Writer Unblocked

The sea sighed, an ancient hymn on its violet waves, the song of Grandmother Time, poetic wisdom of centuries. A pink sun shone brightly, as light green clouds puffed their way across the purple sky. A peace like no other slept here, never awoken, its gentle snores like stories on the wind. Tales of time, lessons of love.

Image by Dina Dee from Pixabay 

Very few people actually lived on Planet Peace, which is how it maintained its tranquil image. It was not so much a holiday destination, as a school of serenity. You come here to experience peace; you come to learn peace; by the end of your time here, you will be excreting poems of peace, your very blood boiling with the power of peace. Peace pervades your soul, your memories mutating to a vision of crystal civilisation.

This is the planet where world leaders come to learn, to reflect, to reconsider, to woo wisdom and to conquer war. Many a conflict has been averted, due to the teachings of the Planet Peace Elders. The planet is famous throughout many galaxies, a bright star in the sky with a promise of a better tomorrow.

And then Planet Earth came.

*

Captain Whyte had trained with only the best. Space exploration had hummed through his veins from an early age, the lure of the unknown, the promise of other worlds. He could not wait to enrol in space academy at the age of 12.

He stood proudly at the starboard, gazing on the planet below. Violet skies engulfed them, as green clouds kissed the cool metal spaceship. Captain Whyte smiled broadly. He had never imagined such beauty. All the years of training, realised in this one divine moment. A planet capable of sustaining human life. It could be a second home, it could be an outpost, it could be so many things … but for today, it would just be magical. It was a moment to cherish, a memory to store forever, like a star lit in his mind. Even dementia would not, could not one day dislodge it; its bright light would shine in his mind like the footnote of his entire life. Living history sighed within. The memory of the one moment would be perfect.

*

Jacob had studied time travel his entire adult life. It lit each waking moment with the promise of more, so much more. At the mere age of ten, he had written his time travel novel. It had shot him to fame as a writer, but it was science that sung is his heart, and his future career had claimed him. He was almost there. He knew he could do it, the tests were going well. But the government was not hugely interested; there were too many domestic issues to deal with, plus it was space travel they considered as the future, not time travel.

He recalled the main character of his novel, Andrea. She had travelled to ancient Atlantis, only to find her experiences rubbished on her return; the mythical continent disbelieved, her character maligned as a fantasist.  “And Andrea’s tears fell as her dreams evaporated in an age that did not care; her beautiful memories distorted as lies, her careful report rubbished as deception. But she knew the truth. It did not set her free.”

This would be his ultimate dream. Not to visit a super advanced future; to find a super advanced prehistoric past. That would be the discovery of the millennium.

For now, he could only dream.

*

Captain Whyte had trained with the best. The legendary Captain Wiseman, who famously said: “wherever you go, innovate and inspire.” Captain Whyte’s smile sparkled in the space console light. He certainly intended to do both today.

*

“Latte with caramel?” Clio, his time travel science partner grinned beneath her wavy auburn locks, her green eyes twinkling. “It makes our lack of success so much sweeter.”  

Jacob accepted the drink, returning the grin. “Not lack of success, lack of funds, lack of staff. Time travel is so yesterday, so un-trendy. We should have gone in to space science.”

“But we are still here, we are giving this everything we have, and we’re so almost there! We will find a better future, whether by time travel or sheer good luck, but the day is coming when our research will matter!”

“I hope so,” mumbled Jacob glumly.

*

Queen Lynora and King Simeon calmly watched the spaceship land on Planet Peace. It was an unscheduled visit, possibly an exploration mission from a world new to space travel. They donned their most peaceful looking smiles. Planet Peace was ready for its new visitors.

The pink sun shone down on a beautiful day. It was hard to imagine the silence being shattered. This was a world that had never known war.

This was also a world about to be introduced to Planet Earth and her eager explorers.

The warmth of the sun blessed the day with hope.

*

Emperor Christopher surveyed the frowning faces round the table, solemn stress in his eyes. “Space explorers Timi Matthews and Gail Whitley returned today to Planet Earth, in a space capsule from their ship. They departed their mission to warn us of grave and disastrous events. In fact, a crime of catastrophic proportions. Our space crew, including would you believe Captain Whyte, have invaded and taken over a planet devoted to the pursuit and teaching of peace! We have found our first inhabitable world, and have committed space crime! Sad indeed is this day for humanity.”

The faces in front of him embraced all emotions known to man, a story of silent submission to unrelenting horrors. Then a tiny voice spoke up.

“There is, might I suggest, time travel research.” Christopher looked at the man like at a child. It was the Minister for Science, Clark whose last name he could not quite recall. Did he not grasp the gravity of the situation?

“Time travel? Known as science for children in many circles?”

“There are two first class scientists, Drs Jacob Devine and Clio Summers, making progress as we speak. Time travel offers us a key, a strategic solution. Combined with space travel, it would make us very powerful. So if we could man a space mission to the planet in question, and programme it to arrive at the same time as Captain Whyte, well we could undo history, we could solve this sorry mess. And then time travel can be explored for all its very many other opportunities. So my proposal is this, throw funds and resources at Devine and Summers, fast-track their project and change the future!”

Christopher was enthralled. “I would like to discuss this more.”

All the faces round the table relaxed, as uneasy smiles replaced the frowns. It might just work.

*

Clio and Jacob stared in to distant space. They were onboard Starship Peace, so named because it was headed to undo a human invasion before it begun. Such were the rewards of time travel, the potential to heal and steal the sordid past from history.

It had been a manic three months, their time travel research like a rollercoaster of lattes, work, lattes, work, lattes and a mere hour sleep each night. But they had done it. They had really invented time travel.

And as the minutes fled like thieves, they were on track to arrive at Planet Peace in three hours, through the heart of a time travel vortex.

Timi Matthews and Gail Whitley did not join the mission, citing concerns about potential paradoxes. Of course, scientists Clio and Jacob did not believe in such things; time looped, possibilities were crushed and replaced. Like a river storming round a rock, nothing could stop time. Not even them.

*

As Captain Whyte disembarked, a smile tearing his face in two like a crack in time, history held his heart in warm hands. This was his day, this was the moment to remember forever.

Queen Lynora and King Simeon approached him, their hands outstretched and their language translators in their hands. “Who comes in the second ship? Your friends?”

Captain Whyte turned to the sky, and to his bitter surprise beheld another Earth ship, Starship Peace painted on his side. What was this? He had been aware of no other mission to this part of the universe.

The second ship landed, and almost immediately discharged an excited group of space explorers. “Peace! Peace!” they were chanting.

Captain Whyte’s crew were baffled. Timi asked the new explorers to explain themselves. And then the tale unravelled.

“Why, this is excellent!” gasped Timi. “If I take an escape pod back to Earth now, and tell them Planet Peace has been invaded, I can convince them to invent time travel! We all get to time travel!”

Clio and Jacob nodded sagely. “Time travel is not just science, it may very well be magic. Because you return to Earth, we come; because we come, you return to Earth. It is a time travel loop, time travel invented through an impossible loop in time!”

“So there never was any prospect of invasion?” asked a confused crew member.

“Of course not,” snapped Captain Whyte. “A new planet and time travel all in one day! What a memorable occasion. This calls for a celebration.”

Queen Lynora and King Simeon organised a party, as Timi Matthews and Gail Whitley quietly returned to Earth in a space capsule, mission time travel in their eyes, stolen secrets in their heart.

Time chased them across the universe, their journey seeming interminable, an excitement inside that just wanted to get back to Earth now, now, now.

They were going to make time travel happen. Smiles slid across their faces as stars scudded past. The universe was both beautiful and mysterious, a vast cosmos to conquer. With time travel, everything would become possible. Days joined together in to weeks, and still they had not arrived back on Earth. But one day they would. Like a destiny as close to you as your own shadow, time lit their way. It was all time, it was no time, it was their time.

Father Christmas rubbed his hands in glee. The run up to Christmas was his favourite time of year. As an Angel of the Fun Fraternity, he spent most of the year at the tourist resorts of the vast heavenly realms – in return for one month of work each December. As a terms of employment, he did not have a bad deal. Dish out fun on earth, then enjoy eleven months of idle fun himself.

However, his role came with certain conditions. He could only visit Earth during the month of December, and no taking back any goods – the heavens were decreed to be free from Earth contamination.

So he spent December fast forwarding to the same midnight half hour on 25^th December, using his time machine technology and whizzing around the world, again and again, with a cloak of invisibility (yes, such a thing really exists) around his flying sled. It took the entire month of December to perform this time travelling task; in between trips, he relaxed on December Earth in unassuming attire, savouring the Earthly delights unavailable on high.

His favourite indulgence was Coke. Not diet, not max, not any other fancy variant: just normal, full sugar coke. To him, the hours spent in coffee shops and bars (no alcohol, angels do not drink) were the best times of his life.

He rented a flat for his month’s work, paid for in cash imbued with the energy of a million angel blessings (whoever believed that money was always dirty, could not be more wrong). The reindeer hunkered down with him, resulting in a massive cleaning operation on their final day. Luckily, the cleaning angels came to assist: or rather, to do it all, as Santa frantically drank the last of his stack of coke.

“It’s that guy again,” said the supermarket checkout operator. “Coke man.” Santa rolled up with an overflowing trolley: pizzas and coke. “The diet will start in the new year,” said Santa, winking. “I only indulge in December.”

The checkout operator waited patiently for the usual punchline. “Now be good, or Santa may not come!” The checkout operator laughed. This guy really brightened the boring late shift.

Father Christmas decided that this year he should go the extra mile – or the extra time travelling sleigh ride. What could he do to brighten up people’s lives after this catastrophic covid year?

Angelic blessings were well and good, but people never knew they had been blessed. They didn’t feel it. No, material blessings were needed on Planet Earth just now.

Perhaps he should just give away money. No one could deny that the citizens of Planet Earth loved money. But it lacked imagination, like the thoughtless gift from the elderly aunt you only ever saw at weddings, the gift from someone who knew you not at all.

What would brighten Christmas morning? A brainwave attacked his brain – or his throat – as he gulped back coke. The magic manifester machine – the science of angels, put one item in, and ask for enough for the entire planet.

But first, it was time for a grand gesture. And forget about invisibility: this was covid Christmas, all the rules suspended for this one year!

Derek could not wait to get home. It was Christmas, and he was working long shifts because he needed the money. The steady stream of faces at the Macdonalds drive through window had begun to blur, and now all looked the same. Until the guy dressed up as Santa arrived. He was even in a sled pulled by reindeers. Talk about pulling out all the stops. He wondered what he was doing out at this time – surely all children’s entertainment was over hours ago?

“Hello sir!” exclaimed the white haired man, grinning as though demented. “I will have ten cans of coke! And your largest bag of fries!”

“That will be 9 pounds, sir.”

“Here is the 9 pounds. But I have a tip for you. I don’t want you to have to call anyone sir ever again. Live your dreams! Travel the world! Create the perfect life! And never look back.”

Santa handed over an envelope brimming with hundred pound notes. Derek looked in disbelief, there must be thousands there. Surely this was pretend money, Monopoly money perhaps?

“Call it your Christmas tip. Because everyone deserves a tip at Christmas!”

Derek was speechless. The man was gone before he could thank him. Slowly, he opened a can of coke and sipped it thoughtfully. It cured his dry mouth, but not his shock.

Santa was feeling reckless. Forget invisibility! “Fly!” he commanded the reindeer. And as they took off in to the sky, late night pedestrians looked up in disbelief, which turned to delight. “Well it’s 2020 after all,” shouted one man. “What do you expect!”

“Santa is real,” murmured an eight year old boy who had stopped believing the year before.

Father Christmas had finished his Christmas trips. Tomorrow, children everywhere would wake up to presents their parents did not buy, hidden among other gifts under the tree. Mum and Dad would think the unlabelled present was from someone, anyone … but not Father Christmas. The children, however, would know better.

And on Christmas morning, every house, flat, tent or other abode would awake to a six pack of Coca Cola at their door. Homeless persons everywhere also woke up to Coke next to them. All over the world, Christmas became more cheerful, and more mysterious. The media was aflame with stories of pretend and secret Santas. The Coca Cola company meanwhile wondered where these counterfeits had appeared from: they certainly had not sold that amount of Coke! Then they realised what a good Christmas advert this was for them, and decided to comment no further.

And perhaps, if you look out your window now, you will see the coke bubbles in the sky, trails of the invisible Santa’s sled above.

Have a very merry coke-fuelled Christmas! Because at this special time, only the best bubbles will do.

Cynthia felt the cold weight of the keys in her hand, her blonde hair blowing in the brisk autumn breeze. It felt like a dream. Her new house! A six bedroomed detached Victorian villa, her inheritance money well spent. A new start in red brick, windows winking at her conspiratorially as she walked slowly up the garden path.

A fresh chapter in the novel of life. And a place to hide from the past.

The house was beautiful, but old, its Victorian décor little changed over the years. Cynthia explored it inside and out, every cupboard, every dish, every picture still on the wall. The house had lived in its own bubble, little changed by the tracks of time. It was now her very own project. She grinned. This place made up for her empty grief and her many wrong directions, mistakes appearing as early wrinkles on her face.

Cynthia found it in the attic, behind a pile of boxes. An exquisite Victorian doll’s house, with tiny Victorian furniture. It was beautiful. Cynthia smiled, properly, for the first time in months, as she closed and then reopened the curtains on its tiny windows.

Image by: https://pixabay.com/users/stux-12364/

That night, sleep claimed her like an old friend, as she drifted deeper and deeper. She dreamt she was in the doll’s house, a tiny doll sitting in a tiny chair. She woke up, a smile fingering her face. What a strange dream. Would she keep the doll’s house or would she sell it? It must be worth something.

She climbed drowsily out of bed, her feet touching the cold wooden floor. Wooden floor? The house was carpeted. Cynthia looked down at the floor, perplexed. Then she looked around, as horror hissed in her heart. She was in the doll’s house. She was tiny. She was a doll.

This must be a dream, a dream within a dream.

But she did not wake up. She wandered the doll’s house, fingering the furniture, running up the stairs, screaming. But still Cynthia did not wake up.

Tears stung her eyes as a shadow moved behind her. In alarm, she turned round. “Hello, I’ve been waiting for a friend.” It was a girl in Victorian attire, a long blue dress and blonde ringlet hair. “I am Anne.”

Anne showed Cynthia round the doll’s house. “This can be your bedroom,” she remarked in one of the rooms. “It is, after all, where you appeared last night. I watched you, sleeping. I could not believe it. A new companion.”

Anne lived in the year 1870 in the main house, until one day she awoke in the doll’s house, just like Cynthia today. “I keep thinking I am here because I made a mistake,” confided Anne. “There is a portrait of me in the dining room, crumpling up a love letter. It is a real memory – for posterity in paint. Am I here as a punishment?”

Days passed. Cynthia had learned to live with Anne, her stories and her whining. She no longer needed to eat, the little doll’s body alive all by itself.

And she still did not wake up.

One day they entered the dining room to pretend to eat. In a corner, completely out of place, stood a large old-fashioned TV on a stand; but still ahead of its time in this house. “That’s new!” gasped Anne.

Cynthia tentatively pressed the on button, to be confronted by a black and white picture of herself! Massively failing to impress at a job interview. She remembered it. The dream job, and nerves nailed her interview coffin with a huge “Rejection” etched on top.

She put out her hand, touching the screen. Then she was there. In the interview. Back in the past. And most importantly, out of the doll’s house.

The shock turned her interview answers to sharp, witty anecdotes. She had already failed this interview, she could not fail again. They did not wait to phone her. She got the job on the spot.

Cynthia left the interview room, smiling. To her dismay, Anne was standing outside the building. “I followed you in to the picture box. What year are we in? Everything is so strange?”

Cynthia pursed her lips; she was five years in her past, but Anne was over 100 hundred years in her future. What to do? She showed Anne round the town, explaining cars, describing modern day life. Then they were there, at the house. There was a sign outside. “Room to Let.”

As if in a dream, they knocked on the door. A young man answered, a towel round his shoulder. “This is a student house mainly. We have a bedroom to rent. It has two beds. Perfect for you both.”

Silently, Cynthia and Anne entered the house. It was a lived-in mess. Cynthia peered nervously at the TV in the dining room, a modern TV this time. Then they slowly crept upstairs.

This must be a dream, a dream within a dream. But as Cynthia’s fake smile turned to a frown, she did not think so. She stared absently round the empty bedroom, and as if in a dream, murmured quietly, “We’ll take it.”

Above them, in the attic, a doll’s house sat silent. Waiting.

By Rachel H Grant

I raise my arms to the heavens and chant the sacred words. Suddenly, I am answered. I hear a bell ringing in the cool clear skies, as the stars seem to twinkle even brighter.

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

A voice whispers the sacred text behind me. I turn, in trepidation. A translucent figure stands before me, a billowing green cloak shining with the light of a thousand stars.

“You have uttered the sacred words,” the man intones grimly. “I have come, as summoned.” He does not look too pleased about the situation.

“I am Vancelot, of the Great Protector tribe. My squadron had the misfortune to be stationed here, Planet Earth. We are your protectors, lucky us! We watch over the planet from an invisible spaceship. We live in another dimension, which is why you don’t see us. You have engaged an inter-dimensional portal by uttering the sacred words, left here by us as a key to our universe for the chosen few. If you wish, you can travel with me now to our world. But I warn you, if you do, you will never be happy on your own world again. The colours will fade to nothing, sounds will grate on your ears, compared to the raw beauty of our world.”

“I will come. It’s why I uttered the sacred words, not knowing what they would do but trusting it would be something incredible!”

I had known there would be a meaning beyond the incomprehensible characters, as I had stared at the slab of stone in the British Museum. So unassuming, just a stone with Olde English words that amounted to nonsense. But I was right.

We travelled to Vancelot’s dimension through a tunnel of white light. In seconds, we were there.

It was a world like no other. We arrived in a circular silver room, windows to other worlds all around. “This is the inter-dimensional portal,” explained Vancelot.

Then we traversed the spaceship together. Only it was not like a spaceship – it was another planet, a tiny piece of paradise, a mind-expanding glimpse of a better infinity. Waterfalls fell like ballerinas all around, effortlessly changing colour, a pastel palette of heaven. The floor beneath changed colour rhythmically, dancing to unheard music. Colours coursed up my body. I could feel them, an unusual sensation.

Everything was brighter, sharper, clearer. The air was fresh and scented like a meadow. I devoured beauty like no other. Tears welled in my eyes, but of happiness or sadness I could not tell. An artist’s eyes had been opened deep within. Now they would never close again.

We walked through a tunnel of pulsating pink light. “This is a birth tunnel,” murmured Vancelot softly. Eggs lined each side. I heard a crack as an egg opened, a tiny gold and green creature spreading its wings nervously.

“This is what your kind call a dragon. They are not mythical, they are real, and many an invading army we have stopped by throwing a dragon in front of them, roaring fire as if it really meant them harm. It didn’t, of course. Dragons are actually gentle creatures. All that was centuries ago, of course. It is too dangerous to send dragons to Earth now. They would be killed in seconds. So now, their role is to visit unhappy children as they sleep, and sing a magic dragon tune to comfort them.”

And as I fell asleep that night, after so reluctantly returning to Earth, I could almost hear it: a gold and green hum at the back of my mind.

I woke to a world that was greyer, a dullness that pervaded my spirit with the antithesis of wonder. Vancelot was right, the world as I knew it had reduced in beauty, while my heart yearned for so much more, an emptiness devouring my emotions until I could feel nothing.

I began to paint. My soul yearned for expression. Colour after colour poured relentlessly forth on my canvas. But the dullness was still there, it was all around, it was inescapable in its bleakness.

Painting became my only reason to get up in the morning. Everything else was dust in the light of a golden memory. I painted and painted, but satisfaction eluded me. Even the invitation to exhibit at a local coffee shop did not stir my spirit, drowning in the dullness all around.

One morning I stared deep in to the dragon’s eyes in my favourite picture. It stared back. Then it happened. The inter-dimensional portal opened up in front of me. I ran up the circle of light, and never looked back. Now I am free, the paintings I have left behind memories of a life forgotten.

***

The woman sipped her coffee slowly, as her eyes drank in the strange old fashioned words in the painting before her. Slowly she whispered them. They sounded good.

A draught played with her hair as the coffee shop door opened. A vision of yesterday strode slowly in, a cloaked man with a hood over his face. “You have uttered the sacred words, and I have come,” he proclaimed dismally.

Excitement stirred Stella’s spirit. “Who on Earth are you?”

“I am Vancelot. I can show you my world, but I warn you, you will never be able to escape the memory of its beauty.”

“I need beauty! I’m a poet!”

“Great, just what we need,” muttered Vancelot unenthusiastically.  “I warn you again, you will never again experience true happiness.”

“A sacrifice I am willing to take for poetry.”

“As you wish.”

Poetry would follow in her footsteps, a haunting lament to another world, words that wound their way in to your heart and never left. So words whispered as happiness fled. Memories became poetic masterpieces, sacred words that would live on forever.

 

By Rachel H Grant

Felicity stared at the stars above and below, a miracle in motion, a sea of molten black dotted with frozen fire. Outer space had trapped her in its web, a simmering thirst in her veins.

Her peach-tinted lips drew in to a smile, accentuating the laughter lines around her large brown eyes. The ship’s lighting sparkled in her freshly dyed blonde hair.

Outer space was her home. She knew no other.

“We’re almost at the entrance field.” Malcolm’s eyes were grave, his long grey hair and ginger eyes giving him the appearance of a wizard from some mythical land. Or from some alien species, as yet undiscovered…

The six people on the control deck stared in wonder below.

Indigo light snaked towards them, bright and bewitching. Felicity’s eyes reflected the vibrant rays, as her smile turned to laughter, a dozen dreams dancing in her head.

At the centre of the light … nothing. Velvet black led to … nowhere.

Or seemed to. They were here to prove otherwise.

“A real black hole,” murmured Malcolm. “I have dreamt of this day. In fact I have had nightmares … but let’s not share them just now. No, this is a day of hope, of promise. The first space travellers to enter a black hole, to record it, to experience it … to capture it forever on record.”

“If only Jacob Turney could see us now.” Felicity closed her eyes in reverence to last century’s scientist who had first theorised that black holes could contain a solar system inside, a large cocoon of light and matter, with even the possibility of life. Of course he was ridiculed at the time. But in recent years his theory had gained some acclaim, with the eventual funding forthcoming for their current mission. To find and enter a black hole.

It was slowly coming nearer. Collectively, they held their breath in awe. This was it.

“Ten minutes to initial impact.” Malcolm smiled as he delivered the news. A lifelong fascination with black holes had ended here … or had only just begun. The team strapped in to their seats.

The indigo light grew fierce as they grew nearer, the light of a hundred new stars, the spark of creation at work.

The darkness beckoned, molten mysteries quiet within.

“Here it comes…” whispered Felicity. She could not move, transfixed by the black promise below.

They were in the indigo light now, as it threw its electric arms around the ship with a blinding hiss. Slowly the light dissolved in to a giant black eye, as the darkness devoured them. The ship gained speed, sucked in to the hole below, its claws seizing them … cutting in to their souls.

Felicity gasped as coldness gripped her heart.

The ship was shaking, violent jolts which vibrated through their bodies. Felicity’s strap ripped apart and she was flung across the deck. She lay unconscious for several minutes as the ship bounced like a ball on a football field. The rest of the crew remained frozen in their seats, shock silencing their thoughts.

Her breath in tatters, Felicity slowly raised her head.

The darkness was gone.

Light lanced through her eyes, so bright it felt as if her mind was melting. White light dissolved in to orange, then a burst of red, followed by green, then a beautiful blue, and finally a magenta firework of shimmering strength. All the colours of the rainbow.

Felicity could not move. They were here, she thought in disbelief. They were inside a black hole.

And they were still alive.

Malcolm softly crept up to her and put his arm around her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine now,” muttered Felicity as she realised that the ship had stopped shaking. Smoothly, they were continuing to the heart of the hole.

They were here, it was real.

The firestorm of light was decreasing in intensity. They could now see white clouds swirling beneath them, balls of cotton wool softness. This was not what they had expected.

The light around them was pale blue … almost like an Earth sky on a sunlit day.

As they moved lower the clouds dispersed. A collective gasp echoed softly around the deck.

Paradise was below them.

Or so it seemed. Green grass edged gracefully to silver lakes. Golden temples glistened in soft sunlight. Human-like forms were strolling hand in hand.

“This must be a dream,” intoned Felicity.

“We’re going to land,” decided Malcolm with finality in his voice. “This is what we came here to do. To discover all we can.”

“The people below don’t look hostile,” Gerald, the second in command, pointed out. He adjusted his coloured glasses. “Look they are waving at us!”

It was a gentle landing, co-ordinated by their skilled captain Herman, the wrinkles around his eyes creasing as he concentrated. The grass greeted their ship like an expensive carpet, soft and bump free. “Well that was the easiest landing ever!” he laughed.

They slowly disembarked to shrieks of delight from a small crowd running towards them. Children laughed as adults applauded. The women wore long dresses with sashes, peach, lime green, violet or pink. The men sported long flowing trousers and pastel-coloured shirts. Meanwhile the children seemed to be in party clothes, vying to be as fancy or as pretty as possible.

Felicity looked up. Yes, they were definitely bathed in sunlight, but she could see no sun. They had been right. The black hole supported an Earth-like world.

A tall woman at the front of the crowd in soft silver addressed them. Long blonde locks flowed over her shoulders, interwoven with daisies. Wise grey eyes appraised them.

“Welcome to Golden Sands, this is what we call our home, this land …” She waved her arm emphatically.

Felicity gazed at the landscape before her. There were mountains in the distance, and further still the hint of a blue sea. Nearer, a forest edged on to the meadow. A river ran through the grass, a weaving line of melodious motion. Doves flew above, and she noticed some unicorns grazing nearby. A dozen rainbows dotted the sky. A fairy flew round her head, teasingly, and then was gone.

Where was she? This was like a children’s story come true.

“I am Grace,” the woman was explaining. “I will look after you during your first few days here. Don’t worry, you will be very happy. This is the place where dreams are made. You will want for nothing. And you will soon make many friends.”

“We have come from Earth.” Herman spoke with uneasy wonder in his voice. “We are on a mission to explore a black hole, and …”

“You don’t need to tell me,” interrupted Grace. “I know all about you. I have been expecting you. You see, I am the Angel of Space Travellers.”

Silence met her words.

“I see you do not understand. This – here, what you see, all around you – it is already your home, it belongs to all of you, on Earth. You see, this is your Heaven. We are the afterlife. This is the paradise that awaits you all…”

“And heaven is housed, physically, within a black hole?” Felicity’s thoughts raced as her mind tried to comprehend.

“Yes, this black hole belongs to planet Earth … it is your heaven.”

“I can’t wait to tell everyone back home!” Felicity wrung her hands in excitement. “They won’t believe this … who could have guessed? This is beyond anything our expedition was expected to discover. Why many people even doubted we would come back alive!”

“And of course we can make you a Dream-master,” said Grace quickly. “You can connect with people in their sleep, show them visions of our paradise…”

“Why would I need to do that?” asked Felicity. “I will go on Global Number One Communication Channel and tell the whole world!”

Grace looked at her sadly. “You don’t understand yet. You are in heaven. The doubters on Earth were right. No human can enter a black hole and survive. Do you not remember the bright light as you entered? That, my dear, to tell you bluntly, was your experience of death. You are in heaven now … this is your home, forever.”

Gerald snorted. “I don’t believe in heaven! Where are we really?”

“We are in heaven? We’re dead?” repeated Malcolm. And then he smiled. “Of course it’s true. Where else could this possibly be? It is not scientific sense for a miniature Earth to be in a black hole, this must be a dream consciousness reality …”

“But no!” interrupted Felicity. “I can’t be dead. I have so much to do. So much more of the universe to explore, worlds to discover … it can’t all be over!”

“Of course there is always a choice.” Grace smiled in to her eyes. “I would recommend you stay here, enjoy your retirement, and relive your childhood fantasies. This is the land where fairytales come true. Or … well, you can choose to leave heaven. We can’t bring you back to human life, but you are free to roam as a ghost wherever you wish. We can eject your ship from here, back in to outer space … you can travel for all eternity if you choose, for as a ghost you will have unearthly powers, and can run your space vessel with no fuel, it will fly forever. But the choice is yours.”

“I am leaving,” said Felicity softly with finality.

The rest of the team stared at her. “You can’t!” cried Malcolm. “What kind of existence will you have? All on your own!”

“But I want … I want to travel space, I’m not ready to give it up!”

“Very well,” nodded Grace. “Of course there is always a get out clause. Say my name three times …. Whenever you want to return.”

“I think that may be a very very long time indeed …”

Felicity was smiling. Her dream had come true. She would travel space forever.

She closed her eyes. When she reopened them, she found herself on the ship, a welcome sky of velvet studded with silver stars all around. And below, the black hole, indigo light flowing in to the dark basin like spilt paint.

She looked down at her body that no longer breathed, and then laughed.

The ship was all hers now. There was no time to waste. She had a universe to explore. As she placed her hands on the control panel, the ship began to move.

Felicity gazed on the stars above and below, the poetry of space, the light of a hundred million galaxies, the promise of a thousand tomorrows.

Somewhere within, a black hole was opening in her heart. The call of heaven was in her head.

But she could never go back. This was her home now. She knew no other. Space had swallowed all her tomorrows.

Outer space, her destiny … her death.

She smiled, at one with the stars.

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.

I never knew you
But I share the pain
White supremacist shame

I wish I knew you
To whisper wisdom
A key to kingdoms
A gate to freedom

I hear you, I feel you
Your right to shine in tatters
Your shattered life matters

I never knew you
But I won’t forget
Your memory is set
In the stone of time
Like an angelic sign

May your tears form a river
Flooding every man’s heart
Tearing all anger apart

May peace be your goal
Eternal rest for your soul

 

 

Dedicated to Dr David Grant, Research Scientist

 

Time travel. A scientist’s dream invention, the ticking clock of science fiction, the hidden hope in so many scientists’ hearts. And the clock will not stop ticking. A future find in countdown.

Dr David Grant fingered his pencil nervously as he noted calculations. This pencil which had just time travelled to five minutes in the future. It had actually worked! Had he invented time travel?

A successful approach to the University of Glasgow resulted in David heading a small research team. His own team, his own project! Together they manufactured the “Capsule Creative,” their chosen name for the new time machine.

As fans of the movie “Back to the Future,” the team furtively played with the notion of making a 1980s Delorean in to a time machine. However the idea was quickly dismissed. What they needed was a bespoke time capsule, custom made and limited only by their imaginations. A blank piece of paper designed to transform history; a piece of paper on which the future would unfurl like a shy flower, a beautiful bloom that could change their forever.

The first experiments were quietly successful. Mice travelled back and forth, first in hours, then in days. They were unscathed and alert. David’s was a compassionate research team: the mice were all rehomed through a local animal rescue; their reward for ploughing in the past to sew a finer future.

They moved on to human time travel. Some of the team travelled back two days, then returned. There were no side-effects; in fact, time travel left them feeling refreshed and energised.

The big mission was coming. The time travel feat that would transform history, haunting their futures with prehistoric whispers. A trip to tantalise the sceptics and to tempt the hopefuls. A journey back in time twelve thousand years.

Denise and Oliver, two of the research team, volunteered for this mission: the first serious time travellers, history’s ghosts, tourists of the unknown.

It was almost time to go. As Denise and Oliver stepped in to Capsule Creative, an identical capsule appeared next to theirs. “This is you! Back five minutes too early!” declared David. “You must go now! You must not encounter your other selves!”

With haste, Denise and Oliver proudly placed themselves at the capsule controls. The door closed and they were gone.

David and the remaining team waited anxiously for the second capsule door to open. Nothing happened. Worry wormed its way in to their hearts like a time traveller on an endgame mission. And still the door did not open.

David ran to the capsule door, pushing his shoulder against it. Why had they not added a door release control to the outside? Eventually, the door slowly shuddered inwards.

There was no one on the capsule. The team stared in horror, an unknown history haunting their eyes. What had happened?

“Look!” gasped Luke. “There is a manuscript on the floor!”

David tentatively touched the mound of paper, a thesis on steroids in his hands. He began to read. A frown unfurled in to a smile on his face. The trip had been successful. Twelve thousand years ago, Denise and Oliver did not find cave dwellers. Instead, they landed in the ancient – the mythical – civilisation called Atlantis. And they had decided to stay. Their words echoed in his head as though spoken aloud: “this is a paradise in plural, a sterling society and wondrous world that we simply do not wish to leave.”

There followed a thousand or more pages on Atlantean lore and life. A smile stuck to David’s face like a super-glued post-it note. They had discovered so much more than time travel, they had actually unearthed an ancient civilisation!

David quickly flicked through the pages to the end. “We have introduced time travel to Atlantis. In a few years we will embark on a mission to the future, the far future, three hundred years beyond your time. We wish to see a world that may have invented space travel. We have already decided on the time and space co-ordinates, if you wish to join us there …”

It was an impossible invitation, one that could not be refused.

The intrepid team arrived in the future, time travel tormenting their hearts with tears of joy.

Denise and Oliver were waiting for them, with a team of blond-haired, white skinned persons bedecked with crystals. These must be the Atlanteans: it looked like hippies were alive and well long before the 1960s. They quickly greeted each other, before glancing up in awe at the sky. Spacecraft were above them.

“What do we do now?” muttered David, disbelief slicing his heart like a knife from the past.

“We join a space mission,” said Denise simply. “What else did we come here to do? The ancient knowledge of Atlantis will merge with the science of the 24^th century. We will create a super race.”

David laughed. He remembered the pencil he had first sent back in time, hundreds of years ago now. He could not have conceived where that simple act would take him.

They discovered that time travel had been abandoned in the year 2020, when a time travel science team had simply vanished. That was them! David pondered a world of space and renewed time travel. The Atlanteans considered moving their entire populace to the future, to avoid the end of their civilisation. David laughed again. The world was new, it was crazy, it was fertile for a better future. And they would build it again, past and future hand in hand like old school friends meeting up after decades. It was time to heal the future, a tortured child from the past, wounds ready to fade back in time.

David fingered the pencil in his pocket, the very first time traveller. It was time to travel beyond time; it was a moment to remember, to forget, and to live again. So they left the past far behind, memories of days gone by forever alive in their hearts. For the human brain is the greatest time traveller ever invented. It was all time, it was no time, it was time to vanquish the universe together.

 

 

There was a time when we did not have Facebook (or other social media platforms). Before that, I remember life without mobile phones. A hardcopy letter was like a gift of friendship, a promise that someone still cared, cared enough to put pen to paper and walk to a postbox. Letters littered our rooms like confetti from heaven. There was a time … when connection with distant loved ones was like gold dust. People moved out of your life, never to be heard from again. After all, there were only so many letters you could write. Like memories on the wind, friendships faded and were gone.

The advent of Facebook was nothing short of a social revolution. Copper friendship turned to real gold. A gold that would not fade. A promise of posterity, an eternal connection to all, not just our nearest and dearest but to every soul who had ever touched our lives. Suddenly, we were all connected.

Then the groups began, online communities where you could connect to souls all over the world who shared your interests, hobbies, your passions. Suddenly we could reach everyone. We could discuss our hopes and fears with a virtual community who listened. We would never be alone again.

Then many years later, there came life in lockdown. We did not go out, except for essential errands. Our homes became our fortress. But then we opened Facebook, and all our friends were still there, sharing their messages of hope and humour. Online communities buzzed with discussion. A virtual life beat louder and louder: our only connection to the world. And a good connection, with a message of together we are stronger.

So thank you Facebook. Lockdown has shone a light on your worth, a virus has vanquished your detractors. Your founder is truly a visionary. This is how to connect the world; like a virus we can transmit infectious friendship, and the freedom to chat to whomever you choose. In lockdown, Facebook is the currency of community.

Thank you Facebook, our friend, our family, our future.

By Rachel H Grant

Sheena slowly awoke, a smile dying on her face, a frail flower wilting at sunset. Her ginger hair framed her head like autumn leaves. The memory of the dream remained. She had finished her novel.

As she surely would today, just another 5000 words. She was almost there, the taste of the finishing line sweet on her tongue, in this one woman race against writer’s block.

Her dream house. Every night it took on more substance, her sleepscape was slowly solidifying in to reality. The dreamlife was now so much more important than her boring office job in an estate agent’s. Daily life was a drudgery, only broken up by her dreams, a whole new world pregnant with possibilities.

The house had slowly come alive with delirious detail. A cottage in a garden of wild roses and secret statues, grinning Buddhas and laughing elves, mute magic in the bushes. Red brick glinted in soft sunlight, diamond paned windows winked at her.

Of course, she had started to write about the house. This had been her real dream, for as long as she could remember: to be a novelist. And now the house was helping her, pushing her to write, write … to capture its beauty on paper, to unburden her fixation and ignite the fire of creation.

But she could not write a whole novel describing a house. A spark of inspiration caught fire in her brain. It would be a haunted house. A ghost – just as she was while she slept, a waif in that land between worlds, the vortex of the dreamscape. And the ghost would be Stephanie, her daughter. Her dead daughter, a suicide caused by school bullying many years before. Yes, this would be Stephanie’s novel. She would inhabit a perfect house within that world of dreams, the land of forgotten stories, and forbidden endings.

A year and two months later and here she was, finishing the novel. Typed pages were scattered across her desk, loose leaves playing with her dreams. The book had to be published, a sacred tribute to Stephanie that must not be allowed to hide in her desk drawer, unread, a screaming voice unheard within its pages. So the frantic fight began. One rejection roared at her after another, Sheena’s confidence crushed but her will strong. More letters, a series of cordial no’s, until that one day … the piece of white paper in her hands jumped with a jubilant yes. Her hand shook. She had done it. Sheena was to be published.

The days flowed in to a river of waiting, as the eve of publication slowly, painfully dripped nearer. Finally the day dawned: her book was released. Sheena wore an unaccustomed smile to work, and was still smiling as she visited the first house on her list that day. She slowly drove down an unfamiliar street, her smile freezing as she drew up to the address. It felt like she could never stop smiling, a senseless smirk sculpted on her face for all time. She was looking at the cottage. Her house.

In unblushing third dimensional brick and stone, her dream had come true. Sheena stepped back from the car, crossing the street hurriedly to drink in the impossible sight. Caught in a fog of disbelief, she did not see or hear the approaching car. The driver braked in desperation, too late.  Sheena lay on the road, shaking as her last breath left her body.

The dream life danced in her soul, an eternal embrace, the comfort of a favourite reverie. It was real, she was here, in her house. How strange, she thought, that what once was unreal, now had substance … while she was no more than a ghost. Free to live in her dream cottage forever.

The novel was a surprise success. Like loose leaves the pages turned, and turned, so many readers enjoying her private dream. The voices started, at first vague murmurs, and then louder. She was hearing her readers. How strange, she mused, a ghost haunted by … the living.

One day, Sheena was pulled rudely from her little cottage, to a room where a plain middle-aged woman read her novel, a smile of satisfaction on her face. She was lonely, without many friends, in fact her books were her buddies. Sheena stayed with her until she finished the novel, listening to her thoughts, an invisible companion.

Relieved, she returned to the house. Loose leaves danced in the garden. It was autumn. Soon, someone would buy the cottage. A family perhaps. It might be good. Haunting an empty home was, after all, a boring business…

Every so often she would be plucked like a stray leaf and blown to another house, where an avid reader of her novel sat alone, dreaming of some company, of a friend. That’s what she was, if only they knew. In little ways, she learnt how to help them. Throwing books off the shelf, spilling cups of tea, all designed to point something out to them, or to stop them making a mistake. Then, like a leaf in the wind, she would be gone.

Her secret hope was that Stephanie would join her. Like a dying leaf she wandered the corridors of the cottage listlessly, the breeze of life banishing her hopes. Stephanie was not there, her novel’s plot falling apart like leaves in the winter wind. But one day, she would come. Sheena knew it. Day turned to night, autumn to winter, as she searched each room.

Her latest reader turned over in bed, dreaming of the cottage. Two figures were in its window, a woman and a girl. Together, they waved. The dreamer smiled.

Sheena continued to wait, the tree of eternity in her, and in its roots forever unfurled. She had forgotten how to smile, as invisible tears fell like leaves.