My life
is a life full of running. In all directions, that is. But that’s the thing:
you are always reduced into a constant race with time. Some people just sit and
wait in a corner, while some people run and live the race. As for me, I run
because running is what makes my life still.
Now, here’s the picture: two
men—one was a young teenager, on the left side and facing the door, and the
other was an old man, on the right side and much nearer on his side of the wall
than the young one—were standing inside a claustrophobic room, quietly, at
least for some time. The young man was embracing a brown leather bag in his
arms; the old man had his arms free, save for his right hand he put easily over
the panel buttons on the side of the door before them. As time went on inside
that elevator (as I have assumed you have probably assumed yourself what that
room is), the young one was feeling an increasing discomfort within him. I
should know—that young man was none other than me.
“Are you alright, boy?” the old
man, a so-called elevator man, asked. “You don’t seem alright, if I may say.
You’re awfully very pale.”
The young man looked slowly
toward the old man, mistrustfully, I’d say.
“You don’t look fine at all,”
the old man said.
“Just a…” the young man began.
“Just…a little dizzy.”
“Do you have a thing against
closed rooms? Do you get all panicky when you’re inside one?”
The young man had returned his
eyes back on the closed door in front of them, and seemed to have not heard the
questions recently asked by the old man.
“Alright, I’d tell you now,” the
old man said. “You’re running away from something, am I not right?”
The young man glanced back at
him, his attention utterly taken. A whole lot of sweat was threatening on the
folds of his forehead, and if he could only see the look of his own face at
that very moment, he’d laugh his butt off surely and forget in himself that
that elevator ride was just the first one of the rides he had planned to take
in but another escape attempt of his dear young life.
“What did you say?” he asked, as
if he did not hear what the old man had just said.
“How many times have you run
from something, Randy?”
“How did you know my name?” The
panic inside him had risen considerably up his throat now. “Who are you?”
“An elevator guy,” the old man
said. Randy, the young man’s name, had taken a few steps back away from him,
instinctively. “Or, if you would allow me, I can be someone who can help you
out with this new running of yours.”
“Help?”
“That’s right. I can offer you a
hand in this escape.”
Randy looked ponderously at the
old man for a string of seconds. “Who are you, mister?”
“My name is Danny.” The old man
offered his hand for a shake, which Randy took reluctantly. “And I am going to
tell you that I am not just any of your old, anonymous elevator man. I know a
way out of everything.”
“What are you trying to tell me,
mister?” Randy asked.
“Please, call me Danny,” the old
man said. He moved his hand over to the floor buttons and pushed the button for
the eighth floor. Currently, they were just cruising past the fourth floor and
going down.
“What are you doing?” Randy
protested.
“Relax,” Danny said. After he
had pushed the “8” button, the elevator seemed to have come to a stop. The noise
coming basically from the gliding of the elevator had turned into an eerie
silence. Slowly, the numbers embossed on the other buttons started to
disappear, leaving only the eighth floor button with a number. A few seconds
after though, the number 8 slowly rotated counter-clockwise and stopped on a
“lying” position, making it look like a mathematical symbol for infinity.
“What’s happening?” Randy asked,
frantically.
“I’m showing you a way out of
the trouble you’ve put yourself into, Randy. I’m offering you a hand, a
friendly hand, that is.”
Randy clutched his bag
vehemently closer to him, although he was not at all conscious of it. The
mystery enshrouding the old man, and the, let’s say, supernatural turnaround of
things inside the elevator had caused him to absently lose hold of himself.
Consequently, as cliché would suggest it, he thought he was just submerged in a
very deep dream, and sometime later he would just wake up from all of it.
But this isn’t no dream, Randy. Yes, it’s me, Danny, the elevator guy.
Welcome to the place called “the past.”
The elevator door opened to a
bright, blinding light. Randy battled it off his eyes with his arms, inadvertently
dropping the leather bag that he was holding them with. Gradually, the light
dissipated and slowly showed to him what was outside the elevator as they had
been standing inside it at the minute. A hallway, basically, the eighth floor
hallway. But he remembered he had just been welcomed by the old man into a new
place, apparently, which he called “the past.”
Randy opened his eyes carefully,
not knowing that the light had just been fainting out. When his vision had
cleared out at last, he saw that it was not the eighth floor hallway that was
waiting outside the elevator. He had somehow expected to see this different
place, anyway. And he was also still clinging on the notion that what was
happening was merely part of a dream.
The opened elevator door led out
into another room—someone’s bedroom. The ambiance implicit around it concurred
with the nomenclature provided by the old man. It did look like a room inside a
house inside an era of the past.
“Take a step out, Randy,” the
old man said. “I’ll follow you shortly.”
Randy asked no further question.
He stepped out of the elevator into the surreal room that looked sepia all
over, and was quite unconscious of his steps. When out, he finally saw the
entirety of the room. Danny was following him behind.
“What is this place?” Randy
asked.
“The past,” Danny said. “To be
exact, this is a room straight from sixty-seven years ago.”
Randy’s eyes stretched in utter
disbelief. “You mean to tell me that I have time-traveled sixty-seven fucking
years into the past?”
“Yes, you did.”
“What are we doing here? This is
your proposed way out for me?”
Danny walked toward one side of
the room, to a wall where a number of framed pictures were hanging, and stood
specifically beside a large black-and-white photograph of a man staring dead-on
toward every direction.
“His name is Don Teofilo
Villon,” he said. “He’s a doctor. And I’m sure you don’t know him.”
“Yeah, I sure don’t. Who is he?”
“Let me tell you a story. There
was once a young Spanish adventurer many years ago who had joined the crew of a
large Spanish ship named the Voyager. This adventurer’s name is Lopez. The
Voyager was set on an expedition toward the Philippine islands, unbeknownst to
them all that that would eventually be its last trip. So they sailed on for a
month before they met a small canoe in the middle of the ocean which was just
floating aimlessly. In that canoe was a famished, almost dying man who refused
to talk who he was or what fate had beset him prior to that current time. The
ship’s crew took the man in and provided him with much comfort, since they had
expected that he would no sooner die. Lopez was the last man to see to him
before he died; and without the knowledge of the other sailors, the dying man
had told Lopez, before his last breath, about a large diamond he had swallowed
during the mutiny of the ship’s crew he had last sailed with. The diamond was
worth a fortune beyond all fortunes. He told Lopez that if he dies, and he’s
sure it won’t be long then, he told him to slit a part of his stomach open and
take the diamond. He did just as what he had been told.
“When the others had heard of
the man’s death and seen the wound in his stomach, they immediately thought
Lopez had killed him, as opposed to letting the man die a natural death. Lopez
was sentenced to a walk in the plank for his alleged crime. But before that,
after he had taken the treasure from the dead man’s body, he had also swallowed
it himself, lest the others would find it. He plunged the cold waters of the
ocean and was left by the ship to his fate. Fortunately, another boat passed by
the area after the first ship had gone a considerable distance away. He was
taken in on that boat, which was coincidentally also headed toward the
Philippines.
“At the time of their arrival,
Lopez immediately went about looking for a surgeon to get the diamond out of
his stomach. That was how and when his path and Don Villon’s path eventually
crossed. The doctor agreed to operate on him, after Lopez promised to give him
a large part of the fortune that precious stone was worth. Unbeknownst to
Lopez, Don Villon was planning to kill him off and take the treasure all to
himself.”
Danny paused speaking when
suddenly a movement was seen from the other side of the room. There was a bed
on that side where somebody had been lying beneath a couple of layers of
blankets. Randy instantly knew who it was on the bed.
“Shouldn’t we go now?” Randy
asked.
“No,” Danny said. “If you’re
concerned about the man finding us here inside his room, then I’m telling you,
that concern of yours is pointless. At the moment, we are but an inexistent
pair of visitors relative to their timeframe. They cannot see us, they cannot
feel our presence.”
The door of the room located few
steps away from the bed suddenly opened, permitting the entrance of a young
woman. Her face had been drenched in tears as she slowly walked toward the man
lying on the bed.
“Who is she?” Randy asked.
“She’s Don Villon’s daughter,”
Danny answered. “Mary.”
“Why is she crying?”
“That is because, Randy, Don
Villon is a dying man.”
Randy observed the following
sequence of events inside the room, and discovered another incredulous property
of this peephole they were looking through. Don Villon’s daughter, who was
sitting on the floor beside his father’s bed, was clearly mumbling some words.
Randy could see her lips moving for him to deduce it. But in wonder of all
wonders, not even a faint sound was audible from her. It had been like watching
a motion picture in a TV that was set in mute.
“We can only see, Randy,” Danny
said, noticing the look of wonder on Randy’s face. “This part here has no audio
yet.”
“What is she saying?” Randy
asked.
“I don’t honestly have an idea.
But what I do know is that Don Villon has to have someone to pass the diamond
to now before he finally expires. As you can see, he has to do it as soonest as
possible.”
“He cannot possibly entrust that
to his daughter. A woman!”
“Exactly!”
And Randy was struck with the
quick understanding of everything before him.
“I know who you’re running from,
Randy,” the old man said. “I was just looking for a chance to confront you with
this one of a time chance to relieve you of all your troubles.”
“Who really are you? Don’t tell
me this isn’t all just a dream.”
“There are people pursuing you,
dangerous people whom you have owed a large amount of money. This is your
chance, Randy.”
“I am dreaming,” Randy said,
wandering about his place from disbelief.
“Don Villon has already lost
that diamond to history. Now, I’m giving you this precious opportunity to
change that course of history and turn the tide in your favor. Imagine the
treasure that lost gem can promise you, Randy. It’s a vastness of richness
beyond measure.”
Randy looked straight into the
eyes of Danny, reading their depth.
“Time is no more a luxury in
your position,” Danny said. “You have to think about this now.”
“No, I still have time,” Randy
said. “I need time to think about this. I will get back here tomorrow. And by
then you will have my decision. I need the treasure, I can comprehend as well
its promised fate for me should I be able to obtain it from Don Villon, but I
still have to think this over. Until now, these things haven’t gotten into the
bottom of my mind yet.”
Danny let out a brief sigh.
“Alright. I’ll be just right here tomorrow. I shall expect you and your final
decision. Be wise, Randy. Be wise.”
Randy then quietly turned his
back to the open door of the elevator. It looked very much a different world
than the room of Don Villon. It was the world that he had lived for years.
Turning his back to it to another one that was surely going to shed him from
all his present troubles would surely be a matter needing of a heavy pondering.
Deep within him, he was torn by two sides that were way much parted from each
other.
He got inside the elevator,
waiting for Danny to move his way back in also. As soon as the old man had gone
inside, Randy said to him, “You have to tell me everything I need to know about
this dimension and this travel itself should I comply with your offer, Danny.”
“Of course,” Danny said,
fetching a smile on his lips.
Randy needed the time to think,
but at that very moment he had already been fixed on a final, irrevocable
decision—Don Villon’s diamond, of course. Perhaps, he just needed the time to
prove to himself that everything was not inside a dream.
The next day, after managing to
find a way through the people going after his tracks, he once again found his
way inside the elevator, standing alone with Danny. The old man initiated that
second meeting in a thought that Randy would be hesitant to talk first. And, as
is usual, every time-travel should start with a smile.
“So, is it a yes?” he asked.
“Tell me the dos and don’ts,”
Randy said.
“Perfect!” The old man faced
Randy and thrust his hand to the eighth floor button beside the elevator door.
“Strap your safety belt for this one-of-a-hell journey, Randy.”
“First, you’ve got to tell me if
there’s a chance that I could go back in the present.”
Danny seemed to have been taken
aback, but he quickly regained himself. “Well, there is this one important rule
we have to consider for this travel, quite connected to what you’ve just asked.
You see, once a person has gone back in time through this elevator, all his
memories of the present time will disappear from his mind. But no worries,
since you would have the knowledge of a typical man of that era once you get
there. You won’t be starting back as a baby inside an adult’s body.”
“You say I won’t be remembering
anything of the present?”
“Yes. I should’ve told you
yesterday, but I think it would not be a thing of concern for you now, given
the past whereabouts that you are trying to run away from here.”
Randy took a deep sigh. At
first, his only reason in asking the question was to at least have a sure way
out of the past if ever he should find himself in the middle of trouble again
in there. Knowing a way out of something is always a rule. The news of the
consequent total amnesia once in there was a bit of a surprise.
But what was going to be a matter for consideration following that
vanishing of his memories, anyway? He started thinking about the life he
had led, the nineteen years he had spent in this fabric of time. There had been
not a bright year, it seemed. He had no family, he had no friends, and hell! he
couldn’t even find a point in his past that was worth keeping in memory. So
maybe that would just be fine, losing his memory.
But, “How can I get back here,
in case?” He directed that question to the old man with total gravity.
Danny looked at him in quiet
awe. “How can you get back here?” was the first thing he could say after
spending some seconds in silence.
“Yeah, in case,” Randy said.
“Perhaps we can do something
about that,” Danny said, hesitantly so. “But you won’t be remembering anything,
anyway. You won’t be aware that you came here in the first place.”
“In case, Danny,” Randy said,
almost in a whisper.
“Alright.” Danny heaved a deep
sigh. “I know it’s an odd thing to suddenly live in a life that is not yours
firstly. We have enough secrets in this world to try and come up with another
one. I know you won’t be comfortable, in any way, concealed behind the fact
that you’re living in a completely foreign world, much more a completely
foreign era.
“So here’s what I’m thinking you
should do. Once you get out of this elevator and into the past, inside Don
Villon’s room, you will take the diamond from him, and find your way back to
these doors.” (He pointed toward the ones of the elevator.) “Of course, it
won’t be visible anymore from your reference point inside the past, but I will
you show the trick of it. And of course, I will tell you where the diamond is
hidden.”
Randy’s face seemed to beam with
excitement, though he actually tried to keep it from the old man.
Danny took out a piece of paper
and a pen from his pocket, wrote something, and continued, “Bring this. Hold on
to this so that you could read it at once.”
On the paper was written: “I
HAVE TRAVELED BACK IN TIME. I SHOULD ASK NO QUESTIONS. I SHOULD GO OUT OF THIS
ROOM AND GET INSIDE THE ROOM DIRECTLY ACROSS THIS ONE. ONCE INSIDE, I SHOULD GO
TO THE CABINET BESIDE THE BED OPEN THE DRAWER AND GET THE BOX INSIDE. THE
DIAMOND I HAVE COME HERE FOR IS IN THERE. THEN I SHOULD GO BACK TO THE FIRST
ROOM AND STAND BY THE WINDOW WHERE I HAVE COME FROM. I SHOULD CLOSE MY EYES AND
THINK ABOUT THE YEAR 2014. JUST THINK OF THE NUMBER. REMEMBER NO QUESTIONS!”
Randy looked dubiously at the
old man after he had read what was on the paper.
“Just focus, Randy,” Danny said.
“This is the only, and might just be the perfect way, for you not to get stuck
in the past.”
“Okay,” Randy said. The
situation called for him to stay silent, as he tried to make a final pondering
about what he was about to do. But the game had been fixed in his mind. He
folded the paper into a lengthwise strip and put it between his two fingers. He
looked at Danny, now with a seeming gratitude, and said, “Thank you.”
“Always be happy to help,” Danny
said.
The door of the elevator finally
opened, and the gloomy interior of Don Villon's room appeared before them like
a sick old man on a hospital bed appears before you—as gloomy as the room
itself, it had seemed. Randy glanced for the last time at Danny, smiled a
little, and then took his first step out of the elevator. Officially, if it
would be a great deal (as it apparently would), he was now standing in two time
eras at the same time.
The elevator door closed behind
him in a slow, thrilling fashion, and for a thousandth time in his furthest
memory, he felt alone. But then he thought, there is no need to worry about the
breadth of my memory anymore—I'm going to lose it in a second now...
In a second now.
He looked around the room, curiously. He recalled the first
time he got here that he hadn't been this curious as to look around the details
inside this room. The bed was there on the far wall, sheets bulging and taking
the shape of the old man lying beneath them. A continual rising and falling of
them indicated the pace of the man's breathing. And then he remembered that the
man was actually in the last moments of his life now. And he remembered...
Remembered?
Wait a sec.
I cannot possibly remember
anything. And I, yes I. It all goes back to me now. The Randy who's been
running and running from almost everything.
This can't be right! I look
around the room faster now, and I feel the paper slipped between the fingers of
my hand. Danny's note.
I HAVE TRAVELED BACK IN TIME.
I SHOULD ASK NO QUESTIONS.
But I am filled with them now. I read the next lines and
feel odd about it than ever. I decide to do what is just asked of me by the
note. I run out of the room as fast as my feet could, finding the said room
across this first one. And then at that point, all memories suddenly come back
into me. Every memory I have of this room, and of this house, and of this era,
apparently. I am starting to remember. But understanding is still out of the
question.
The room before me now, I know
it. Yes, I know whose it is. The vague thoughts following the sight of
it—cloudy thoughts of the past.
Past?
Which past?
By then, I have remembered: For
years, I have actually been putting the future into my past.
But I am referring to another
past this time. I cannot make my mind to concur with it, but apparently, there
seem to be two fabrics of the past that I have lived through. The one which
introduced me to Danny, the elevator man, and the past I have with this house.
And then it starts to become
clear. The rule. The important rule of this time-travel. All your memories of
the present time will be lost in your mind—and the reason why the memories I
have before I took the elevator ride aren't lost right now is because that time
is not my present time.
The door across me suddenly
opens, and behind it stands a young woman—a familiar young woman, she is. Her
cloudy eyes stretch to a width when she sees me, like she hasn't seen me for
eternity. And eternity, it may have actually been.
“Randy?” she says, in her broken
voice.
“Mary?”
“I thought I wouldn't see you
anymore!” She breaks down into more tears as she throws herself to me,
embracing me with a grip that is a clear implication of how badly she has yearned
for it. “I know you wouldn't leave me. I know you didn't mean what you said.”
“Mary.” And I cannot bring
myself to add more words to that. The very memory of what and why Mary has
clasped me as she has starts to seep into my mind now—a memory involving her,
an unexpected news, my want to escape from it, Don Villon's threat, and a mad
scientist. Sixty-seven years into the future, the latter has said.
I have entered the time machine
to escape her, and her father's will to kill me for deciding to elude my
responsibility. Don Villon is not dying! Yes, Don Villon is old but he can
still grab a diamond and push it down into my throat like any Tuesday. And what
diamond? There is no fucking diamond! The shithead Danny has only invented a
backstory enough to convince me to get inside this hellhole! (Unfortunately, what
has been my original hellhole.)
“Please don't leave us, Randy,”
Mary says, amidst the chaos inside my head. She is rubbing her belly as she
speaks. “We need you. Little Danny needs you here.”
Danny?
And my mind shuts off in that instant like a movie cuts to
black.
(end)
