Out of Time

by

Andrew "Excelsior" Thomas

I did not choose to become that which I am. None of us do, in truth. Even though we have no say, I have never encountered one of us who regrets that they were chosen, who harbours resentment against the one who chose them. After all, had I not been chosen, I would have died many years ago, so I have little enough cause to complain.

Nobody was able to determine the cause of the fire. It could have been an electrical short; the house was old and the wiring had high demands placed on it, but the intensity of the blaze left its true trigger to speculation. The smoke alarm's cry drilled into my ears as I, only ten at the time, gradually came to my senses. I realised what was happening, for my parents were cautious about such things and we had a plan to be followed in case of fire.

The doorknob was hot to the touch, but bearable. I knew what to do; don't wait for Mum and Dad, just get downstairs, out of the front door and alert the neighbourhood. When I opened the door wide I discovered that the flames had no intention of letting me go anywhere. I had the presence of mind to slam the door shut as the heat singed my hair.

I could not reach the window, which looked onto the back garden of our detached house. I was only a child, and I was fast approaching the limits of my courage. The thick, foul smelling smoke was starting to send tendrils under the door, seeking me out. I remember the air warming, the door blackening. I remember the fear, icy in the pit of my stomach, in stark contrast with the wall of heat outside.

I'm not sure about exactly what happened next. Something exploded somewhere; the house shuddered, and the floor in front of me crumbled inwards. A sheet of flame erupted out of the void and into my bedroom. I should have died, there and then, but I felt the searing heat only for an instant and then I was... elsewhere, and yet not.

The flames surrounded me, engulfed me, but did not touch me. The heat was gone; in fact, all sense of temperature was gone. I did not feel shock at this; something within me did not consider that what was happening was out of the ordinary, in fact it filled me with a sense of comfort. As this strange calm washed over me, I became aware of the hands.

They were gripping my shoulders, very gently. I turned my head and the hands rotated my body in response. I faced my rescuer. She was old, I decided then. Just how old she truly was I would not realise until much later. The simple fact that she appeared elderly put me at my ease, and yet I was somehow disappointed. I had by then come to the conclusion that I was dead, and that she was an angel. 'Where are you wings?' I asked, with the innocent directness only children can employ. The old woman smiled benignly.

'I am not an angel, child, and you are not likely to meet one for some time. Do not be afraid. For now, I must take you out of here. I will see you again when the time comes, but for now know simply that you are chosen, and that you have a destiny beyond those around you.'

With that she took one hand from my shoulder and struck my window with it. The glass exploded outwards, and with the woman's hands around my waist, we followed the shards as they fell.

I was found on our back lawn. The firemen who came were at a loss to explain how a child had broken through, and survived a fall from, a first storey window; my parents didn't care. I knew, of course, just as I knew no adult would believe me. So I lived on, beyond my parents. I did not marry, had no children. Somehow I knew it would be easier that way. Harder in some ways, without a doubt, but I had the future to consider.

She came again soon after my fortieth birthday. She knew I was prepared. She had spoken few words to me at our first encounter, but she had not needed to say more. My interaction with her, her touch, had told me all I needed to know. It became an intrinsic part of me; I simply knew, as I aged, what was to come. It was with that strange foresight I knew her arrival meant that the end of a life drew near, just as a new one prepared to begin.

I never learnt her name, her origins. She told me all that was necessary, all that I might expect, all that I could do. I suspect that even that much actual communication was entirely superfluous, it was merely designed to put me more at my ease following the transition. We both knew this, but although our human bodies were no more, our human nature persisted, even if it was now augmented by other... instincts. She passed away while holding my hand, not for comfort, but because it was necessary; I had to be held within her world to stop me returning to my own. With her death, I could stay there independently, and became a part of it. She left no remains.

I said I had to be held in her world. That is a simplification. I actually had to be held in her worlds. I was not a quantum physicist by trade, but I was aware of some of their more popular theories, and now I could confirm at least one of them. You see, I became an observer of several differing realities when I changed. Not all of them, by any means. In addition, when I say realities, I actually mean Earths, or at least the places I choose, or feel the need to, visit, on those Earths. During any second in your time I will be at a location on your world, and at the equivalent point on several others.

I say several because the number fluctuates periodically; however, all the Earths I experience are essentially similar, within small changes from my original Earth. I see only a tiny fraction of the infinity of alternatives for our world, but as I watch I see how these alternatives begin to branch. When I was first chosen, I was taken from my world alone, but I existed on others. On some I died, on others firemen reached me in time. My branch is a core, the point from which I vibrate between the alternatives; sometimes I vibrate a little, sometimes a great deal.

It is on the latter occasions that I catch glimpses of others like myself. While none of us are ever truly alone, it is a comfort to us to see those of our own kind. For it is a lonely life, sometimes. You may wonder why I do not go insane, if I view all these contradicting worlds at once. Simple: I do not. I concentrate on one at a time, filter out the others. When I relax I can see them all, blending and blurring together. Some people are clear; they are unusual, for they are constants between the realities. I sometimes wonder if they are in fact naturally chosen, for our kind must have begun somehow.

Why she chose the me from my reality I do not know. When my time comes I suspect that I will simply know who my successor is to be. My time will come. Although I do not know exactly what my nature now is, I know that I retain my mortality, with a twist. You see, I will die at a normal age, but I will age far, far slower than one whose percerptions are limited to their reality only. This is because all their life is spent on one line of time which their particular decisions take them down. Mine is split between many. I spend only a tiny fraction of my life in each of the timelines I oscillate between; in a second for you I might see twenty realities, but I will live in them for only a twentieth of a second, and I have a full span of years in each of them. My body will age a few decades more before I pass, but I will live for many of your centuries.

What am I? Why am I? I do not know. I have no physicality, and yet I live still; at no point have I died, for I suspect I would have been aware of that. I can exert a presence in the realities I see, and my instincts drive me to alter little things. I suspect that I then become a creator of other realities; if I take a sock from a drawer and that delays a businessman in dressing, who then misses his train and loses a deal because he gets into the offcie late as a result then I have altered the course of events in that reality and so created a new one. There will of course be a time line almost identical to that one which I did not alter which will carry on as the other would have without my intervention. Perhaps we are catalysts for the chaos theory principles, perhaps nature simply needs us to be. I do not know.

Little is certain for us. The realities we watch may destroy themselves, or they may flourish. Before each of us dies, we will have witnessed centuries of history, and triggered new histories. We all know there will be release for us all eventually, but until then we are content to watch many futures unfold before us, to see what others know only their great grandchildren will see. The only human who will ever see me again is the one I will choose when the time comes, to start the cycle again; nature abhors a vacuum.

I must end my tale now, for I am out of time, as you well know.