Time

Note: Written for a flash fiction assignment – the maximum word count was 500.

In its time, the town of Mudgate, now lost to the ages, squatted unassumingly in a remote section of river-bottom country between two yet unnamed peaks covered with forests and meadows and frequented by butterflies and wildfires. In the town there was a school, a chapel, a field of grass, and a crumbling railway platform where the train never stopped.

It was a sunny day, with a few clouds in the sky, but not overly many, just enough to make the bright blue of the sky seem rather charming instead of malevolent. I was walking home along the tracks. I was young in those days, which were long ago. Most of them, anyway.

That day was the day that the old man on the platform was to awaken and tell the town’s fortunes. It had already been twenty years since he sat down in the old wicker chair; my father said he could remember it as clear as a sunny day with not overly many clouds in the sky.

When I arrived home, I climbed the ladder to my bedroom in the attic, and began to get ready to leave. But then, in the corner of the room, I saw something I’d never noticed before. Upon dusting it off, I could make out the words on top: TIME CAPSULE. Carefully, I opened the lid.

The house began to disintegrate around me. Faster and faster, the bricks fell. In only a few seconds, it was gone entirely. Then, not only the house, but the world began to change. One by one, the trees turned black and shriveled into themselves like raisins. Soon, things were changing too fast for me to see, as the world danced in a chaotic display, as if someone had mixed around the frames of a movie into a completely random order. Then, everything stopped.

I was staring straight into what looked like a mouth, for I could see the teeth, and the tongues, and the retromolar trigone, and the thing that dangles in the back of your throat. It seemed to be speaking. “Oh, he’s wonderful! Mother, can we keep him?” It said, in a gravelly voice.

“No, he’s got to get back where he belongs,” said another voice, significantly gravellier. As the mouth moved away, I could see another, larger creature standing(?) next to it. The mother appeared to be nothing more than a large pile of tentacles. “And when might you be from, human?” She asked politely.

“When?”

“Oh yes, year, month, day?”

I gave them to her, feeling as frightened as was proper.

She produced a large device from somewhere unspeakable and pressed several buttons on it. “Toodle-oo!” She said.

The man was about to awaken. The entire town was gathered on the platform, eyes intent on the form that lay slumped in the wicker chair in front of us. His eyes began to flutter, and then they flew open, blazing like a thousand suns.

“We have reached five-hundred words,” he said, and died.