectly describe the movement of Time through the fifth dimension. It's meaning is both physical and metaphysical. Time is like a river. Very much like a river. And also like the sea. And also tiny little streams. And drops of water falling from an icicle melting. And like the water spinning down a plug hole of a bathtub. And like the tides of the ocean. It's effected by gravity. It generally flows in one direction, but within that one direction it spirals in every direction. It flows around obstacles (such as rocks, or events) and there are bridges. Most people don't know about the bridges. Time travellers know about them. That's how we get across.]
Kim had moved in with me three months earlier. It's strange because she'd practically been living with me already, but once she moved in 'officially' and moved all her stuff in, something changed. I wouldn't say it was because of all her stuff, but somehow that had something to do with it.
I'm quite an organised person. I don't have a lot of stuff and what I've got, I keep in its place so I always know where everything is. She's exactly the opposite. She had so much stuff - mostly loads of little things - bits of jewellery, crystals, candles, beads, books, bags, clothes - so many clothes! And CD's. So many CD's. I mean, who even listened to those any more? Even in those days. To be fair, she had good taste in clothes and in music, but still... Things were just getting lost all the time. We seemed to spend most of our time just looking for stuff that she'd put somewhere and instantly forgotten where it was.
I really loved her, don't get me wrong, but living together was proving more challenging than either of us had expected. I suppose it was a matter of space and time. We were both used to having our own space and our own time to ourselves, to do our own thing. We both worked from home, which caused a certain tension. I was designing websites - mostly corporate stuff, freelance from an agency. Not the most inspiring stuff, but there was a certain creative element to it and the pay was ok. She made visionary paintings and sold them in Camden Market and over the internet and got a modest income from that. Well, I'm not going to go into every detail because it's not relevant to this story.. she'd spilled the jar of paintbrush water over my computer's auxiliary hard drive while she was dancing around the room to mantra music (that was part of her creative process) while I was trying to do my work (hunched over a computer keyboard with my face screwed up, smoking a joint - that was my creative process)... I'd made out like it didn't really matter, but actually I was really quite pissed, and missed the days of my tidy little office corner in my minimalist, spacious flat.
Later that evening, she'd made some comment - maybe even a sort of joke - about me always leaving the toilet seat up - and it just blew up into a massive fight. Our first ever proper fight. I don't know how it happened really. It was like we both became different people.
It ended with me saying some very harsh words, cursing the day we'd met, storming out of my flat, which suddenly felt like no home at all, slamming the door behind me - causing the Victorian stained glass window pane in it to shatter. I didn't even look around.
I headed for the woods, as I always do in times of trouble and woe - taking some comfort from the majestic ancient oak and beech trees, silent and still, branches bare in the cold winter night - looking down on me from their great height, with the wisdom of centuries.
I walked and walked, paying no particular thought or attention to where I was going. Through Highgate Woods, over Hampstead Heath, I somehow found myway to Dollis Brook and followed it all the way to Totteridge, the place where I had grown up. I walked the familiar suburban streets until I reached the house where I grew up. My parents still lived there but they were away on some trip. I let myself in with the spare key. The house was dark and silent. Exhausted, I flopped down onto the big sofa in the lounge. I suppose I must have cried, alone and full of self pity, wishing I could turn back Time.
And then suddenly, as if remembering a dream I'd forgotten I'd even had, until something reminded me of it - I remembered that I could. I could turn back Time.
I looked at my hand. I was still wearing the ring. My great great grandfather's ring. I don't know how I'd forgotten about it. In a kind of trance - unthinking now, my feet carried me upstairs and upstairs again to the dusty attic room at the top of the house. My hands lifted the heavy box of old Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel and such LP's from the 60's from on top of the black box from a hundred years ago, bearing the name S.Nadler of London. Hatter.
I must have been mad.
When I think about it now - and I've thought about it every day since that fateful night - if I'd only know then what I know now...
If I'd known that once you cross that bridge, you can never return. I would have gone straight to the phone and called up Kim, and told her I was sorry, and told her not to worry, and told her that I loved her - because I really did...
If I'd known that she was pregnant, maybe I would have acted different, stuck around... not gone and disappeared into another dimension...
But instead I opened the box and took out the black bowler hat, which was not a hat at all, but an Interdimentional Portal - and I took off the ring, which was not a ring at all, but a key to the portal - and I dropped the key into the portal, as my great great grandfather had instructed...
And it fell, far far out of sight, into the perfect darkness
And then, again like remembering something long forgotten, I remembered to breath, so I breathed seven deep breaths and as I counted them..
Time seemed to
slow down ...
and all the
layers of
reality seemed to
peel away,
until ......
finally.....
Time
came to a complete
standstill
and
I
completely
ceased
to
exist...
With perfect calm, I raised the hat above my head and then with a sudden gut-wrenching rush , before I had a moment to stop and reconsider this madness, I fell upwards into the black hole...
....and the world disappeared....