An Intoxicating Revelation

PC Peel had never before held a certified genius in custody. He’d detained drunks and druggies, yobs and youths, flashers and even a furry or two on the occasions they crawled out one of the city’s many licensed sex dungeons where they held their private parties to play with each other’s private parts – the perverted bastards. Frankly PC Peel was disappointed. This so called “genius” wasn’t any different to the rest of the scum that congeals on London’s streets, except, perhaps, apart from being far more antisocial, and also because he wasn’t dressed up like a kinky polar bear. PC Peel banged on the metal cell door, hard. Dewar responded by chucking a shoe back at the other side, harder. Yes, definitely far, far more antisocial. Right now PC Peel wished the irritating intellectual was a kinky polar bear.

Dewar had been a pain in PC Peel’s perineum from the moment the honourable constable laid his unfortunate eyes on the deviant. Even their introductory chat had soured quicker than a Glaswegian wine. PC Peel was just trying to make polite conversation as he was registering the sozzled scientist, and well, perhaps being fully honest with himself about the encounter, partly out of childlike awe of the man’s reputation, the constable asked Dewar the square root of one-thousand-nine-hundred and seventy-four. The ill-tempered erudite answered with ‘bolt, ya mangled fud.’ PC Peel didn’t know what that meant but he was pretty sure it wasn’t a number.

When the constable unlocked the fog grey cell door the first thing to hit him was the acrid smell of stale sweat and dry vomit, the second thing to hit him was the other shoe.

‘Right sunshine, get up, get up, get up, get up!’ PC Peel said loudly, malevolently banging his truncheon on the metal frame of the bed.

Dewar clutched his aching head and whispered ‘Bolt it ye drookit sack ay pish’

‘Good morning to you sunshine.’ PC Peel responded cheerily. ‘Now as pleasurable as it’s been having your warm company in this here palace of mine it’s time for you to get on your trusted steed and depart.’ PC Peel said sarcastically.

‘Whit th’ fuck urr ye talking aboot?’ Dewar spat angrily.

‘We’re kicking you out! You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here.’ PC Peel said. He also reverted to using contrived clichés when he’s stressed.

‘Whaur th’ fuck am ah?’ Dewar said suddenly snapping awake and looking around alert.

‘In a prison cell in South London.’ PC Peel told him.

‘Oh fur…’

Dewar cut himself off before he got up, washed his mouth at the sink, coughed something unpleasantly black into the steel basin then washed his mouth out again before finishing that sentence ‘…fuck sake.’

Dewar followed PC Peel silently to the front desk. He didn’t say a word as they processed him so he could leave. PC Peel’s attention was only for a moment distracted from the task in hand when he thought he saw a small goth girl drop out of the sky. He put this apparition down to a contact high from the fumes emanating from the illustrious professor. Dewar made no discernable reaction to anything that was happening around him, he just stared silently into the near distance. Dewar didn’t even comment when he told he wasn’t being charged for assault on the right-wing paper’s so-called science journalist. The aforementioned journalist, Dick Isa, had hoped to ensure Professor Dewar spent the rest of his sour life in prison, but after twenty-four hours of near constant online harassment, ranging from thousands of insulting gifs to a few terrifying death threats, had now decided he just wanted to this whole mess to just go away.

Dewar didn’t even say goodbye. He simply collected his small eclectic mix of personal possessions and left. PC Peel watched him walk out in silence before he was greeted a little goth girl that looked remarkably similar to the apparition he saw falling out of the sky a moment ago. Their exchange was frenetic verging on violet, especially when the little goth girl got Dewar into a headlock. Despite how amusing as the public order offence that was unravelling outside PC Peel constabulary was, PC Peel was no longer paying attention. He suddenly felt as if he had been kicked in the head by a horse as he grappled for a chair to fall into. Maybe it was just the effect of Dewar’s alcohol fumes and poor body hygiene, maybe it was the excitement of another day standing behind a desk dealing with minor infractions, or maybe, just maybe it was because the Universe felt suddenly broken and not even God could fix it now.

***

‘Woo y’ l’t gurr ay mah wind…pup.’ Adam Dewar burbled.

‘Say that again?’ Breeze asked, her arm still tightly gripping his throat.

‘I can knee bree…th.’ Adam spat; his face turning a sort of dark mauve.

‘I can’t understand you, speak more clearly!’ She demanded.

Breeze could see Adam’s eyes were rolling up into his skull, his body was going limp.

‘Okay, okay, I’ll let you go. You don’t have to be so dramatic about it.’ She said and released her arm.

Adam fell to the pavement coughing hard before climbing unsteadily back to his feet. He wanted to punch her square in her small pierced nose but thought better of it, instead he up stood tall, trying to exert his two feet of superior height over her; Breeze did not look impressed.

‘Ye cood ha’ killed me ye midget psycho.’ Dewar spat, his voice sore and weak.

‘Harumph.’ Breeze faux-pouted, ‘It used to take twice to choke you out.’ She smiled wryly at him.

‘Ye cannae gie roond me wi’ shameless flirtin’ anymair.’ Dewar said fighting a smile. ‘Ye haven’t aged a damn day hae ye? Whit’s it bin, twintie years? Ur magic ur somethin’?’

‘Yep, I’m a Hyleoroi, you should know that by now.’

‘Ah aye forgit yoo’re such a queer one. Anyway thes was a pleasure, I’m sure I’ll be seein’ ye in anither twintie years if mah luck doesnae improve.’

‘Wait, don’t go! I need some advice.’ Breeze begged.

Adam coughed loudly with laughter.

‘Ah got some advice fur ye, don’t strangle fowk ye need help frae’ He said before wiping his mouth his sleeve. ‘Ah haven’t forgotten whit ye did tae me back in San Francisco, an’ ah haven’t forgiven ye fur ‘at neither.’

Adam Dewar assertively strode off in any direction that was away from her.

‘Dewy!’ Breeze shouted and stamping her foot against the ground.

Her face was contorted in disappointment and anxiety, like she was three years old and she just lost her favourite red balloon.

‘Oh fur fuck sake… Alright I’ll listen tae whit ye hae tae say, but ‘en am gettin’ th’ hell out ah thes damned coontry.’

Breeze squeaked in relief, like a three year old girl who had just been given another red balloon and wasn’t old enough to know there more than one of them in the world.

‘But ye gitting th’ drinks in.’ He said before confidently striding onto the nearest pub.

‘I always do…’ Breeze sighed irritated before scampering off after him.

***

One-eye stalked silently through the thick green bush. In his left hand he held a quarter that he methodically pushed and pulled through his clenched fingers. In his right hand he held a femur bone that he scraped along the black, glass like volcanic rock, wearing one end down to make the blunt implement sharper. He was close, so very close.

Fabien was bleeding. He had spotted One-eye in the far distance of the horizon and sprinted as fast as he could in the other before tripping and cutting open his forehead just above his right eye. One-eye knew this. He saw the blood splatter on the rock that Fabien had fallen onto. He tracked the red droplets that were scattered amongst the dark green undergrowth. he could read the panicked footprints in the jet black mud, haphazard and heavy, a sign he was running in a state of hysteria.

‘Good.’ One-eye thought, he wanted every second of Fabien’s short life to be torture.

One-eye could practically taste Fabien’s blood in the air now, like a Great White that had evolved to walk on land, as the whales had before he sheepishly fled back into the cool blue oceans again. One-eye could feel the hairs prickling on the back of his neck in anticipation, his palms were growing sweaty in excitement so he tightened his grip on Biggs’ thighbone.

He could still hear Biggs’ piercing screams ringing in his ears and One-eye felt nothing. He had ripped out Biggs’ femur with his bare hands. He had knelt down heavy on his friend’s chest and dug into the leg with his fingers. His hands were still sticky from the ichor. One-eye wiped his palms on his shirt. He hadn’t killed his old friend, he owed him that courtesy. Instead he left the screaming New Jerseyan for whatever fiend chose him for its next meal.

Biggs had served his purpose. As soon as Biggs couldn’t keep up, the moment he started to delay One-eye in his pursuit his cards had been marked. But just because Biggs was no longer of any use doesn’t mean that a body part or two of his wouldn’t have come in handy. One-eye took what he needed, and then a trophy to add to the collection, Biggs’ left eye, and left him to scream himself out into unconsciousness.

One-eye stumbled to a point where the route split off into several paths. Fabien had done a frustratingly good job in hiding his tracks as he couldn’t discern which way to go. He waited.

After a moment, he could see it all, an infinite number of visions of himself heading off and returning from every direction furious and chastened except for one path. In one direction he had not returned. A voice that sounded like a million of his screams tore through his head and dizzily he stumbled towards the quietest of the routes. A whisper carried him onward indicating that Fabien was now only a short distance away. If One-eye had been either religious or insane he would have called this experience the voice of God, but One-eye was by no means insane.

He had always had these visions. They without fail directed him to making the right choice. He could no longer count the times that he had been saved during the Great War by these familiar whispers, keeping him out of the way from German bullets.

Through these hallucinations One-eye had seen every possible decision he could ever make played out a thousand times or more. Sometimes it gave him an instinctive edge, helped him react a little faster when danger was approaching, much like they had during the war, sometimes they had given allowed him to avoid a terrible mistake, avoid walking the wrong path, as they had done now.

What concerned One-eye, if One-eye had the capacity to feel anxiety, was when he saw visions of lives that clearly weren’t his own. He often experienced these visions in through lucid dreams, dreams that seemed too tactile and real. A recurring one had shown him he once lived in ancient Persepolis as a loyal guard to Cyrus the Great. There he perfected a technique for scaphism. He would drag whichever Persian subject they had accused of some menial indiscretion on any given day and fasten them in the interior of two narrow boats. The trick was to fill the victim so full of milk and honey their skin would sweat such a sweet smell. Then they would cast off their victim off into the Pulvar and let the insects eat their fill. When One-eye felt particularly misanthropic he would pin the criminal’s eyelids open and cover them with honey (plus any other area One-eye wanted the insects to give particular attention to).

However One-eye’s favourite reoccurring dream was where he was the torturer for Balthasar Gérard. One-eye of course had no personal animosity towards Balthasar, he did not care that the Spaniard murdered William the Silent. However he could not turn down such a horrific and cruel conviction that the magistrates had decreed. He had been told to burn off Balthasar’s right hand with a red-hot iron, tear off his flesh with pincers, before quartering and disembowelling alive. One-eye gleefully complied, whilst also adding some of his very own punishments into the mix. He put Balthasar’s feat in shoes made of uncured dog meat and then placed him in front of a fire forcing the meat to contract and crushing Balthasar’s feat into stumps. Even One-eye was surprised how effective that had been. That was a blessed relief after he pasted honey on Balthasar’s skin and brought in a goat to lick it off. The idea was that the goat’s rough tongue would slowly tear the skin off Balthasar’s body, but the goat refused, unlike One-eye the poor animal did not have the stomach for such cruelty. Though the goat did make a good filling for One-eye’s stomach

One-eye didn’t believe in reincarnation, he just believed he had a spectacularly healthy imagination and innate and effective creativity for causing horrific pain. The New York psychiatrist he told of these visions didn’t believe in reincarnation either, he did however believe that One-eye should spend a lifetime in a sanatorium. Had the incompetent doctor had not been a personal friend of Giuseppe Masseria then the cops would have been picking up pieces of psychiatrist for weeks.

Instead he calmed his blood lust with reflecting on Balthasar Gérard. He had attempted to keep him alive for seven days but had failed. One-eye had learned though, through these flashbacks and his own extensive experimentation, what the limits of the human body were could take and how to sustain it almost indefinitely. One-eye planned to use every aspect of this knowledge on Fabien, and by the time the elusive swing singer had perished far, far in the future, no passing soul would be able to recognise that his mangled corpse was ever a human being.

***

Breeze had told Fred to take Koosh home and wait for her there. Fred dutifully complied. Koosh of course hadn’t. Koosh had surveyed the situation unravelling around him and come a decision. The cause was obvious to the spectacular little stuffed toy and if no one else was going to fix it, it was down to this tiny hero. Koosh twisted Fred into taking the raccoon to somewhere far, far away, where it could gather the information it needed first.

***

If you were a pub punter and happened to be sitting in the Euston Tap, having a quiet drink and watching the other people on this particular day, at this particular time, you would have spotted a small brightly dressed woman with striking silver-blond hair. You would have found yourself compelled to stare a little too long as she progressed across the sticky pub floor. Had you been a particularly observant people watcher you may have seen her shoulders drop, just ever so, as she bounced up to the bar, and you would have wondered why.

Adam Dewar, or Dewy as he had once been intimately known to Breeze (but that was a very long time ago) had quickly reminded her why she had left him in such acrimonious fashion. She would have happily have never seen the sour-faced ex-boyfriend again had she the choice but circumstances beyond her control meant that there were certain problems she couldn’t just leave in a San Francisco dive bar’s toilet. Certainly not when there was an almighty headache waiting behind a yet unseen door in the future, she just hoped it wasn’t behind a San Francisco toilet’s door.

Breeze ordered a couple of cheap whiskeys with lager chasers and brought the drinks back to the table.

‘Are you ready to talk to me now?’ Breeze enquired.

Adam didn’t respond, he didn’t even look at her.

‘But I’ve bought the last three rounds.’ Breeze whined.

Dewar still didn’t acknowledge her, he did acknowledge the whiskey double though.

‘Harumph.’ Breeze pouted. She crossed her arms and stared angrily out the window.

‘How cood ye dae ‘at tae me? Back ‘en America, how cood ye dae ‘at tae me.’ Adam said at last.

‘You know why.’ She said under her breath.

‘You left me passed out oan th’ fluir ay a pub’s lavvy, oan th’ bludy day ah proposed ta ye.’ He growled at her.

‘What was I supposed to have done, picked you up, wiped the down the vomit and carried you home?’ Breeze snapped.

‘Aye.’ Adam said obviously.

‘Okay maybe I should have done that, but you just looked so comfy there, your head all snug under that leaking urinal, cuddling an empty bottle of Jack Daniels.’

Adam did not look impressed, despite it being twenty years he was still not ready to make a joke out of it.

‘I’m… sorry… I was really angry at you, but that’s no excuse, I shouldn’t have ditched you there, and I shouldn’t have bolted like I did, without saying goodbye.’ Breeze reluctantly conceded.

‘An ah shooldn’t hae got so pished. But ye ken wa ah ended up gettin’ half-cut don’t ye?’ He countered.

‘Yes, because you’re a functioning an alcoholic.’ Breeze said plainly.

‘Nae…’ Adam sighed.

‘But you are a functioning alcoholic.’ Breeze argued.

‘Ah got sae pished coz ye said nae.’ He said getting riled again.

‘I said no because I was never going to marry you.’ Breeze explained.

‘Why nae?’ Adam snapped.

‘Because look at us! We’re a disaster. You can barely function without half the whiskey in London coursing through your veins, and I, I…’ Breeze paused. ‘Together we were so much worse, at least apart we sort of function, together we couldn’t even do that.’

It was a well reasoned point and not one Adam could disagree with, but that didn’t stop him from moping. He turned his attention away from her and onto his pint. He picked it up, but with Breeze’s scornful remarks still at the forefront of his mind he placed it back on the table again.

‘Aye.’ Adam finally admitted. ‘But it was fun while at lasted though wasnnae it?’ Dewar said, a smile forming in the corners of his mouth.

‘Yeah, it was.’ Breeze agreed.

They both raised a pint to the memories and took an overly large swig.

‘Sae whit is it ye need help wi’?’ Adam asked before pausing. ‘Yoo don’t want me tae kick seven bells oot ay anither Austrian dae ye?’

‘Oh God no.’ Breeze assured him. ‘I just need to understand time.’

‘Jist that wee life crisis aye? Whit th’ fuck ur ye talkin’ abit? Ah thooght thes was important.’ He snapped, his temper flaring again.

‘Adam, it is.’ She said, staring intensely into his eyes.

Adam paused. There were many things he didn’t understand about his ex-girlfriend, how she never seemed to age for example, or why she always carried around a potted plant in her rucksack. The one thing he did understand though was that when she was seriously worried about something, everyone else should be as well.

‘Okay, ye need tae be mair specific, whit abit time dae ye need tae ken?’ Adam asked.

‘What could cause seconds to tick backwards?’ She asked

‘Whit ye mean like wi’ a clock? A clock is physical mechanism…’

Breeze interrupted.

‘No I mean, what could cause time to be pushed backwards?’ She clarified.

‘Well, like gravitational waves, if tois black holes collided ‘en ‘at would send waves through space-time, but that’s nae whit ye mean is it?’

Breeze shook her head, and for the first time in all the time Adam had known her she looked worried. He clicked to what she was getting at.

‘Ah hae thes theory, that space-time is a superfluid, an’ much like a fluid such as this haur lager, given all th’ available information abit it, its size, temperature etc. ye can predict its behavioor.’

‘If this theory is true it means that space-time, jist like this drink, is entirely predictable. However… Look, it’d be easier tae shaw ye.’

Adam dipped his right index finger into the pale, yellow fluid.

‘I can affect th’ beers behavioor if ah drop some fluid intae th’ pint like so…’

The clear droplets fell methodically from his fingertip into the pint, sending ripples from the surface’s centre outwards to the edge.

‘This action hae caused a reaction, a reaction ‘at will hae a consequence oan every ethanol an’ propylene glycol an’ every other molecule in th’ glass. Their positions an’ their future movements hae bin affected by this one external event. Those molecules were on one path before and now because ay what ah done their paths hae changed.’

Breeze stared at him, anxious and confused.

‘If ye imagine space-time as a fluid, then much like this haur pint ay lager, a significant event wood send ripples through it in every direction.’ Adam explained

‘What sort of significant event?’ Breeze asked.

‘God knows. But if time is deterministic an’ somehaw, somethin’ in th’ future changed, somethin’ significant, then that cood theoretically send a ripple through space-time.’

‘How can something in the future change? It hasn’t happened yet.’ Breeze stated obviously.

‘Nae, but everythin’ that’s happened sae far has put us oan a coorse wi’ a determined destination, like a train on a track.’ Adam said getting more expressive.

‘Let’s put it anither way. Say all ay history happened sae that you woold be born.’ Adam said.

‘Well I am incredibly important so that sounds about right.’ Breeze asserted.

‘Aye, noo say ye waur born sae ye cood git a train frae London tae Glasgow. All ay history happened sae ye cood git oan that three-fifteen train. An oan that joorney ye feel asleep an’ when ye awoke ye weren’t in Glasgow, ye waur in Edinburgh, perish the thooght.’

Adam paused to take a sip of his quickly diminishing pint.

‘Noo th’ reason ye woke up in Edinburgh is coz somethin’ in th’ future hae changed, somethin’ hae altered the deterministic direction in which time is heading. Fur th’ future tae happen as it’s determined tae unfauld it now needs ye to be oan th’ three-fifteen tae Edinburgh, nae Glasgow, sae th’ Universe retrospectively changes which train ye ur travellin’ oan. Ye might think ye got oan th’ train tae Glasgow, but that’s nae th’ reality ay th’ situation anymair. It’s just like that train, time is oan tracks but if th’ end destination is altered, th’ location it departed frae also has tae change too.’

‘So that change, that small thing could send a ripple through space-time and that could appear as if seconds were going backwards?’ She asked as she started to understand.

‘Ah suppose…’ Adam reluctantly agreed. ‘Ah think it’s mair that it’d alter th’ past, historical events wood change. If somethin’ big happened in th’ future ‘at sent a ripple through space-time, Hitler might nae hae ended up killin’ himself in his bunker, he might hae never lost th’ war, terrible as it is tae imagine, ur he never hae ended up bein’ born in th’ first place.’

‘As good as that is to imagine.’ Breeze retorted.

‘Aye.’ Adam agreed.

‘But what about the Grandfather paradox? If you went back in time and killed your granddad then you’d never be born, so you couldn’t go back and kill your granddad. If something in the future could change history, wouldn’t history just correct itself and so that the thing in the future could never happen in the first place?’ She queried.

‘Nae that’s a bit of a misconception, we think th’ future is separate frae the past, that it hasn’t happened yet, but in reality th’ past, th’ present, th’ future, it’s all unfoldin’ together.’

‘Take yer grandda’ fur example. If ye killed ye granddad thatat wooldn’t mean ye wouldnae be born, it’d mean wood stop being yer grandda’, it’d mean he were never yer gradnda’.’ Adam said.

‘Wait, sorry what?’ Breeze asked frustrated.

She thought she was understanding all of this time stuff but Adam had to just go and confuse her again.

‘If ye went back in time to kill yer granda’ it would cause him tae nae be yer granddad anymair. It’s called retrospective causality, the past woold have to change so that you woold still be born to go back in time an kill the man ye thought was your grandda’. Time would adjoost, someone else woold become yer granda’ instead. The Universe wood adjoost itself aroond this event tae align itself with the future, to stop the’ whole of causality fallin’ apart at th’ seems.’ Adam said.

He was getting quite rejuvenated by the whole theoretical discussion.

‘Look befur ye went into the past he was yer grandda’, ye both were genetically related, but a’ soon a’ ye went into the past an killed him, ye stop being genetically related to him and someone else becomes ye grandda’ for you ta want ta kill. That man yoo’ve bumped off wood nae longer be the loving gray haired, doddering old fool who gae ye a ten poond note every Christmas anymair, reality woold hae readjusted itself, he’d just be some unlucky other bugger ye killed because ye thought he were yer grandpa.’

‘Yoo’d probably still remember him as yer grandpa, yoo’d hae tae, tae want tae go back an’ kill th’ poor sod, but yer subjective experience ay the Universe an’ the objective reality ay the Universe ur tois separate things, one isnae a testament tae the other, an they didnae hae tae match.’

‘So wait, if I go back and commit grand patricide, that act retrospectively changes our timelines, changing him from being my granddad to just someone unrelated to me? This really doesn’t make sense.’ Breeze said growing tense.

‘It’s counterintuitive I know. But think ay th’ Universe as a giant equation. The future is one half ay the equation an’ the past is the other half ay the equation. If ye change one half ay the equation ‘en the other side also has tae change fur it tae balance.’

‘If the equation equals the Universe, and the past and future are two halves of that equation, what happens if the equation stops balancing?’ Breeze asked.

‘Let me shaw ye.’ Adam said.

Adam pushed his pint glass off the table. They both watched it fall and smash, spilling the remainder of Adam’s drink and scattering glass shards several feet away. The lager pooled before Adam’s feet before seeping into the carpet.

‘The Universe ends.’ Adam said abruptly.

Breeze tried not to show her absolute terror at the thought. Much like the glass that was being swept up by an irked Australian barman, she felt broken, how could she possibly save the Universe from this unknown future? She had no idea, but she had to try, because who else would? Who else could? And she also knew, as unlikely as it seemed, Adam was right, the Universe was on the edge, and one small push would send it into oblivion.

Adam stood up didn’t notice the anxiety that had now overwhelmed his ex, he was more consumed with consuming more alcohol.

‘I’ll gie th’ next roond in.’

‘Wait, one more question.’ Breeze stuttered, trying to distract herself from the enormity of it all. ‘Why does the whole Universe rely on maths? Why is maths so important to the Universe?’

‘Ah don’t ken, fur that one yoo’ll hae tae ask whichever god ye believe in.’

Breeze thought that was a very great idea, she decided she’d next person she’d see would be her God.