Paradox Lost (Short Story)

This is my first propper attempt at writing a propper short story. It's meanings and ideas are in there, it just deppends how you percieve them I guess.
Anyways, enjoy!


Paradox Lost

I’d never seen anything like it before. It was just there, inches in front of me, downstairs in the basement; floating in the corner next to the old computer desk, as if being hung from the ceiling by fishing line.



I was paralyzed with fear yet intrigued by what was being presented to me through this ‘window’ of time.


Time stood still, and I was gazing into tomorrow.


Controlling my nerves I held my hand in front of me, pressing it against this texture-less surface. It’s quite hard to explain exactly what I felt on that day.


I remember pressing my hand into the wormhole, feeling a tickling sensation along my arm as I pushed further in. My eyes wide open, staring at this time paradox manifestation.


Without warning, I was being pulled towards the entity. The thought of resisting crossed my mind but was never put into play. I was curious. I mean, what were the chances of something like this happening to me, you know?


Staring straight ahead of me, I took a brave step into the event horizon.


The feeling of everything was present with the feeling of absence. Comfort was replaced with an unknown emotion. An emotion which shrouded me with loneliness yet, I felt content.


. . .


“What... what’s going on? Where am I?”

Ivor opened his eyes carefully, almost blinded by the fluorescent bulb hanging over him. The rattling of metallic equipment echoed down the hallway outside of his door. There were screams coming from a few rooms down, yet people strolled past the opening of his room with ease, neither of them the slightest bit phased by the yells of pain.

“You’re in hospital Mr. Vance.”

After adjusting his eyesight to the room’s bright surroundings, he became aware of two gentlemen standing by his side.

He turned his head towards two men, adjusting the back recliner of his hospital bed. They were average in height, looking weathered as if they’d just left a nightclub. One of them was wearing a dark blue shirt under his grey jacket. The other officer wore just a porcelain white business shirt tucked into his dark denim jeans.

“What’s happened? Is everything ok? Where’s Donna?”

One of the men replied in a deep and asserting voice, “We’re with the feds. Mr. Vance, could you please tell us exactly where you were yesterday round mid afternoon?”

“I was on my way home from work on the phone to Donna, my wife. I was running late for a meeting earlier that morning; had to spend a few more hours in the office before I headed home, so I gave her a call.”

With a slight hesitation to his reply, the second suited man lowered his head and cleared his throat.

“Mr. Vance, your wife was found dead at around 11am yesterday morning. There couldn’t have been any possible way for you to contact your wife whilst you were driving home from work that evening.”

“So what we’re saying is,” the man in the shirt leans in towards Ivor’s ear, “we both know that you’re full of shit. I’d be calling in a witch doctor if I could talk to dead people, but that wouldn’t be possible in the first place now would it Mr. Vance?”

Ivor sat motionless in his bed, staring into space as if anything else around him were insignificant. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“You... you guys are pulling my leg here, right?” he asked nervously. “Please tell me this is a fucking joke guys.”

“Yeah, I had a feeling you’d play that routine. You know, Mr. Vance, don’t you think that it was pretty damn obvious when you left her in the fridge with your car keys in her pocket?”

“Wha... what?! I was on the phone with her! I swear it!”

“Not only did you lie about talking to your wife yesterday afternoon, you never even stepped foot in your car after the incident.”

His face began to go red with anger as he sat up from his backrest.

“You’re a pair of fuckin’ liars! I was at work all day and you guys know it! Give me a phone; I’ll call my supervisor to prove it!”

The man in the white shirt leaned against the steel cupboard at the foot of his bed.

“We’ve already been to your office Mr. Vance. Neither your supervisor nor your boss had seen you that day.”

There was a long and unyielding hum in the room, as if silence had turned itself up in volume.

Ivor began to sob. The two men picked up their briefcases and adjusted their jackets.

“We’ll be back in just a few moments Mr. Vance; we have some urgent matters to attend to. When we return however, you will be transported to a local police station for questioning. In case you’re having any thoughts of doing a runner there will be an officer posted outside your room. If I were you I’d be getting in touch with your lawyer.”

Turning their backs to Ivor, the two men walked out into the hospital hallways and disappeared as they stepped off to the left.

Left confused and alone yet again, Ivor felt a sudden cold over his body. His vision began to tunnel into nothingness in front of him. The hospital chit chat began to echo more intensely by the second. Ivor lifted his hands to his ears in an attempt to block out the sound, but nothing helped. His skin began to tingle, slowly leaving any form of movement in his limbs impossible.

With one final conscious breath, he fell back into his bed and slipped into the abyss of unconsciousness.


. . .


Blinded by the light.


Time flew by like a book’s pages fluttering in a subtle wind, rendering no sense of present. There was no then, now or later.


There was only me, drifting through this magnificent kaleidoscope of memory. No questions were left unanswered to me. I understood anything and everything that ever was.


In this vast space of peace and nothingness, I could see the day of my marriage so clear.


I could see my first day at school.


I could see the day of my birth.


Everything I had experienced in my life surrounded me, like a guarded security room lined with flickering CCTV monitors. But these weren’t mere monitors; these were projections of my mind.


My consciousness no longer existed in a set time or space. I had found the water of life in this empty confinement of space and time. I had experienced emotions and sensations others could not even begin to comprehend.


For a momentary stop between frames of time, I was the Alpha and the Omega.


. . .


Hunched over in the back of a parked police car, Ivor could taste the stench of vomit in the foot well left by a previous victim of nauseating pain as he regained consciousness. His arms held behind his back by a pair of ice-cold steel handcuffs, digging into his spine every time he sat back. Dressed in his green track pants and oversized GAP sweater, Ivor began to take note of his surroundings. The vehicle had been left parked at the centre of a vacant mall car park, with not a single car on either side of him.

After a few minutes of disorientation and confusion, Ivor soon realised that there was nobody in the driver’s seat, let alone the passenger’s. The engine was still running yet there was nobody to man the steering wheel.

Surely they wouldn’t just leave a suspect in the back of a patrol car unattended.

Without hesitation, Ivor attempted to open the door with the toe of his hospital slipper as he leant back across the leather seats. The door swung open with ease following the click of the door lock, sending in a wave of fresh air which reached down to the very bottom of his lungs.

Ivor shuffled towards the door and stepped out slowly, adjusting himself to his centre of gravity with his legs still half asleep.

He needed to get home quick. He knew that something wasn’t quite right with this.

Donna! Ivor suddenly remembered the hospital bed, the two men in suits, and the fact that his wife Donna had been brutally murdered.

But it wasn’t me! How could it possibly have been me?

Spotted in top of the glove box Ivor found the keys to his handcuffs. Ivor tried at the door handle with his hands behind him, leaning back into the passenger’s door to pull it open.

Shit!

Locked.

Finding the keys was easy. Opening the door on the other hand was a different story.

His hands cuffed behind his back, Ivor began to slam his lower back into the passenger’s window hoping it would break. His hands were safe from the crushing impact between his back and the glass, trying harder and harder to smash it open.

With one final thrust the glass gave way into millions upon millions of pieces of small diamonds. Ivor’s hands fell through, slicing them up from the tips of his fingers to the palm of his hands. Sharp pains shot through his arms as Ivor began to scream in agony.

Adjusting to the pain he knocked out the remaining shards of glass from the window frame with his elbow, before leaning into the vehicle and getting hold of the keys with his teeth.

He dropped the keys to the tarmac next to the vehicle and sat facing away from them, placing his fumbling hands on the ground behind him as he looked for the keys.

In a sigh of relief Ivor freed himself from his constricting steel wristbands. None of what was going on made any sense to him.

Unlocking the driver’s door through the window, he ran around the front end of the car as if he were being chased by an unhappy parking warden.

I need to get home. I need to find my Donna.

His patience had finally run out, making him panic at the wheel when he accidentally let go of the handbrake. Sweat dripping from his brow as he stared out into the car park’s distant exit driveway, the sweltering afternoon heat wasn’t much help.

Grabbing hold of the wheel with both hands, Ivor drove out into the endless tarmac desert, hoping and praying that he would see the love of his life safe and sound on the patio bench with a smoke in hand and a smile on her face.


. . .

What is it to be human?


Is it to experience the unknown through everyday life? Through natural experience and peer influence?


Some feel that our lives are only an insignificant flake of dried up acrylic paint placed and designed so delicately on the vast canvas of a larger plan.


Contrasts between right and wrong; black and white have been shot out of existence forever.


Am I at one with time, or is time merely a by-product of human consciousness?


Nothing is certain, yet everything is content. The mystery of why we are here contradicts itself. How can such a form of chaos create an equal and balanced form of existence?


For many this will remain a mystery for generations to come, but for me, the discovery of this unknown perspective has only just begun.


. . .


There was not a single soul to be seen as Ivor drove through the empty streets of suburbia. Some of the lawns had been freshly cut but there was no sign of hard working men sitting by the step of their front door with a glass of water in hand, or any mowers cast out in the middle of their properties waiting for a refuel.

Is the game on or something? This ain’t right. Ivor pondered.

A red ink spread across the evening skies as the sun began to lower itself behind the passing estates. Ivor felt relaxed for a moment as his mind wandered off into nothing but a dream.

Relaxation was soon replaced by anxiety and fear as he pulled up towards the foot of his driveway.

Nothing was out of place. Donna’s car was parked neatly at the end of the driveway, and the house’s windows were ajar for airflow. Donna always kept the windows open. Fresh air swept through the house every waking hour of the day.

Turning off the car, Ivor nervously opened the door to his vehicle and stepped out slowly. He slammed the door behind him as if he wanted to wake up the neighbourhood. The sound of the car door closing echoed through the streets then, nothing.

Dead silence.

Making his way up the snaking pathway in amongst the grass to the front door, he reached for the door handle.

Unlocked.

Panic surged through his body at the thought of what might have happened to Donna. He couldn’t handle it and took no notice of any dangers which may have been present if there had been somebody else in the house.

“Donna! It’s me Ivor! Are you home?”

No reply.

His heart sank down to what felt like his stomach. His mind was running riot in his head, he couldn’t think straight.

Running through the house off balance he headed towards the kitchen. The horrors he’d face in there would be so unbearable. He didn’t want to see what he thought was in that fridge, but Ivor just had to know for sure. He had to know whether Donna was alive and well.

Walking up to the stained white fridge he cleared the lump from his throat. Fridge magnets covered the entire appliance like a Goth at a tattoo convention.

Ivor froze in horror as a howling scream escaped through the fridge seals and into the house. The screams gave way to a manic yell of horrifying words.

“Deliver us not into temptation!”

The hairs on Ivor’s body stood on end. His limbs paralyzed by the sense of dread and foreboding as the sound of a thousand screaming voices continued to haunt the halls.

“But deliver us from evil!”

Adrenaline rushed through his veins as he stared at the fridge handle, terrified of what would happen if he were to open it.

“Ivor, baby. Let me out.”

His arm shot for the fridge handle with a great amount of force and pulled the sealed door from the fridge in one swift movement. Revealing to Ivor nothing, but everything...


. . .


What am I looking for?


Why am I here?


Who am I? Am I you, or are you me?


I am no longer a loving husband to my beautiful wife.


I am no longer the broken memory of a teenage boy I was many years ago.


I am no longer a combination of bone and tissue.


I no longer belong to a confined pocket of flesh strewn into the plains of reality.


I am, no longer.



End.