Abraham Vales and his son, Roland,
pulled up outside an old shop in a part of the city that had once seen
prosperity but was now slowly decaying. The shop itself looked well over a
hundred years old to Roland, maybe two hundred. Its front featured a bay window
jutting into the street. Each of its three panes were made of a grid of small
windows containing ribbed circles like bottle bottoms. The inside was so dusty
passers-by couldn’t see inside the shop or the dead flies piled up on the
otherwise empty windowsill.
Within the car, Abraham turned to his
son and gave the explanation that had been handed down through the generations
ever since his great-great-grandfather had walked into the shop and struck a
deal: the reason why each visitor had subsequently been able to build up their
own separate, successful life. A secret that lay inside the shop and in
discussion with its keeper.
The pair exited the parked car and, as
Roland straightened and regained feeling in his legs, he looked up at the old
wooden shop sign. Its paint had faded considerably and was peeling at the edge
of the planks it was made from but it still clearly read, “Oracles, Inc.”
They crossed the street together
before Abraham took the lead and halted briefly saying, "It's old and
creepy, son, but there's no need to be scared," before pushing the door
open and leading his son inside just as his father had once done for him.
Inside the shop was a little less run
down than it had appeared from outside- partly because the dirty windowsill was
obscured from view by a shelving unit. It was still a going concern, in fact,
and looked a bit like what you might expect from a shop called Oracles, Inc.:
Roland saw crystal balls on sale, astrological charts, Tarot cards, even a
cauldron.
One side of the shop was lined with
books, which Roland gravitated toward while his father approached the counter
and rang a bell. But before he had scanned even a few spines a man who seemed
to be even older and more worn than a shop front entered the shop.
In he crept aided by a stick, his head
down in concentration as he walked forward. When he reached it, his hands moved
to steady himself at the counter and he lifted his face to view the man who had
rung him. He smiled in recognition of Roland's father and said in an old, but
not tired, voice, "Ah, I had a feeling I was to be expecting you
today."
"You remembered! It seems like
only yesterday that I was in here and you gave me your gift, Mr Hartnell."
said Abraham.
"You say it as a nicety and
nothing else. So much has happened since then. Surely it cannot feel like only
yesterday," the shopkeeper replied. Roland was sure he saw a twinkle
of menace in the old man's eye and a shiver ran quickly down his spine.
"Maybe so, either way I have
brought my son, Roland, here as you said I would, slightly earlier than is
tradition."
The old man turned his head to take
Roland in for the first time. "And so I see," he said, "He looks
just like he did in the vision. Young and cocky. But lost on his path. Come to
see old Hartnell about the future. To carry on tradition and also to learn so
as to plan."
He smiled, insincerely Roland thought,
and again he felt unsure about this. But then he remembered his dead-end
situation, his newly pregnant fiancée, Cassie, what could be revealed and saw
the dread as nerves only.
"Now," the old man started
again, "Follow me and your future I shall reveal." He turned and went
through to the back of the shop.
Roland paused for a second and looked
up to see his father urging him on. And he followed the old man, leaving his
father in the shop that was now a waiting room.
Once in the passage, he spotted the
old man's withered and bent frame had shuffled past a staircase and was walking
along a short corridor with two doors coming off it and one at the end. He had
stopped to wait for Roland, who was now approaching.
"Don't worry, your father will be
quite safe."
"Aah, good," thought Roland,
"A little reassurance. He can't be all bad."
The old man turned and headed for the
door at the end of the corridor; Roland followed him through.
***
The room was quite small and almost
entirely empty. In the far corner was a chaise-longue onto which the old man
was installing himself and a chair next to it that would allow the occupant to
look down into the man’s face.
Roland walked quickly across the room,
a little excited now the reading, or whatever it was, was about to occur. But
only a little. Most things made him nervous and this was no exception.
As Roland sat down, the old man looked
seriously into his face and asked if Roland was ready to see what was ahead of
him. "Yes," he said quickly. And then, "I think so, anyway. I
mean. I need all the help I can get. I’ve no idea what to do with myself or how
to do anything, so any help, really... is... a, er, good thing."
"Yes, well," the old man
began, slightly dismissively, like older people do sometimes when talking to
those younger than themselves. "I can certainly help you out.
“What I do is offer a viewing of what
is to come. I have no control over what you see. I simply look into your soul
and whatever comes, comes. It might be something like this week's lottery
results. Or it might be business plans to help you now or in the future. Or a
woman and a place, the words you will need.
"I shall relax here and allow the
power to work through me. All you need do is lean forward and look into my
eyes. Some disturbing things will occur but ignore those. You'll soon forget it
anyhow once the picture show begins."
Nothing more was said. Roland simply
nodded, a look of pure seriousness on his face as he began to enter a period of
intense concentration. He clasped his hands together, leaned forward and looked
into the mysterious old man's eyes. They were a deep, dark blue in colour with
little flecks of white like stars showing through. After a second it seemed
like the stars were moving. Roland blinked deliberately but it made no
difference. They were definitely moving: getting faster and faster before
blurring together to become circles of white destroying the night sky of the
old man's eyes. These stars then took on a more silvery appearance before
spreading out beyond the irises and across then out of the eyes turning the old
man's face into a three-dimensional mirror reflecting Roland's face in a wonky,
abstract way. Once this process was complete, a new one started. The mirror seemed
to melt and collapse, turning Hartnell's face into one flat piece of mirror,
correcting Roland’s reflected image.
After about thirty seconds the
reflection of Roland's face faded away and was replaced with a view of the two
of them in that room. The picture show was beginning.
***
The picture of the room soon began to
speed up, blurring the scene a little as it began to move forward. At first
Roland could not quite make out what was going on, but quickly he got used to
watching in fast forward and saw himself leaving the shop with his father
before doing many things: boring, everyday things in fast forward. This shocked
him a little. He had expected to see only the important scenes, like with
Scrooge. It was a small point he was willing to overlook, though, when suddenly
he found it slowed down for bits he would find more interesting and he was at
the bank showing plans for a business, and shaking the bank manager's hands,
then preparing and using the loan to start up that business: a music shop and second
hand bookshop all in one with a small café where musicians and comedians could
perform. During all this Roland found he could slow the pictures down or speed
them up, rewind and replay with a single thought allowing him to take in the
important details, and then he was planning the wedding: the church, the
reception, the stag night in London drinking the night away with all his
friends and everything became fuzzy for a bit, then his wedding nervous at the
front, scared shitless and worried, until finally the music began, he looked
back and Cassie coming up the aisle took his breath away, the reception and
speeches, and on it rocketed: the honeymoon and work, more and more mundane
bits and pieces, only the periods he spent asleep were left out, but he was now
hooked, waiting for the important parts and slowing it all down to see the
first child, the way it looked, the feelings of pride, a supremely worn out and
beautiful Cassie holding the little girl they had created and onwards: more
children and holidays, his hair receding and turning grey, the kids leaving
school and home, his father dying, the funeral, bringing his sons to see
Hartnell, the waits in the shop, grandchildren and, eventually, becoming a
geriatric, Cassie slipping away, the sadness and the grief followed by his own
demise: the mind going and illness setting in until the day to go came, his
family all around him, and a feeling, a strange feeling, a wonderful feeling
within the ageing Roland- a feeling of freedom and life through death.
The young Roland was confused and
concerned about this. He had been half aiming to pull out after his death to
see what happened and to clear up the mystery. (Even if it was to see his body
rot, he could pull out before he saw too much. Ultimately he was expecting the
show to end with his death anyway). But this feeling was throwing him off. It
was odd and unexpected; like Roland had been unhappy with the wonderful
life he had just been shown. Confused and concerned, deciding he had seen
enough and that he may as well leave that mystery open, Roland pulled his upper
body back and closed his eyes.
The show was over.
***
When Roland opened his eyes again he
felt like he had never pulled back, like he was sitting alone in the back
corner of a cinema watching what his eyes saw enlarged and on a screen twenty
metres ahead of him. And on the screen he saw Hartnell wearing the most evil
grin he had ever seen.
***
Meanwhile, Roland's father sat curled
into a ball in the penthouse that was his mind, hoping his son would realise
the implications and pull out before going too far.
***
Finally the day arrived. That final
day when Roland would regain control and he was the most excited he had ever
been. The bars surrounding him were rusting quickly, would soon be weak enough
to break through. The final scenes he had viewed in Hartnell's shop were played
out and Roland leapt to the surface from the hole he had lived in for nigh on
seventy years.
He achingly flexed each part that
still could as he assumed control. And he smiled. Spent the last minutes of his
life smiling incessantly as he waited for death to arrive and become the first
fresh breath of uncertainty he had had since walking into the trap of the
known-future.
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