REMORSELESS TIME
Nik
Morton
‘Why do you go back?’ the very thin and pallid temporal
engineer asked, the last in a long litany of familiar questions. One of these
days, he might get a different answer from me. But not this time.
‘I want to
suffer contrition,’ I said, as usual, ‘but can’t.’
Sitting
opposite, the NB judge leaned back and sighed. ‘You can’t change the past, Mr
Thurston.’ The judiciary had dispensed with wigs fifty years ago. He looked like
a kindly uncle rather than a hanging judge. Not that they hung anybody in New
Britain. In a way, indoctrination was much worse. Death was final.
Indoctrination seemed like a living death to free spirits like Donna, Tim and
me.
‘You know the law, Mr Thurston.
You have to live with what you have done. Be suitably contrite and then we can
all move on.’
‘I need to go back, your honour,’ I
insisted, ‘it’s my just punishment, after all.’
‘Very well,
then.’ He cleared his throat and rubber-stamped the authorisation. It may be
the twenty-second century, but some in authority still relished the
old-fashioned methods. He handed the authority to my attractive probation
officer sitting beside me.
‘Stuart, you’re booked for
Tuesday week,’ she said with an insipid smile. ‘At 2.55am.’
I turned
back to the judge. ‘Thank you, your honour.’
His face
twisted in a half-hearted scowl. ‘On your return, I trust you will show more
remorse.’ He didn’t care, I could tell. As long as he got paid handsomely with
a protected pension fifteen years earlier than the taxpayers who financed his
position, he didn’t need to care.
I nodded
and said, ‘I will definitely try to show remorse, your honour, next time.’ But I doubt it, I thought, but didn’t say.
Behaviour control started last century with the street
corner cameras and the legions of government funded organisations sustaining
the monolith of intrusive government. Individuality was frowned upon for thirty
years until the Tinkering Triumvirate, as we called it, kicked in - drugs were
introduced into cigarettes and alcohol and subliminal messages were sent out
through television, primarily during those boring unscripted reality shows and
the plethora of soaps.
All of a sudden, individuality
stood out and was deemed dangerous.
By this
time Donna, my brother Tim and I and thousands like us, who preferred reading
to watching drivel on TV, had cottoned on to what was happening and went
teetotal and underground. Literally.
We’d been
quite successful, disrupting the transport of drugs to the water-treatment
plants and a few carefully sited explosions shunted several television channels
off-air for days at a time.
These so-called public disorder
interruptions threw up quite a number of people who suffered withdrawal
symptoms which were characterised by discovering the invasive real world. Some
committed suicide, others rushed to find an alternative fix, while many joined
our rebellious ranks.
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We rebels were free to think and free to love.
Unfortunately, on the very morning that our underground outpost was under
attack from government troops, I found my wife Donna in bed with my brother
Tim. A red mist descended over me and the next thing I knew, they were both
dead at my feet. The smoking revolver was on the floor.
I was
devastated and sank to my knees, which is how the government troops found me.
I was
arrested and charged with rebellion against the state as well as the lesser
offences of murdering Tim and Donna. I pleaded guilty, as my good counsel
advised.
While we’d been fighting our
little skirmishes against the government brain-washing system, they’d moved on.
Wrongdoers were adjured to visit
their past crimes – literally – and repent of their sins. Yes, the religious
bigots had taken the reins, ousting the accountants who’d made a mess of
things.
When the
boffins had discovered time travel, the state was in a position to commandeer
the plans. Clearly, certain strata of society were protected against NB
indoctrination – the scientists and the ruling elite. As engineering was
moribund in the country, no private businesses could afford the time machine’s
funding.
Time-travellers were incapable of
interacting with the past or its people; they were merely observers. The theory
goes, if you see what you did often enough, you’ll be contrite and ask for
forgiveness. Only the state can forgive.
This time,
though, the judge had permitted me to arrive at the scene five minutes early.
I’d pleaded that if I understood what was being said before I entered the
bedroom, I might be better placed to comprehend what happened.
So I arrived at the bedroom door,
dressed as I had been on the day. The lights were out. I slipped into the
shadows to the left of the door.
Donna was
saying, ‘I’m his wife, I shouldn’t be doing this!’
‘Hey, I
feel like hell, too. But you fancy me and I fancy you. So let’s do it.’
She shook
her head and then she saw me in the shadows and gasped. ‘Tim, it’s Stuart, he’s
here!’ Her eyes screwed up tight.
True to her
words, I watched myself arrive at that moment at the bedroom door and discover
them in bed together.
Like all the
other times, my face drained of colour and I simply stared. Not once had I seen
myself move from the doorway, not once had I seen myself kill the two people
I’d loved most in the world.
At that
same instant, the sirens sounded. ‘Government troops have infiltrated the
bunker!’ The tannoy announcement echoed in the room.
Tim swore and fumbled under the
pillow, pulling out the revolver.
I could see it in Donna’s eyes,
she thought Tim was going to shoot me when I knew he was probably just getting
ready to fight off government intruders.
The gun
went off accidentally and Donna fell back. Shocked and appalled, Tim flung the
weapon away and it went off again, the bullet hitting him in the chest. The
revolver landed at my feet.
I keep going back, but it’s always
the same. How can I show contrition? I didn’t kill them; it was an accident.
But the judge would never believe me.
So I keep going back – just to
see them.
Both images of surveillance camera - Wikipedia commons
***
Previously published
in Telling Tales #4 – Winter, 2009.
Copyright Nik Morton,
2009, 2014
If you’d like to read more of my short stories, many
prize-winners, please check out When the
Flowers Are in Bloom – Amazon.com e-book here and Amazon.co.uk e-book here
– paperbacks are also available.
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