A Timeless Journey (29 page)

How could she? What had happened to me wasn’t some random affair she was expecting to hear. It wasn’t a story with a logical explanation. On the contrary, it was a bizarre and complicated story, given the time difference between her reality and mine.

Unlike Sophie, I was aware that the outcome of my confession would seal the end of our relationship. The weird part was that for me, this relationship had been over almost two years ago when I met Luna, while for Sophie was as fresh as last night.

Deep down, I wished the old idea of time moving on the same way for Sophie as it had been for me when I left this reality two years ago, were true. At least that way was going to be easier for her to believe me and easier for both of us to deal with the truth. However, unfortunately for her, it had only been a few hours compare to my two years and she never came to know I had left for so long.

When I finished telling my story, I expected an explosive reaction from her, but she remained speechless and shocked. I couldn’t tell if she was staring at me or looking through me into some imaginary space.

“Well, Sophie, what do you think? Please say something.” I begged.

Sophie remained quiet. I guess she was trying to digest everything I had just confessed. It didn’t take long for her anger to explode at full force on my face.

“You have been out all night meeting God knows who and this is the best you can come up with, just to break up with me? Wow, very impressive Scott! I never knew you had such a wild imagination. Can you at least tell me the real reason why you are breaking up with me? Did you meet someone else on your adventures last night?”

“What I have just told you is true. I’m not making anything up. You can see that I have changed so much which is impossible to do overnight.”

‘It seems you have gone to great lengths just to break up with me but why, why now? What has changed from last night’s caring and loving person I knew?”

She was about to burst in tears and I felt bad for putting her through this.

“Sophie, I understand you feel angry and upset at this moment, but I can assure you I am not lying. I’m in love with Luna with whom I have a daughter as you heard. I only came here to let everyone know where I’ve been and I am looking forward to travel back to the future to be with them. This is why I had to tell you the truth, so you don’t have to wonder where I have disappeared if I do go again. Do I regret the pain I am causing you? Of course I do, but there is nothing I can do to change what has happened.”

“Have you listened to yourself, how crazy you sound? Are you sure it wasn’t just a dream and you woke up this morning thinking it’s all real?”

Suddenly, the dream I had as I slept on the beach came to mind and the doubt I had dreamt it all made me shiver.

What if that beautiful experience was a dream?

What if all I did was fall asleep on the sand and everything I had been through wasn’t real?

The confusion created by these doubts send a chilling shiver throughout my body and for a little moment I lost myself in an abyss of unwanted and unthinkable possibilities. Remembering my new hair style, the Link device in my shorts’ side pocket and the mind scrambler ring, my heart warmed up as I realised everything I had experienced in the future had to be real.

The atmosphere between us had become unbearable and hostile. Unwilling to continue with the awkward conversation with Sophie, I put on a shirt and walked towards the door. With a confident tone of voice I let Sophie know what I thought.

“At some point, I will prove what I told you is very much real, but for now, I can’t deal with your lack of trust and the hostility. I’m off out to have a proper coffee since I missed it for the past two years.”

I walked out of the room, leaving a stunned Sophie crying in bed and headed to the bar downstairs to have that cup of coffee.

37

It was already ten past eleven in the morning and most of the holidaymakers were by the swimming pool, or on the beach, so I had the lobby bar almost to myself. I ordered a coffee with milk and sat on one of the tables near the bar. Before I had a chance to taste the coffee, a strong aroma of caffeine hit my nostrils and that brought a pleasant smile to my face. It was one of the few things I had missed from this old world.

The caffeine worked its way nicely into my blood stream. As I sat alone enjoying the coffee, I tried to assess my earlier conversation with Sophie. Considering that I hadn’t seen her in two years, I thought I had handled the situation pretty well. Thanks to the novel I’ve read, I was aware this break-up was going to affect Sophie differently from what it had affected me two years ago. For her, it was all so sudden and unexpected while for me, I had two years and my love for Luna that helped me get over my feelings for Sophie. Sophie was going to calm down eventually, as soon as the first shock wore off. I had to stick to what I had read in the novel and sit down with her at some point. I had to try and make her understand that I wasn’t lying, despite knowing the outcome. I always hoped, maybe this time around, Sophie would believe my story and this is all I needed from her.

I lifted my head up and looked around the lobby bar. Instinctively thought about the drinking booths, the advanced technology and the sterile environment of the future and, the primitive surroundings of this reality, became even more obvious to me. I suddenly remembered that in the 21
st
century, I couldn’t trust people the same way as I did in the future. After spending two years within a safe and honest society, I had to start being alert to the dishonest way people behaved in the 21
st
century.

Slowly, I was starting to realise that being in the future for that long, had changed my mentality forever. It meant that my attitude and the way I responded towards the old society and the environment around me, had radically changed. Returning to an old and judgmental world after spending two years in an extremely developed society, was like a millennia man exchanges the 21
st
century life for the dark ages, where the plague epidemic was as common as the flu.

I was lost in my nostalgic thoughts about the future when Lauren’s sudden presence startled me.

“Hey Scott, what are you doing here? Where is Sophie?”

“She’s in her room.”

“Why haven’t you joined us yet? We have been waiting by the pool for ages.”

It had been a long time since I saw Lauren last and it felt weird answering her questions as if nothing had happened, but I had to pretend it was only last night we had met. Lauren’s blue eyes had always matched perfectly her long dark and dyed hair and her body shape, more on the curvy than slender side, reminded me how much the metabolism of the human body had changed in the future.

I released a clueless smile as my brain struggled to return to reality. I realised I had to say something back at her and contented with a short general answer.

“Long story Lauren, I can’t explain it now.”

She noticed a hint of sadness in my voice and asked.

“Have you two fallen out or something?”

“Kind of, as I said, it’s a long story.”

“Is it serious? What happened?”

“You can say that. I think she might need you now more than me.”

“I am sure you’ll sort things out. You always have. You look different by the way, nice hairstyle. When did you have it done?”

“Why don’t you go and see if Sophie is alright. We’ll talk about my hair style later.” My dry tone of voice took Lauren by surprise.

“Okay…!” She gave me a mystified look and then continued. “It sounds a lot more serious than I thought. I can’t believe things between you and Sophie have changed so dramatically since last night. I am going to see her now.”

She started to walk away and then she remembered something and turned around.

“Chris is waiting for you by the pool, see you in a bit.”

While Lauren went to our room to see Sophie, I thought I ought to go and give the heads up to Christian. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to share with anyone else the fact that I had time travelled, since Sophie didn’t believe me, but Chris was my best friend and I felt the need to explain where I had been. Hopefully he was going to believe me and offer some support in the complicated situation with Sophie. Of course, there was the possibility of being called insane by my friends, according to the novel anyway, but what other choice did I have?

It was unusual for me meeting my best friends after two years and act as if I had seen them yesterday. I had missed them, but I had to keep my emotions hidden and try to act as normal as I could until I told them the truth.

Before sitting on the deckchair next to Christian, I went to the pool bar and grabbed a beer in one of those plastic cups they usually serve you in most resorts. I found the taste heavy and disappointing compared to the future beer and probably I would find other drinks and food to have a disappointing taste too. It had been two years since I last had a meal in this reality and I had forgotten how food and drinks tasted. My taste buds had changed while in the future and now I was facing the possibility that the things I used to enjoy before the time travel would not taste as good as they used to do.

I sat on the deckchair and greeted Christian who lifted his shades up and stared at me as if he was looking at a stranger.

“Hey mate, where you’ve been? Wait a minute, what happened to your hair? I like it though, looks nice.”

I found it easier to go straight to the point. “Never mind my hair, Sophie and I are not together anymore.”

Chris jumped off his deckchair. “You are joking. What happened?”

“I will tell you what happened, but first, promise to take me seriously.”

Christian nodded with a concern look on his face. I told him the shortest version of what had happened to me. Just like Sophie, he refused to believe me.

“Sorry mate, but you’re telling me that while I was asleep, you spent two years of your life in the future, overnight? Are you sure it wasn’t a dream you had?”

“It might seem overnight to you, but physically I am 2 years older than you now and next month I am going to be 28. Don’t you think it’s strange I have a lighter skin tone than I had yesterday and what about my hair? Where do you think I had such a sophisticated haircut? At a 24 hour barbers in the woods behind the resort?”

“I don’t know mate! What you’re saying is nuts. I know I can explain why your skin and your hair have changed overnight, but it is easier for me to believe you were abducted by aliens than travelling in time.”

“I have met aliens as well when Luna and I went to Intergalactic city in Siberia. By the way, in the future they are called ‘interplanetaries’ not aliens. ‘Alien’ is an offensive word in the future, it means an unknown foreign person and it’s degrading to them.”

“Listen to you getting all politically correct, ‘interplanetaries’, huh! Ok, let’s believe for a moment that what are you saying is true. Why did you break up with Sophie, now that you are back?”

“Have you heard a word what I have been saying to you?”

“Yes, yes, that you are in love with this Luna from the future, but what about Sophie?”

“This is my problem Chris. From my prospective, I broke up with her two years ago and now I can’t just go back to her like nothing has happened. I love Luna and my daughter too much to betray them.”

“This is so weird. Last night you were in love with Sophie and this morning you are in love with this Luna and you have a kid. How am I supposed to make sense of that?”

“Can you please stop referring to my wife as ‘this Luna’? Just ‘Luna’ will do fine.” I protested annoyed at the way Chris referred to Luna.

“Sorry mate, but it is not easy for me to believe.”

“I know it’s hard for all of you to understand because it has been only a few hours since last night, but for me it has been two years. I travelled to the year 2572, stayed there till 2574 and travelled back to the same time I left, which is this morning. So, when for all of you it has been only a few hours, for me, two entire years have passed.”

“Hang on a minute, you said ‘your wife’. Did you get married while you lived in the future?”

Chris’s tone of voice sounded a little bit sarcastic, but I chose to explain anyway.

“There wasn’t a wedding or anything. It works differently in the future. The government AI system reads your personal bio microchip all the time and if you share your life with someone for more than six months, you are as good as married.”

“What does this Luna look like then?” I gave Chris a telling-off look, annoyed at the way he was referring to Luna and he was quick to apologise. “Sorry, I meant is Luna good-looking.”

“Almost same height as me, slender, perfectly shaped body, very pretty with distinctive blue eyes, short dark hair, brown skin, which weirdly looks whiter and very shiny. Above all, she is the most honest person I have ever met.”

“She sounds a real stunner. Tell me, are all the girls fit in the future?”

The way how Chris poised the question, made me appreciate he had started to believe my story.

“Yes they are fit, men and women, more than you can imagine.” I said smiling. “Does this mean you believe me?”

“I don’t know mate, your story sounds crazy, but the way you talk about it, you make it sound very convincing,” he said as he put his shades back on and laid his torso back on the deckchair, a move that told me our conversation was over.

Chris’s scepticism had started to show some cracks and only the limited knowledge and the perception of this old primitive reality as the only truth, was preventing him to fully believing me. If I had to force Chris to pick a side, I had no doubt it would have been difficult for him since Lauren and Sophie were best friends. I was aware he would have been forced to choose standing by his girlfriend and that meant going against his best friend. I think this was the reason he refused to get involved any deeper in my story, at least not until Lauren and Sophie joined us.

I turned my attention to the people in the pool and released a sarcastic smile which failed to fully materialize and stayed mostly in my head. The pool looked so primitive with the little square tiles in blue and the chlorine infested water instead of the sophisticated pixilated surface which was used also to purify the pool water in the reality I had left behind.

Nothing around me made an impression like it used to when I first arrived in this holiday resort. After two years in a radically developed world, this old reality seemed like a bad dream to me. I had been back in this reality only a few hours and I already came to dislike most of it. Nothing here excited me anymore and the fear of getting stuck in this reality after what I had witnessed in the past two years, send shivers throughout my body. I lay on the deckchair like a statue, feeling completely numb and my eyes seemed to focus deep inside my brain staring scarily at my mind which wondered into the unknown.

Sophie and Lauren joined us half an hour later. Judging by Sophie’s red rings around the eyes, she had been crying a lot. Lauren wasn’t friendly with me either. Adding Chris’s scepticism to all that made me believe it was going to be a difficult week and a half ahead. Seeing the dire situation that I had created with my confession, I left the three of them alone to talk. I decided to spend most of that day walking up and down on the beach thinking, weirdly on the same beach I had lived for the last two years.

I ended up having lunch and dinner alone that day and the situation became more awkward when Sophie locked herself in the hotel room for the evening with Lauren. Chris and I sat in the main bar drinking and as the alcohol started to relax the nerves, our conversation warmed up. I expressed my concerns about Sophie and what was going to happen for the rest of the holiday. I was concerned about Sophie and didn’t fancy leaving her alone in the apartment.

“I still care about her, you know.”

“You have hurt her Scott.”

“I know,” I admitted, half aloud.

“To be honest Scott, I think the best solution for you is to return home, tomorrow if possible.”

Chris’s advice took me by surprise. I have had the same idea earlier that day, but never expected him to come out with so openly.

“Earlier today I went to the main desk and asked if there was an early flight back home and the earliest I can fly back is three days before our scheduled return flight. It’s not worth spending all that money for three days. The most acute problem for me is where I am going to sleep tonight.”

“Yeah, I can’t see you and Sophie sharing the same room.”

“I will sleep on the beach. It’s warm anyway.”

Chris paused for a moment, thinking. “Alright, you can sleep in our apartment and Lauren can go and sleep with Sophie.”

“I don’t want to ruin your holiday mate. It’s bad enough ruining Sophie’s.” I replied with genuine concern.

“I don’t see any other option, do you?”

“I can sleep on a deckchair on the beach and use the room only for a shower and to change my clothes.”

“No, you are not sleeping on the beach Scott. Regardless what you’ve done, you have paid for this holiday too. Sleep at our room for tonight. You can sleep on the couch though, the bed is mine.”