Through Your Eyes Read online

  "Oh dear, dear me. My dear fellow. What has happened to you, or should I say what hasn't happened to you yet?" he retorted, quizzically.

  He was chuckling whilst mincing around on the spot, giving the impression of being terribly busy but not actually doing very much. Either that or he needed the loo. He ushered me through into the back, where there were two very old leather armchairs and a green reading lamp. Dust and smoke and mustiness. The smell of sweet lemon from the back, maybe there was a kitchen; did he have any grub?

  He said, "Please sit, Mr Berner. Here, would you like some tea. It is only the best here. Please sit. Right here. Yes. Right. Well."

  He then paused for a good twenty seconds, wandering backwards and forwards.

  "Where to begin?" he said.

  I sat in the smelly chair. Actually, I fell right into it, feeling a spring poke into my arse cheek.

  I looked at him and said, "Maybe begin from the beginning! What is this device? How do you know me? What is this charade? Are you playing a trick on me? I want answers. PARDO!"

  There, that was my big speech. Boom! I was getting used to this technique of asking five questions together, as it increased the probability of getting an answer to one of them.

  He said, "Ah, pardo. I see you have some knowledge already. Not a total newbie are you?"

  He was pointing his finger at me again, smiling with condescension.

  "Flesh she said, that's what she said it was," I replied.

  He shook his head, definitely patronising me now.

  He said, "No, no, it is not what you think. Not physical flesh. It is your essence. The physical, mental even spiritual part of you. I believe the Chinese refer to it as your Chi, but pardo is beyond that. That is what pardo is. Without this essence you cannot live. You cannot fulfil your potential."

  I thought to myself and smiled. Was he referring to an all-encompassing energy or 'force' now? Had I come to start my training with Obi Wan Kenobi?

  "What is this potential? Something strange has happened to me. Strange experiences. Memory loss, and then strange recall, or are they dreams? I can't even remember properly what happened at the pub. I can't even remember who I was supposed to meet! Watching people and watching myself talking to people. Losing time. Losing my frigging mind more like! A strange woman, saving me from danger. What is this dark business I've got myself involved in? How does the device work?"

  I then rambled for a while, basically, telling Uncle Siris all about it, although, I couldn't figure out why I was telling him anything. Maybe it was because I just needed someone to try and listen, and then fix everything for me. The long speech was about the last few days. Dreams. Out of body experiences. Looking through people's eyes and then my own eyes in those dreams. The girl. Yes, I definitely told him about the girl. Dark figures looking for me, with their cobwebbed hands.

  He stood up and walked around the room as I spoke. His hands were behind his back again. Teaching.

  He said, "Give me the device and I will show you all you need to know."

  I paused. And thought. And took out the little black box and looked at. I peered at the eye and flipped it over to the star. What did I have to lose? I needed some answers. Gemma had trusted him so why not? I placed it in his hands.

  I noticed his amazingly long finger nails that creeped me out.

  "Point your finger at me," he commanded.

  I did as I was told.

  I had to know.

  And he placed the device onto my finger, and then a curious sensation. Familiar. I was standing in the room and I could see two people. As clear to my eyes, as looking through my own eyes. And I saw through my own eyes, my own eyes looking at him. Green, golden backlight. Smells. Wonderful smells. Peace.

  And I was back in the chair. Shaking and sweating. My hand was hurting. He looked at me. His eyes were six inches away from my own, which was very unnerving, as previously he had been standing at the other side of the room. The box was back in his hand now. My fingers and hand my own.

  "This is what it does?" I said.

  "It's a Teleporter," I mumbled to myself, but he heard me.

  "You like Star Trek, I see," he said.

  Maybe he knew about me and movies.

  He laughed again and said, "My dear boy, what would a caveman call a space rocket or warp flight in your Star Trek? Even if he had language that we could understand, he would call it magic or try to give it a silly name. You really don't know do you. You really do not know anything."

  He continued, "This is not a teleporter as you call it. It is something that combines all your senses and raises, lifts them to some other level. Time, energy and...thought. It requires your essence or pardo so to speak. It allows you to see. See yourself. You will see here and there, then and now. Maybe you will see something to come in the future?"

  "And it is you that is there, your own physical and spiritual presence, and you will feel everything. You are actually there and you never were. You can change things. For the better," he added.

  He continued, "When you had your dream of the girl, the device allowed you to see yourself at an important point in your life. You say that you were subsequently able to see 'through your eyes,' when you talked to the girl in the music hall. What exactly happened just before this event occurred?"

  I thought hard. And then realised it was all there, somewhere in my scattered brain. Lucid and vivid, because I was there looking at her. Kissing her.

  "She held me and kissed me. And then I could see," I said.

  He said, "How did she hold you, like this?"

  He mimicked an embrace on an imaginary person. He placed one hand on a cheek and one on the back of the head.

  I felt the back of my head. Dawning of penny dropping. I shook my head.

  I said, "It hurt. The back of my head, it hurt immediately after she touched the back of my head, and at that moment I could see her. Later on, the pain seemed to suddenly disappear. What did she do to me?"

  He was laughing again, "Don't panic. She placed a separtacle in your head, as tiny as a grain of rice. It must have fallen out when you fell in the alley. It allowed you to see her in the vision rather than looking on in the third person. She clearly had to get a message across to you, but it had to go directly to you, through you and the device. The only way to do this would have been by using the separtacle with the device. Think of it as an amplifier or transponder, but it will only work if your base station is on."

  He pointed to the black gadget.

  "Why did she do it? Why is she here? Who are we running from?" I asked.

  He said, "Those are questions I do not have the answers to yet. It is quite reasonable to presume you do not understand what the actual question really is."

  Meaning of life. 42, I thought.

  He continued, "However, I will say this. The fact that this is happening means you have something very important to do. What it is I do not know. Clearly, there is a message in there somewhere, and you need to proceed with great caution."

  "But beware. Depending on how far you travel will determine how much pardo you require. Your hand that is now smarting and the hunger you are constantly feeling. Why do you think that is? It drains your soul like a radio draining a battery, and eventually, you cannot recharge. You must be careful. Small jumps and moves only so that you can recover. Recuperate when you can. I may have something for you to help with energy depletion," he added.

  He started to look around the room, searching for something, but I was getting impatient.

  "Show me more. I want to know what else it can do. How can I control it?" I asked.

  He laughed and started to shake his head again.

  He said, "This is exactly as you had warned me you would be. You would want to know everything immediately! Only you can control it! Look, imagine when you wear the gadget, you are able to see through your eyes, but through a single different gate in your life. This is only the beginning. That is only a static concept, a single dimension of the de
vice. Now put on the device again and I will guide you to the next step. I will open your mind to the full potential of you and your technology."

  Heck, why not, I thought. I stood in the middle of the room. Theatrical. Ready to perform. Like a monkey. What did he mean by me warning him about it? Why did he think he knew me? My technology, he had said, what did he mean by that?

  I placed the device over my finger, and the curious sensation started once more. The lights were golden and green, and I could see Siris looking at me in the middle of the room. I could see myself with him. Same smells and sensations. And then something curious happened. My Arab friend turned his gaze, and looked directly into my eyes, the actual me. And he started to speak.

  "I know you are there, I can sense you. Follow my instructions exactly to the letter. Raise your hands and stretch out your fingers. I did as he said. Now imagine the situation when you have a roll of sticky tape, and you are trying to find the edge on it. Now, imagine you have nice long nails on your fingers to find that edge. Now feel for that edge."

  I was groping in the air like an idiot.

  "Keep looking for it. Patience and you will find it."

  Wriggling fingers. And then I felt something, not a physical edge, but a sensation or feeling that I had pulled something back. Very, very thin, almost imperceptible, like a piece of cling film that was covering the entire room.

  It was a film of thought. My god, I liked films, but this was a little too ironic!

  "Good, good, yes, you have found it I think now? When you have found the edge, very, very gently pull it. Be gentle, caress it. Feel the edge come away with your fingers. Easy does it."

  I pulled a little and my senses seemed to go into overdrive. It was absolutely wonderful to see. Where the room was free of this film, I could see pure light and colours, green and golden. Beautiful. And as this happened, something else truly astonishing appeared before me. I saw the edge form a curtain of light that started to stretch out from my hand. Day gradually turned to night within a matter of seconds. Excited, I pulled harder. Too hard. I sensed a rip. The same way cling film rips.

  "Push it back, push it back quickly," I heard a voice shouting at me.

  I did push back, and felt the edge release from my hand suddenly, and I hurtled down to the ground with a thump.

  "What just happened?" I asked.

  Dizziness and real nausea. I then instantly threw up over the carpet like the true pro I was.

  "You lost control, you lost control dear boy. You moved too fast and hard. You pulled too quickly. Getting cocky, huh, my boy?" he asked.

  I sat up and recovered myself. It had been terrifying and...Wonderful. I slumped into the armchair. My arms had pins and needles in them. I was shattered and I couldn't move.

  I was wondering whether he would do me a sandwich or something, as I was really hungry now.

  And then he said, "Look outside, my boy. Day is now night, how long do you think you have been gone? Did it feel like a good two minutes? My boy, you have been gone for five hours. And I mean gone. You disappeared. And I think you may have accidentally already done this before. In your flat. Did you not say you returned many hours later?"

  I nodded.

  "Bizarrely, that seems to make sense. But how was I able to manipulate the device in that way without any guidance or training?" I asked.

  He said, "When the mind is faced with danger, the fight or flight response can kick in, and it can operate on an automatic level. Perhaps that is what you did when in such a situation."

  Confusion.

  Time paradoxes were far easier to understand when they happened to people in movies. Not so easy to follow when they happened to you. More questions. How helpful was this gatekeeper going to be?

  I asked, "How does it work?"

  He said, "I am not an engineer. But the principle involves energy transfer. Quanta, so to speak. Energy moving from one level to another. Particle transfer. But with a neurological interface. That is all I know, Mr Berner, for I am not a scientist. I only have the very basic knowledge of what it does. How and why are not my domain, I am merely here to help you find the right paths. To open and close the doorways so to speak."

  "So these edges I find and pull. What are they?"

  "Think of them as the ribbons of time and space. They are the strands that you can use allowing movement from a single time realm to another. But you saw what happened when you pulled too hard. The ribbon ripped and fell apart, and you fell. If you master this, you can go anywhere. See how exhausted you are now. That is the peril of getting it wrong and ripping. If you pull and push the ribbons intact, the more you can conserve your pardo. Get it right, and this sticky tape is infinite, and the ribbon will take you a very long way. But remember, it takes much longer to push it back if things go wrong."

  "H-How do you know all this. Who made it and why," I stuttered.

  He stood up straight. Chest puffed out now. His voice was an octave deeper. Theatrical. Real delivery.

  And he said, "There was only one ever constructed. It is this one. It can only be used by one person. It is imprinted on its DNA, to match its master."

  And he followed this by stating these words that echoed through my brain:

  "My dear boy, you did. Or at least you will."

  I stared at myself and put the stopwatch on in my head. I could hear the tick tock of an imaginary clock chiming. Whatever ruse or adventure this was, the game was finally afoot...

  9.

  My mouth was opening and closing, but no sounds or words were coming out. Had I turned into a goldfish, stranded out of water? I felt like I was gasping for air. Where was this rabbit hole going to take me, and more importantly, when was the nightmare going to end? Exhaustion, hunger and now more confusion. I had so many questions flying through my skull; I didn't know where to begin.

  So as usual, I spewed out all the ideas and words from my mind, simultaneously.

  I said, "What do you mean with all this ridiculous nonsense? Are you really suggesting that little old me invented this contraption? I'm a junior research physicist. I don't know anything. How can I have invented it when I don't have the faintest idea or knowhow about this sort of advanced technology? There are about ten others in my facility that are way brighter than me, and far more ambitious. I'm lazy and stare at women most of the day. How could I possibly have the knowledge, patience or inspiration to have constructed such a thing? You're talking nonsense, you idiot."

  I was shouting again.

  Siris was smiling at me now. When his lips opened there was a strange sound of the smack of spittle. Even his spit was patronising, I mulled to myself. To make things worse, despite my deep uneasiness, he was the epitome of calm and relaxation, bordering on Zen. My god he was annoying.

  He said, "Everything I know, I have learnt from the knowledge you have been kind enough to pass on to me."

  "What, so this is time travelling is it? You've watched too much of the sci-fi channel," I said.

  Then I stopped and thought about all that was going on around me. Was I blind? Had any of the events and evidence over the last few days not convinced me deep in my heart, that anything was possible?

  Him, he was laughing again. Was it mockery or incredulity? He made me feel like a child who had got his times tables wrong.

  And he then said, "You think so simply. Teleporting and time travelling. 'Those are the concepts and ideas of a child,' that was what you once told me. And you threw me more, such lovely sound bites during our times together, but only in very basic principles. I am not a scientist after all, just a humble tailor, although, perhaps, 'a tailor of time,' as you once called me. You also told me, 'I could weave the cloaks of time into seamless sheets.' All very kind nuggets of wisdom, but entirely appropriate do you not think, Mr Berner, because they were true! Time and energy are not linear entities, you would lecture me. The past, present and future can exist together, moving both indifferently to each other and in different directions at the same time.
We all know this. Your theories. Your ideas were revolutionary. You applied thought in the same way, and were able to use your knowledge and enterprise, and that scientific mind, to combine all of these concepts together."

  I grunted. Who was this guy? I had a feeling I wasn't going to get a straight answer any time soon. A feeling of inevitability and fatigue hit me now and I realised I was totally exhausted, both physically and mentally; my brain and back were throbbing.

  In the movies, the hero would be open mouthed, sitting up in awe at all this information being imparted to him by the wizened old man.

  I just wanted a kip and a toasted cheese sandwich.

  I said, "If all this were true, then what am I supposed to do? What's the big picture? What's my mission?"

  My turn for sarcasm now, but I thought I was allowed a little of my favourite tipple for now.

  I continued, "Why are they after me? What about the dark hands reaching for me? Whispers. I only managed to get away in time by accidentally activating the device. I escaped them. The man in the flat? The men outside the flat? Who were these people and were they after the device?"

  He said, "The people that have been following you are also after the device or perhaps they are after you, or someone that you know. Something must have happened to you, or will happen to you in the future. Maybe something happened to the device? New technology cannot be completely patented 100%. Other interested parties will try to copy it with cheap imitations. And if that fails, there is usually only one thing to do - steal the original from your competitor. Someone or something must have tried to do something drastic to try and protect the device. Someone or something must have tried to do something drastic to try and take the device? Perhaps that is your destiny now? The concern is they came looking for you, even before you got hold of the device. It begs the question, if you didn't have the device, what were they trying to do?"

  I replied, "How does that explain what has happened to me? What do I have they could possibly want if it is not the device? You think these people with their whisperers have come back from the future, to get the device or something else from me? How did they know I would have it now, if I did indeed create it in the future? Maybe I should go 'Back to the Future, Marty!'