The Test of Time - a short story

Now at last he could see her, drenched in the melting light of the dying universe. And she was smiling at him, the smile he’d travelled to the end of time to see again.

Here's a brand new story which you can download from the following link:

http://www.lulu.com/content/e-book/11697763

I suppose, technically, it could be classed as science fiction, but please don't be put off by the label - there's a lot more to it than that...
 

The Man Who Killed the Universe

Like most rational-minded people, I assumed the recent hoo-hah over neutrinos supposedly travelling faster than light would eventually be attributed to systematic errors, and that the problem would quietly go away. However, in a dream the other night, I decided to carry out my own investigation.

As neutrinos interact only very feebly with matter (you might as well take moonbeams home in a jar) and can only be detected indirectly, I was forced to go to extreme lengths. I built a huge tank deep underground (to screen out interference from cosmic rays) and lined it with sensitive detectors to pick up the flashes from the secondary particle collisions. Then, with all the instruments tested and calibrated, I travelled back to the surface, made a cup of tea, and waited.

Just like the previous experiment, the high-energy neutrinos appeared to arrive 60 nanoseconds early. I also noted, to my surprise, that the characteristic energy spectrum was back-to-front. After puzzling over this at length, thinking about extra dimensions and wormholes and the like, I reached an epiphany: The effect could be explained if the neutrinos were colliding with nucleons to create antimatter particles instead of particles made of normal matter. In a Feynman diagram, an antiparticle travelling forwards in time can be regarded as being the same as a particle made of normal matter travelling backwards in time. To put it another way, the neutrino doesn’t travel at a superluminal velocity, but the two particles generated by its collision with a nucleon are knocked backwards in time until they annihilate with other particles to release the detectable flashes.

Two predictions came out of my theory:

1) A neutrino colliding with a nucleon to form antimatter products will always “appear” to arrive approximately 60 nanoseconds early, regardless of how far it’s travelled (explaining why neutrinos from supernova 1987A weren’t detected four years early).

2) The characteristic excitation energies of such an interaction will be detected in reverse order than would normally be expected because one particle travels slightly further back in time than the other one.

My findings caused a great stir in the physics world and I was fast-tracked to a Nobel Prize. However, as I was about to collect my award, I realised that my theory made a third prediction: if neutrinos are travelling slower than we previously thought, this also means that they’re more massive than we previously thought. At the very moment I arrived at this revelation, every single neutrino in the universe - by some weird mishmash of the Uncertainty Principle and a reverse Anthropic Principle – simultaneously gained in mass, causing the universe to rapidly collapse under the weight of its newfound hypocrisy. This development, as you can imagine, did not go down well with the Nobel committee, or indeed with the general populace as news got out that I’d inadvertently brought the cosmos to a premature end simply by thinking about it too much.

As I cowered behind my door, the only remaining question was whether the angry torch-wielding mob bearing down on my house would crush me into a singularity before all the inrushing stars and galaxies did.

At which point I woke up and realised what a load of bunkum this all was.

At least, I think I did.

   

Departure Lounge

Making needless small talk on my wrist-phone
I don't have to shout to make myself heard
Over all the cardboard people trading
All their cardboard hopes and cardboard dreams

In the gilded light of a setting sun
That never quite reaches the horizon
Calm and unhurried, we stir our coffees
Every inch the sophisticated couple

So much light and so much space and so much time
Our levels never slump
Our tempers never fray
Our choices never made

This is how the future looked
In books when I was a kid
We're not going anywhere
But we could if we wanted to
  

Hello Cruel World

Just as I’m becoming resigned to spending the rest of my life on a remote island, a film crew arrives to shoot a reality TV show called Celebrity Lord of the Flies (clearly, none of them have read the novel) and suddenly I’m thrust back into civilisation.

However, it doesn’t take long for me to realise that my long spell of isolation has changed me, perhaps permanently. Far from being relieved at rejoining the hustle and bustle of 21^st Century life, I instead find myself yearning for solitude and silence, the simple pleasures of standing alone on an undisturbed beach, or watching a sky that hasn’t been crossed out by vapour trails. I no longer have any tolerance for small talk. Just being around other people for more than a few minutes induces pounding headaches in my temples and around my eyes. I have become so indifferent to all forms of social interaction I might as well be on an alien planet.

That last thought strikes me like a thunderbolt. The solution to my problem is obvious. I must leave Earth entirely and set up home on a new world free from clutter and advertisements and celebrities who fail to appreciate the in-joke of a microphone shaped like a conch shell. I quickly set about designing a spaceship capable of interstellar travel, as well as a hibernation system that will keep me alive for the duration of my long journey. Fortunately, an eccentric Russian multi-billionaire agrees to fund my mission, and – as the construction of my ship, the Magellan, gathers pace – I choose my destination: a planet orbiting within the habitable zone of the Gliese 581 system.

Then, at last, launch day arrives. Predictably, my mission has attracted much media attention, and as I prepare to don my helmet and board the ship an interviewer sticks a microphone in my face and asks me why I hate people so much.

"I don’t hate anyone; I like people," I reply, correcting her. "Just not necessarily on the same planet as me."

The launch of the Magellan passes without further incident. I set a course for Gliese 581, sever all remaining communications with Earth and settle down for 400 years of uninterrupted dreamless sleep.

*   *   *

I open my eyes to see some reassuring messages gleaming on the monitor in front of my face: “G581g Orbital Insertion and Entry Phase completed. Gravity & Atmosphere within safe parameters. Activating Hibernation Wake-up sequence…” Anxious to explore my new home, I push open the hatch and the first thing I see is a large strip of bunting with my name on it, along with the words:

WELCOM 2 SIMONCOWELL134

(Brought 2 U in associashun wif NewsCorpGalactic)

I hear clapping and cheering and I look down to see a welcoming party of about a dozen people, the men dressed in strange hooded suits. One of the party, a girl with chameleonic hair, steps forward and says, “Sry we doan has fireworkz, but we are havin finanshul crisis.”

I glance up as a giant airliner passes overhead, trailing twin plumes of thick grey smoke across the pink sky. Then I look back at the girl and say, “What the f*** is going on?”

*   *   *

After being subjected to a barrage of unnecessarily complicated handshakes, I’m ushered to a waiting car, where the girl, whose name is S-FitS (short for SmileyFaceInTheSky, apparently), tells me – as best as I can understand her – that I’ve been invited to a civic reception. Fortunately, the robot driver is programmed to speak in multiple languages including, thankfully, English in the way I remember it. As we drive through an ugly grey forest of tower-blocks and shopping complexes stretching as far as the eye can see, the robot explains the situation to me. About ten years after I left for Gliese 581, some scientists came up with a faster-than-light engine by working on the principle that – assuming you could travel anywhere almost instantaneously – on arriving at your destination you’d see the Earth as it was long before you’d even left it, so you could then return home using the same technique and tell yourself exactly how you did it. Or something like that.

“The bottom line is,” the robot says, “everyone got here before you.”

“And no one thought to at least try and warn me?”

“You wuz asleep, an ud turnd ur ring-tone off,” S-FitS says, her hair flashing through various shades of red. “Wut wuz we gonna do?”

A sheet of flame suddenly rises up in front of us and the driver swerves to avoid it. At the same time a gang of rioters charge across the street, their arms loaded with holographic projectors and other equipment. A group of policemen watch them from outside a fast-food shop, but do nothing.

“What’s going on? Why aren’t the police stopping those looters?”

“They’re not looters, they’re members of Parliament,” the driver replies.

“But they’re stealing all that stuff!”

“Quickr than claimin it on expensez,” S-FitS says, fiddling with her now turquoise hair. Then she looks at me and says, “You must be starvin. Wants cheezburger?”

We pull up at a drive-in and the vendor says, "Dat’ll be two warm turdz plz."

"Pardon me?"

"The inflation on this planet is so badly out of control that a handful of your own s**t is actually worth more than a hundred trillion Trump dollars,” the driver explains. "Which is just as well because the toilets don't work any more." He swivels towards the vendor and says, “Can we have some petrol too?”

“Petrol?” My mouth falls open. “Four hundred years … and the cars are still running on petrol?”

The driver swivels back to face me. “That’s right. No one bothered to look for alternative fuels because this planet’s moon is rich in hydrocarbons. Well … it was rich in hydrocarbons. Some terrorists set fire to it ten years ago and it’s been burning ever since.”

S-FitS reaches down the back of her trousers and grimaces. “Has you got any change?”

*   *   *

Later, while no one’s looking, I duck out of the reception and slip away to the rooftop beach garden, where a handful of holographic fish circle around a chunk of synthetic reef decorated with plastic seashells. A huge blimp in the shape of a cat glides alongside the building and as soon as it detects me looking at it, the slogan –

YOU CAN HAS TEH WHITR TEEF YOU DESIRE

- appears on its flank. A volley of bottles and other missiles fly up from the street below and the cat blimp moves away. I sit down on the artificial sand and watch as the burning moon rises over the burning ghettos. I have to admit it does look strangely beautiful, though I suppose even a mushroom cloud can look beautiful from a safe distance.

My instinct is to find my ship and get away from this planet as fast as possible, but even if I could get the Magellan in working order again, where would I go? The robot driver told me that this is just one of at least eight hundred planets all called Simoncowell. Apparently they were supposed to be named after the winning acts from all his talent shows, but nobody could ever remember what they were called so they just defaulted back to “Simoncowell”. The driver also told me that most of them became uninhabitable within a century of humans arriving.

It’s a sorry state of affairs: an endless cycle of greed, corruption and downright incompetence leaving a trail of broken, used-up planets from one end of the galaxy to the other. You’d think we’d have learned something from all our mistakes on Earth, but…

Still, I guess there’s always the end of the universe to look forward to.

   

Three for the price of none

Here, for your reading pleasure, are links to not one, not two, but three more screenplays from my twisted imagination, with some background notes below for those who are interested in that sort of detail. And yes, I know most of you are only going to click on the first one because it's got "sexy girls" in the title, but it's really not that sexy (and the other two are even better, in my opinion).

As always, the usual caveats about strong language, violence, etc. apply to these scripts (particularly the second one): 

One of our sexy girls wants to meet you

A nightmarish tale about sp@m, in all its various forms. I should point out that I have nothing against the Royal Mail or its postmen (shooting the messenger doesn't solve anything - as the protagonist of this story finds out), but I do think that sp@mmers should be forced to read every single one of their worthless junk messages. Out loud. While listening to Cher Lloyd's Swagger Jagger being played on a continuous loop. And while being subjected to paper cuts.

Famous Belgians

Famous Belgians (presented here as a rough draft) was supposed to be my entry for this year's British Short Screenplay Competition, but very soon into the writing it became clear that the length was going to be problematic. Given more time I could probably have squeezed a 15-page version out of it ... but then it wouldn't be called Famous Belgians any more. And I think it works better in a more leisurely "road trip" format anyway.

This won't mean a lot until you've read it, but the MacGuffin - so to speak - for this script was originally going to be printer ink, as I wanted to use a very expensive "thing" that was different from all the guns and drugs that usually inhabit this kind of story. But then I thought of something much better ... and much more gross. You have been warned...

Hitting It Off

A good example of how much a finished script/story can change from the initial idea, this was originally conceived as the story of a relationship - from first meeting through to the wedding ceremony - told entirely as a series of quickfire Q&A exchanges ("cats or dogs", "chocolate or ice-cream", "I will, I won't", that kind of thing). However, as is so often the case, it soon became obvious during the process of transferring it from my brain to the page that the idea, frankly, sucked. It's the sort of gimmick that might just fly as a single one-minute TV advert, but I couldn't see any way of making it work over five or more pages without the couple coming across as deeply annoying in the way that only a TV advert couple can (I'm looking at you, Gold Blend and British Telecom). So, with the exception of just one question, the quickfire material was ditched in favour of a more conventionally structured story of three consecutive speed dates. It's dialogue-heavy (even by my standards), but all the better for it, I think.

Would people talk like that on a real date? Almost certainly not, but the inarticulacy of a true-life conversation wouldn't make for very good reading, would it?

See also:
The Money Shot - a short screenplay
Lovestruck - a short screenplay
The Centre of Attention 
Other screenplay-related posts

Screenplays page
    

The words are coming out all weird

I wake early, but instead of drifting off back to sleep like I usually do, I find myself watching the dawn light creeping through the gap at the top of the curtains. Eventually I decide I might as well get up and take a walk down to the beach. My arrival coincides with a bank of fog rolling in off the sea, swirling up against the cliff-face and enveloping everything in an unseasonable chill.

As I make my way along the beach an imposing figure clad in a black cloak looms out of the mist in front of me. It could be just the cold seeping into my bones, but an air of unspeakable dread and hopelessness seems to hang about the figure, draining all life and colour from the world around him. Without uttering a single word, he raises his hand and points to a nearby rock, upon which – to my surprise – rests a game of Travel Scrabble, all set up and ready to play.

"I've seen Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey," I tell him. "If this is going to come down to a game of Twister, you can forget it right now, because I've got a bad back."

The cloaked figure sighs. "No Twister. No Battleship. Just a single game of Scrabble." He takes a position on one side of the rock and beckons for me to do likewise. "Now play."

"Do we really have to do this now?" I ask him. "I haven't had any breakfast yet."

He looks at me with his stark white face. "Play."

Reluctantly, I take my place on the opposite side of the rock. "I was just kidding about the Bill and Ted thing. Anyway, I thought chess was your speciality."

"It is," he says, "but from a writer's perspective, Scrabble gives you so much more material to work with." His pale lips bend into a thin smile. "You'll see."

We draw our tiles and my opponent goes first, leading out with the word NECROSE to use up all his letters and gain a 50-point bonus.

"'Necrose'?" I complain. "We've barely started and you're already making stuff up."

The figure pulls out a pocket dictionary and shows me that "necrose" is indeed a word. "Now your turn."

I look down at my tiles: SRWLECU. Maybe I'm not fully awake yet, but for whatever reason the only words that pop into my head are nonsensical ones like SLUC and WULS. It's like one of those dreams where you're trying to run, but your legs feel like they're stuck in quicksand. "You have an unfair advantage," I grumble. "It's years since I last played Scrabble. You've probably memorised all the obscure high-scoring words that the professionals use."

The figure sighs again. "I have a deck of cards in my pocket. Would you rather we played Texas hold 'em heads-up?"

"No thanks. You've probably marked the backs." I move the tiles around desperately while my opponent drums his fingers on the rock. Eventually, I settle on the word CRUEL for a modest score. A few moments later a fluting, almost unearthly sound echoes out the mist – the unmistakeable call of ... a curlew.

"Damn, I could have had a seven-letter word if I'd waited a few more seconds. That was your fault; you rushed me into making a move."

My opponent responds by laying out EXPIRE for another big score.

A few turns later and I'm lagging even further behind on points. I stare furiously at my tiles, as if willpower alone can force them into something coherent.

"I thought you were supposed to be good with words," the figure says.

"So did I." The curlew calls again, much fainter and further away now. "I've never been much of a morning person. To tell you the truth, my vocabulary doesn’t really kick in until after six o'clock in the evening."

"When most people have just finished their working hours," the figure remarks. "How unfortunate for you."

"Tell me about it."

Somehow I manage to form QUIET out of QUSTEUI, but my opponent immediately adds a U and an S to make QUIETUS – bagging himself a tidy triple word score in the bargain; a score I could have had ... if only I'd thought of it.

"Could we hurry this up?" the figure says as I shuffle my tiles for the umpteenth time, struggling with my ill-timed bout of inarticulacy. "All this sand and saltwater is playing havoc with my cloak."

"You think I give a damn about your lousy cape? You're the one who chose to play here."

"Hey, I'm just doing my job. No need to start ragging on me." My opponent gazes out to sea. The mist is starting to clear. Now the wind farm is visible, along with at least a dozen cargo ships spaced out along the horizon. "Look at all those ships," the figure says, with a distinct note of regret in his voice. "I should have been a pirate."

"So what's stopping you?" I ask. "Do you take any pleasure in what you're doing now?"

"Not really. But it's reliable, you know? A constant stream of clients, paid holiday, generous Christmas bonus, good pension plan." He shrugs. "If I throw it all away to become a pirate, I lose that security. The rewards might dry up in a year, maybe sooner."

"Well, would you rather be happy for a year or miserable for a lifetime?"

The figure mulls on the question for a long time. "When you put it like that, it does sound tempting. You know, I might just give piracy a go after all." He smiles. "After we've finished playing."
   

The Footsteps

You can't pinpoint exactly when you first became aware of the noise, but it feels like it's been there a long time, faintly thrumming away inside your head. It has the steady, rhythmic quality of a metronome or of a ticking clock, but at the same time there's something organic about it, something deliberate, something calculated, like…

...footsteps.

It makes itself known in the quiet interludes of your day-to-day existence, seeping into the spaces that would otherwise be given to aimless reverie; the moments spent gazing out of a window without really looking at anything, the stillness that settles over a room after you switch off a TV or a radio, the dark of your bedroom as you try to sleep.

You wander about your home with your head cocked to one side, straining to listen above the buzz of the fridge and the other ambient sounds of your environment, but the noise only seems to exist inside your own head. Even when you're not consciously aware of it, it's always there, waiting...

And now it's getting louder.

Slow, remorseless ... crunch ... crunch ... crunch ... like boots marching through wet gravel. It's part of your life now; that insidious, unwanted soundtrack to your day, and – increasingly – your nights too, infiltrating your dreams and periodically jolting you back to wakefulness. And even though the source can only be internal, there's a growing, nagging sensation that something is coming ... and it's coming for you.

You explain your situation to the doctor and he performs a series of tests - all of which find nothing. He says he wants to help you, but despite all the sympathetic smiles and the little shows of concern, you know he thinks you're making it up. They all do. You leave the surgery in a foul mood, and the footsteps follow you every inch of the way. You know there's no one behind you, but you can't help glancing over your shoulder. By the time you arrive back at your door, the noise has become so insistent it's all but forced you to march in step. And this in turn makes you aware of another development – a subtle quickening of pace. The footsteps aren't only getting louder; they're getting faster too.

Soon, every waking thought is taken up with that infernal noise. CRUNCH ... CRUNCH ... CRUNCH. Sleep is all but impossible, your days and nights merging to envelop you in a low-functioning state of uninterrupted consciousness. Yet, almost out of desperation, you stubbornly cling to your old routine – the only thing still connecting you to the old life, the life before the footsteps. You go to bed at the usual time, switching the light off, pulling the duvet up to your chin, clamping your eyes shut, and for the next hour or two all you can do is listen.

CRUNCH ... CRUNCH ... CRUNCH ...

And then, unexpectedly ... silence. A silence more deathly and more complete than anything you could have imagined. You would never have believed it before, but the sudden absence of the noise is more terrifying than the noise itself. Because you know, with absolute certainty, that there's something else in the room with you.

Your eyelids flick open and there it is: a figure dressed from head-to-toe in white, standing motionless at the foot of your bed. It appears to generate its own dim light, but it's a light that radiates no warmth. Its face is hidden, but even that detail provides no comfort. Then, with an almost agonising slowness, and without making a sound, the figure raises one arm and points at you. It shouldn’t be able to reach you from there, but the shadow of its finger snakes inexorably across the bedclothes towards your face. You open your mouth to cry out, but your last breath has long since left your throat.

Leaving only a frozen scream behind.