Wrapped in a Leaf

            by James Green-Armytage

 

1.

Once upon a time, there was a man named John Driggs who lived in a beach community in the Caribbean Islands and worked as a clockmaker.

One day, someone came into his store who had a shell like a turtle. It was not something he wore; it was a part of his body, and covered his whole back and chest. He said his name was Simon. He gave John a blueprint for a very strange clock -- a kind of clock which John had never seen before. Nevertheless, the blueprint seemed clear enough, and John agreed to try and make the clock. Simon smiled and handed John three eggs before he left.

            When John was ready for lunch he decided to fry up one of the eggs, thinking that they were a sort of weird gesture of goodwill. But when he cracked it open, he found that it was filled with mercury. Looking again at the blueprint of the clock he saw that it indicated a series of mercury-containing chambers. But this quicksilver behaved strangely. It didn’t always quite seem to seek the lowest level. Sometimes, for an instant, some of it would slide back upwards, so that it always seemed to be moving slightly. John began to build the strange clock.

 

2.

            Later that day, John was playing capture the flag in a park near the beach. A friend of his on the other team named Alex had gotten the flag, and John was the only person left with the chance to tag him before he reached his own territory. When they were just a few feet apart, Alex faked east and John lunged. Alex dodged west past John and crossed the line, winning the game.

            Suddenly everything moved backwards together, a few seconds backwards, to just before Alex reached John. Again Alex faked east, but this time when he jumped to the west John jumped west too and tagged him.

 

3.

            After the game was over John went home with his wife Sandy. His feet hurt as he walked, and he wondered if something was wrong with them.

            John and Sandy lived in a small, pretty house amid light woods.  There was a path leading up to it and a grassy orchard behind it. As they reached the end of the path, John opened his arms and said to Sandy “Come here and be squozed!”

            Sandy’s face lit up, and she said “I don’t want to be sqozed!” She darted away into a run and John chased her. In the middle of the orchard he finally caught her in his arms and they fell into the grass.

            “You love being squozed,” said John, squeezing Sandy. She laughed and kissed him on the cheek.

 

4.

            The next day John continued to work on the strange clock.

 

5.

            While John was at work, Sandy noticed some chalk markings in the ground by their house. Maybe the markings were made and had already faded a long time ago, but were just now resurfacing.

            Sandy took a spade and began to dig under the markings. Soon she uncovered the entrance to an underground tunnel. She took a lamp with her and climbed down. She found that she was actually in a vast tunnel system carved in earth and rock. As she wandered through it, she found that it was far larger and more complicated than anything she could explore in a single day.

            Sandy entered a small room carved in earth and rock. Only her lamp lit the room. There was a mound of clay like a table and she reached down and picked up a small package that was lying on it. She saw that she was holding a few diamonds wrapped in a brown leaf. The words “Please help me” were scratched on the leaf in ball point pen.

 

6.

            It was Autumn. The air was fresh and enlivening, but also cold and sad. There was an apple tree by John and Sandy’s house which was decaying in a strange way; it was disappearing more quickly than seemed possible. Leaves and bark were dissolving into dust straight off the tree. Small branches would fall off and large branches would wear away.

The tree only produced one apple that Fall. When it fell, Sandy and John shared it. It was a wonderful apple, fresh and whole, containing the real sadness of the tree. When John’s lips were wet with the apple’s juices, they were stung by the cold air.

 

7.

            The next day at the shop, John completed the strange clock. He wound it. Taking a breath, he set it in motion.

            Suddenly, John was thrown years backward into his own past. John had grown up in the city, and he found himself there now. It was when he was a teenager, the same time and place. It wasn’t long before John found his own past self.

            They walked side by side down the city streets which were grey with the oncoming cold yet bright with an impossible hope. John spoke to young John, trying to give him advice based on what he had learned. “Try to be gentle and honest with people,” he said. “If you are antagonistic to anyone, they will probably be antagonistic in return. People’s standards for you are too various and confused to ever figure out. You can make it a lot simpler by just being kind to people. They may not all approve, but that’s scarcely possible anyway.”

            Young John stretched his eyes out as if to understand, but could he hear old John?

            Old John continued. He told his younger self exactly where and when to go to meet Sandy. He smiled warmly and said, “Out of the millions of girls in this world, she is one whom you can really love.”

            Young John had reached his school. He stopped and looked into old John’s eyes. His expression was anxious, maybe sad. He turned and walked inside.

 

8.

            Old John Driggs was walking through the city when he saw Simon standing ahead of him. Simon with the shell of a turtle. He saw that Simon was holding the strange clock. John didn’t understand this, because he was still holding the clock himself.

            “Congratulations!” said Simon. “The clock works!”

            “Thank you,” said John. “But what are you doing here?” asked John. “And how do you already have the clock?” The two sat down on a park bench.

            “You gave it to me,” said Simon. “You already used it to come back to the island. Then you sent word that it was ready, I came to pick it up, and I paid you for it. You mentioned that you had come back here to this city and time, so I thought that I would come and visit you.”

            John wondered, “Then do I still have to do all that, or is it already done? What if I decide to do otherwise? When the past is changed, what happens to the original history, the original world?”

            “I don’t know,” said Simon.

            John sat and thought. “How wonderful!” he said at last. “There are so many possibilities, so many ways it could be. It could so easily be something we haven’t even imagined! Maybe there are infinite histories, with more always being born. I wonder are there as many separate people as there are different histories? Or does one person live many times through various histories? I wonder if we can choose our history, if we can converge upon a single history where we are happy? Or maybe in the end we can come free from cause and effect altogether!”

            “Do you really think that all of that is possible?” asked Simon. There were tears in his eyes; a look of almost desperate hope.

 

            Simon does not have the shell of a turtle. He is an ordinary man, and he is seated with John Driggs in an ordinary apartment room, crying. The cold city winter outside comes in through the cracks in the windows.

 

9.

            Young John is fifteen years old, and he doesn’t know what to do with his life. Will he ever meet Sandy? What will happen to him if he can’t hear the voice of his future self?