Writer Unblocked

By Rachel H Grant

A sapphire sky sparkled in her unseeing eyes. The warmth of the sun ignited an inner vision of beauty as a slow smile kissed her face. Alice put her hand towards his head, judging the distance to his soft voice. “Are you sure? You don’t have to put yourself in such danger. Sight – it is such a gift. Don’t risk losing it.”

“I have to,” replied Mark simply. “I can help so many people. What is the risk to me? There is no life without risk, no purpose in safety and I can think of no project more rewarding than helping to breed guide dogs for the blind.”

“But has it not happened for a reason? We invent time travel, and many of our travellers lose their sight, followed by the near extinction of Labradors, our traditional guide dog for the blind. Is God punishing us for trying to play God?”

“Not at all, it is but science. And we’ve used time travel responsibly, only ever going forwards, never back, never risking interference in what has been. No, but I am going back to buy Labrador bitches, and let the new breeding programme begin. There is no worthwhile life without risk.”

His eyes smiled as the time capsule door closed, but they were laughing on his return with eight female Labrador puppies, a mix of black and golden. He took off his glasses as the capsule docked in his own time, rubbed his eyes, and could see. He blinked in surprise. He could see perfectly, and as he replaced his spectacles there was no discernible difference. His short sightedness appeared to have vanished in the traces of time behind him.

They did tests, but his good sight remained. Mark was cured. That was when the bizarre notion accosted the time scientists. Going forward in time had destroyed the sight of 30% of travellers: could going back, conversely, cure eye problems?

“You have to go,” Mark pleaded with Alice. “It’s a chance of a cure, or at least a partial return to sight! Please, you have to give yourself this chance.”

“No.” Her still eyes were stern. “I lost my sight naturally as a child, and I will face life as God and nature intended. Leave your experimental trip to the time travellers who grew blind, time travel reversal should be for them only.”

But the eventual trip included both naturally blind and time travel sight impaired persons. The largest time capsule available was prepared for eighty blind and partially sighted persons, with Mark, once again, volunteering to be the trip co-ordinator. His eyes screamed with hidden hilarity as he engaged the time capsule controls, but there was no one to see. However they all heard the hiss of the engines, and then the strange shushing noise of the capsule soaring through the energy of time.

8,000 years in the past had been deemed to be a relatively safe time period, before there were advancing civilisations to influence, the threat of time travel interference in history perceived to be as real to the scientists of today as it had been to the science fiction authors of the past. But in the end, no one could tell what damage time travel could eventually do, the technology was still too new.

Mark felt the time capsule thud as it connected with the ground. They were there, wherever, whenever that was. His eyes sparkled with enigmatic excitement.

The scientists at Time Control Center watched the capsule’s progress as the years on the screen danced before their eyes, a furious countdown to …  nothing. The connection was lost. “What has happened?” “I don’t know, it couldn’t be … Factor Y?”

The scientist’s voice quavered as he spoke to Alice via secure web chat. “Factor Y,” she heard him say. “None of your scientific jargon!” she hissed. “Is Mark okay? What is Factor Y?”

“We lost all data on the time capsule, it is no longer on the time line we sent it on. That can mean one thing only. Factor Y. We always suspected time travel might break through the barriers of not just time but of reality itself. If Mark’s capsule had crashed we would have the data, but there’s nothing, the capsule is no longer there in time, in our time. I’m afraid this means there’s no return for Mark. The time capsule can only come back if it can connect with Control Center through a timeline in history. But Factor Y is an alternative reality. We can not reach him now.”

Alice felt invisible tears come to her dry eyes, tears that were not there, drops of sadness that could never fall. As she closed the chatline, she slowly extended her shaking hand, connecting with the cool glass of the window. Beyond it, in the night sky, she knew a thousand stars sparkled.

Mark stepped out of the time capsule in to a world that could never die, as his heart came to life with inner fire. Behind him a sigh of awe filled his ears. They could see.

Three suns danced in the sky, magenta and blue clouds swirling around them in an ecstasy of colour. Verdant green trees confronted them, a green so fresh you could taste it, colours so sharp they were beyond third dimensional, to look at them like being reborn, seeing colour for the first time.

Pink birds flew among the leaves, and blue doves sailed the skies. Blindness dissolved in a crescendo of living colour, a whole world to devour with hungry eyes. This was worth a hundred lifetimes, the years of sightlessness, as memories of grey shadows receded and were gone. The sapphire sky looked down on a joy that could never die.

The night sky sparkled in her eyes. As Alice moved her hand along the window, she could almost believe she was touching the stars out there, magic worlds too bright to see, a whole universe to drink in with eyes that could not connect, and a heart that would not care. Memories of starry skies slipped through her mind and were gone, as the wonder of a five year old child died in her heart.