The Time Traveller
8: Ferrith 23-03-84
I remember.
I remember a time when I was younger, a little way up a hill, where this dog crossed my path, almost like a sentient guard - a Cerberus. It stared me, holding my gaze, and growled. Yet I stood my ground, against this big black dog - rabid like a barghest or Hell Hound. I can’t remember how I got rid of it, but while it was there, a natural instinct of the early man part of my brain held me captive, like every thought, every memory, every experience was useless - me against nature. And I won. Eventually the beast sloped off. Who knows? Who knows what it could have been, but it was so strong a memory that it still rides about my mind like so many other random memories.
The first book I read? I don’t know, but it probably had something to do with a girl, a boy and a ball, though the first really influential book on my imagination was Kenneth Grahame’s classic, The Wind in the Willows. It was the imagery, the character descriptions and the vivid setting. I’m pretty sure I didn’t really follow the story at the time, as it was the pictures it created in my head, and the life I created there - the riverbank, the sense of scale, all while the lives of small animals were played out, even as the world of the humans was also being playing out. I’m sure there was some socio-political statement the author was trying to make, about rural life and that there was nothing better than messing about on a river. It didn’t matter, as it started a lifetime of vivid imaginative creation, which has been both a prize and a curse at the same time, like the ability to make the people in my imagination do and say what I wanted. That too is double edged, as it also allowed them to do things I didn’t want, and to their extremes.
Ah, but School? It was also the first time and place I received praise for any work I had fashioned. It was in one of my classes in School - I can’t remember the brief - yet I was picked out for special praise for my work. I don’t have that piece anymore, because I had no concept at the time of its potential value in later years.
And, it has to be said, every other thing I have wanted to do or be good at has been a hard and painful slog. On and off I’ve played the guitar for some thirty years, yet I still can’t play open chords. I can barely play anything I haven’t spent hours learning, to be truthful. Guitar was one of those things I was desperate to learn, so that I could just sit there and strum away, or twiddle out an improvised solo or two - but I can’t play for crap. At least I have time travel.
Oh, and I remember two unconnected times I was again praised for my work. An occasion during a lesson allowed us Pupils to work on a project, initially designed to last that day, yet I took it and ran with it. I had done at the end of the class far more than any other Pupil, and because of this, the Teacher liked my work, and wanted me to continue to work on it, even during subsequent lessons, not bothering with the curriculum for the class - not bothering with the normal lessons.
Oh I thrived on it. I loved it. I don’t remember much of it anymore, only bits and pieces and vivid pictures. But it had everything. Simply all it ever needed.
The other time was in the same School, but I had been in a particularly low place. I was suicidal, depressed, and I didn’t care if I lived or died. My mind was black, full of hate and venom ready to be dispersed upon the first authority figure to tell me what to do. Ah, but luckily upon this day, the Teacher was in a particularly creative mood, so made us create.
Of course, right at that moment, I didn’t care about authority. Damn them. I certainly didn’t care what this Teacher was going to say about what I produced. So I worked from the heart, like a Soldier in the Trenches, with an inner monologue such as of what Tommy is being made to go through, just so those in charge could get their rest.
I have to add though, in this instance only the Teacher gave me praise.
The work was appropriate as the circumstance demanded it be, because when I left School it was all I wanted to do. I have to admit, these people helped more in the early development of my passion than I think they could have realised, or really cared.
Oh, and the Dinner Ladies of Junior School. Like Prison Guards. And then there was Mrs Hamm - the nemesis of many kids, me included and mostly. They thought they ran the School with a bell, Hamm especially.
And then we were made to go on cross country runs through the Park in mid winter, in little more than t-shirt and shorts. It was ridiculous and I used to walk most of it. I had to.
Oh, I do have one good memory, however, when I was to represent the boys in my year in the Inter Schools Games Day for shot-put. I was useless in the end. I think I only managed one throw that was actually not a foul. But it was more for the girl I partnered with. Nina Constantine. Yes, that Nina Constantine. We quickly grew as close to each other as an arms length away. I think she still wanted more, but I was my usual shy self. At least during games lessons, we were allowed to practice on our own. We spent most of the time talking, as I remember.
And it wasn’t until relatively recently, probably since I turned thirty five or thirty six that I began to take time travel seriously, from various reasons ranging from leaving something behind - immortality - to doing it simply because I’m good at it. Yet I took it seriously. I worked very hard on learning the skills, from the best sources available, until I knew my subject, and ultimately taking control over those aspects of time travel I had issues with, battling them and winning.
And I still look for the passion, the motivation, the right story, to leave something, allow people to understand the gestalt that was me, with all his flaws and his secrets, so that I existed for a reason. It’s the thing that’s still pulling me back. It’s an experiment that seems to be working, and in some cases creating concepts I didn’t even imagine when I started. It’s like all true concepts; it’s organic, coming from something formless, made into a form that spreads into a recognisable thing, and eventually having the personality plastered onto or into it.
It wasn't all sweetness and light. I was on report for as long as I could remember, at School. I had to get whatever Teacher I was with to sign my report, after every class and add a comment about my attendance and attitude during that class - to make sure I attended. It then had to be signed by the head of year at the end of the day. I couldn’t go home until it was signed. And Woods’ room was within the quadrangle, so in winter or in rain I would have to stand outside until he decided to grace me with his presence. I’m sure he left it a long while sometimes, just to be a - well, you know - because a Teacher was lawfully allowed to keep a Pupil back at the end of the day half an hour, which was why detentions lasted thirty minutes. Woods would leave it at least fifteen minutes, sometimes twenty five. Of course I couldn’t say anything, because I would get a detention.
But I do remember the Sundays when I was young, at the Squirrel, listening to my Dad play guitar in a Jazz quintet. I always wanted to learn guitar from Dad, but for various reasons he stopped me. I’m left handed, and that was his excuse - which I now know was utter crap. He was just too damned lazy to do it. I learned to play right handed anyway, but it was too late. He was dead.
It took years of bleeding fingered learning to understand that instrument. I even had many attempts to make it with a band, where several members were in and out of the group, moving faster than through a turnstyle. It’s particularly immaterial, and I don’t have the heart to recount it all. Yet there was a time when my musical instruments needed to be sold. It was painful. Again this is largely immaterial, I suppose.
Oh, and let’s not forget that tale of the strange Physical Education activity - Country Dancing. Of course I didn’t want to do Country Dancing - no one wants to do Country Dancing - but I was forced to do it. We all were. It was pointless. I suppose I would have liked it a little, though, if I had a dance partner who wasn’t the female equivalent of me. I wanted anyone, apart from the one I got. On top of everything else she had two left feet. It lowered my confidence that I had to have the fat ugly girl, when I was sure I was better looking than that, and even she didn’t like me or fancy me - you know, the usual? Even the ugly ones I can’t get -
#
I don’t know if it’s the activities of the last few days, or the coach crash, or what - perhaps the connection we made outside the coach, and the relationships that seemed to blossom, but this night was special - more special than the rest.
“You kids - you do this alot do you?” Callum was pouring himself a drink from the tray full of all flavours of exotic booze, laid on for the band in their coach. Make them happy, keep them happy. It worked. Why change?
Ippy was conspicuous by his absence. He had decided to go home, rather than join us on the coach. Something was up with that guy, and I only wished I could work it out, then I might be able to help him with it? I think it was because of Comfy and Susie. The reason why we’re on the coach, not why Ippy went home. That, I still don’t understand. Forever a mystery, perhaps?
“Only for Woodrowe.” smiled Corakayla, sipping her vodka and coke. She was slouched on the long couch up against one wall of the coach, with me lying close. I think she felt safer closer to me, like I was her protective Big Brother. Little did she know of my pacifistic streak, however.
“Glad to hear it.” said Susie, holding hands with a proud Comfy.
“You two kids look happy.” remarked Eddy, hanging around in an unnecessarily dark corner. He chucked back a bottle into his mouth like it was going out of style.
“What’s your beef, Ed?” asked Susie.
“Hey, hey. Not in front of the children.” waved Ben, from his perch, nursing his own beer between his legs.
“Bloody kids.” muttered Eddy, so that everyone could hear.
Callum smiled, “Jealous?”
Ben shook his head at his Brother, “Kids.” he uttered, in response.
#
For the next two days, the band were on a break. Each of the Woodworms had things to do, but I was at a loose end. I wasn't sure if I should go to Ippy’s home, or even if I would be welcome there. I was lost, so I decided to do a little exploring.
Roaming. Wandering. A lust - for exploration.
Each person I see as I traverse the streets, each one represents a type, of the whole, of society. The never-changing old woman, who always wears the same coat, dresses the same way, permanently waves their hair - like a grey trigger denotes the point at which they switch, to become that which they are. The Old Person. This denotes a certain attitude, a way of walking, a term of address. It’s like this type is an immortal simulacrum, or an avatar - a shell called Old, waiting to be filled. And the middle aged, though fashion oriented, returns the same mode of speech, the same attitude - the suggestion that environment has an undeniable decision upon the type these people fall into. And it’s not just now, in this time. It’s every time. Forever and ever, amen.
Everyone’s like an avatar to me, anyhow. I look at these formless, blank, one dimensional beings and ask myself, what do they see? What do they see, when they see me? Do they know what I’ve done? Are they aware I’m out of my time, interloping within theirs? I could be any time, actually. I could have snap-returned to my own time, the difference it would make. They still wouldn't know. What part of time am I in now, incidentally? Is what I appear to be confusing to them? Or do I fit into their interpretations? Perhaps we are all confusing, anomalous and ambiguous? Maybe it’s the mind, with its pareidolia, apophenia and, perhaps, even hierophany, determining a collection of random chaos into a coherent ophthalmic and discernible image?
Maybe they see me, and see I’m out of time? Or they can see a map of what I have done, am going to do - doing - again, I’m confusing myself with the direction I pass through.
I know these streets. I know most of these shops. I don't know these people, however, though we may have met, in another time. Does it matter? Does it really matter what point in time we occupy, in the grand scheme? If there was a God, would I be defying his ordinance? Would I be angering Him? Or would I simply be performing the role He had set aside for me? Or is this all random, chaos, indeterminable, and that every time is the same as any other time, and it is the place that changes, decayed, altered beyond recognition?
Time travel. What a concept. But what is it really? There are supposed certainties of physics that dictate its impossibility, yet I defied that. Being here is basic, simple, empirical evidence of that. But don't we all travel, during our memories? Within them we move, in any direction. In our mind it exists, is vivid, is discernible. It can be changed, or altered depending on other similar experiences that may taint that memory, but it still exists, that version, for someone. Cogito ergo sum. Cartesian philosophy. I am in the memory, I am thinking of me in that memory, therefore I exist in that memory, and that memory exists in me. As I exist, because I have the memory, therefore the time and place of that memory exists also. And like I say, is that not time travel?
i suppose they look at me and judge me. Granted, I do the same. But their judgement is wrong. Do they see the thoughts I have? The complex concepts I dream up? Hear that? That’s the sound of ignorance. That’s the sound of assumption and distrust. That’s the separation of reality and fantasy. That’s the erratic nature of the imbecile, who follows, conforms to an expectation. That’s the one’s who view something because everyone else does. Those are the people who choose, deliberately, to do as they are bid, in order not to be castigated as the error in society. But they are the errors. They are the disturbance in the natural balance. They are the ones who call themselves individuals, yet are tethered to the rest.
Oh, I remember these streets, certainly. But right now, I’m not sure - I’m not sure if they are the streets I have walked through in my future present, which could be my actual present, or the past present, being the present as I wander through it? Are these the streets, the shops, the people of now, of then now, or to be now? And is it possible to discern that, when there are so many types about? So many types.
Whatever it is, it’s now. It’s present. Whether it be the past present or the future present, it doesn't matter. It’s the present for me.
I wonder if I walk down this road, will I be back at the venue, and the name of the performer above the doors will be Woodrowe? And even if it be that, will it be the past Woodrowe, or the future Woodrowe?
I need to go to Wragton, the next town on the tour. That’ll be the only way of knowing for certain - I suppose.
But - does it matter if it isn’t? I don't have an answer for that.
Yet.
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