I would like to present to you my first ever attempt at writing a short story in many years. I don’t know the last time I tried to do something like this. It was probably when I sat my English Language exam in 1981! Anyway, I’ve come to really enjoy writing these posts on Yahoo 360 and I thought it was high time I put my ‘undiscovered’ story-writing talent to the test, especially since I’ve set myself an ambitious plan to write a children’s book in the near future.So here it comes… part one! Feel free to tell me what a pile of …. you think it is, or whatever!! I promised someone I would write about Albert and Leo, following on from my last post… it’s probably not quite what she was expecting… but hey, I like surprises!! More to come in part two… eventually!
My Meeting with Albert and Leo – Part One
I opened the door to my newly acquired time traveling machine. The year in which I landed was 1954. The location was Princeton in New Jersey just inside the drawing room of the home to someone I was about to meet for the first time. I’d been looking forward to meeting this gentleman for sometime and now here I was at the threshold of this really exciting moment, well, exciting in a ‘relative’ sort of way!
Somehow, inadvertently I had managed to position the time machine so that I was facing the window. As I stepped outside the machine doors, I found myself looking directly out of the window of this man’s home. I laughed to myself because I couldn’t have chosen a worse day weather-wise to arrive into this supposedly carefully selected moment of time.
The wind was blowing a howling gale outside and the rain was thrashing hard against the pane of the window. Sat on the sill was this cat – most depressed looking he was too! ‘Ah’ I thought, ‘that’ll be his moggy’. He was perched there staring out of the window with the gloomiest expression that you could ever imagine on a cat; his tail was hanging limp down by the wall of the sill. I went over to where he was perched and stroked his back. He turned his head briefly in my direction and without any element of surprise in his face, he just turned back to staring through the window. ‘Now there’s one helluva-down-in-the-dumps feline’, I thought to myself.
I turned round and faced the room. It was a little dark and dingy, and full of the stains of pipe tobacco on all the fabrics and walls. There was a strong smell of pipe smoke in the room. This was actually a comfort to me in spite of the fact that it was nauseating, because it meant I’d surely set my time machine controls exactly correct. To my right was a fireplace with some almost burned through logs and glowing embers in the grate. The fading flames were adding a little extra light to the room with their soft flickering glow. The wind must have been blowing back a bit through the chimney, because there was a lot of soot and grey cooled embers scattered about the fire hearth.
Just a little distance from the fireplace was an armchair in which was sat quite an imposing figure of a man looking rather pale and elderly. He had white hair, kind of all scraggy and sticking out – you know like a mad scientist! Of course, that’s exactly how I’d have expected him to look! He is after all the very man who people have stereotyped as the image of a mad scientist. Not that he was, or should I say is a mad scientist? Now there was a trouble with being a time traveler; I didn’t know if I should address him in the present tense or the past! For back, or is it forward, in the time where I presently come from, he’s been dead more than fifty years.
Trust my luck to arrive when he’s fast asleep in the chair. I suppose, as an ageing man almost in the last year of his life I shouldn’t have been too surprised. In his right hand he was holding a pipe and almost about to drop it out of his hand. The other hand was propped over the armrest, and just below on the floor, there was the Times newspaper. He wasn’t at all smartly dressed; wearing a beige pullover and light green corduroys.
I decided to take a seat in the empty armchair next to his. My heart was beating so fast and loud, I was sure it was going to wake him. I was really very nervous indeed. All kinds of thoughts started to race through my mind. How should I wake him I thought? Do I tap him or call his name? How will he react to a strange man he’s never seen before, sitting in the drawing room of his own home? How was I going to explain to him, that the time machine standing there in front of his window is an amazing piece of technology, which has come about all because of his original studies? I wondered if he would he even understand an attempt by me to explain String Theory? I had a hundred and one questions on my mind, and they were all making me very nervous.
Suddenly, the urge to walk back to the time machine and abandon this mission right at that moment became very strong indeed. At that very same instant, there was a really strong gust of wind and it made a large branch snap off a tree just outside in the garden. It crashed to the ground with a loud crunch. My white-haired friend suddenly moved in his chair and he seemed almost to awaken. His eyes opened for a second, looking straight out at the window from where he heard the sound, and then he just seemed to go back into his slumber.
I breathed a sigh of relief and I thought oh what the hell – let’s go for it! ‘Albert’ I said softly. I hesitated a moment, should I be calling him by his first name or by his surname? What was the way in the 1950’s? Oh never mind protocol I decided. ‘Albert’, I said again a little louder. He slowly moved and opened his eyes and looked in my direction. There was smile on his face as he saw me and then he closed his eyes again. ‘Albert’, I said once more in a firmer voice. With his eyes remaining closed, he suddenly bent down to his side and picked up the newspaper from the floor. “Is it the time of the appointment already? I’d almost forgotten that I was to be expecting you Philip”.
Yikes! He knows my name! How in the devil’s name did he know I was going to be here? I started to feel panic rushing through my veins. This isn’t real, I must surely be in a dream, I didn’t really buy myself a time machine from Curry’s last week did I? Albert straightened himself in the chair and said, “You know what Phil, I was just in the middle of a strange dream about time machines! Funny old things our brains are!” My white-haired friend bent down and placed his pipe on the table. Then he shuffled his newspaper to make it neat and folded it. “I got your letter only the day before yesterday about our appointment.” He continued, “You have quite a list of questions you want to ask me!” There was a pause and Albert asked, “Could you care to get me the lighter and tobacco for my pipe?” “They’re on the fireplace shelf… and I vill a little t’ink!” he said. Albert smiled and gave me a wink.
‘Sure, it will be my pleasure’ I replied, with a kind of mystabewildered expression on my face. I got up and stepped over to the fireplace. ‘A letter! What letter?’ I half mumbled to myself, I don’t recall sending him any letter. I took hold of the lighter and tobacco packet, passed them over to him, and then I sat myself back down in the chair. I wasn’t at all sure if I really knew what I was doing. I had to keep focused on my mission.
As he was preparing his pipe, the scientist turned round to the window and said, “What a terribly atrocious day you’ve come on Phil. Hmmrf, look at poor ol’ Leo there!” Albert sympathised with Leo; “I know what’s wrong my dear fellow, but I don’t know how to turn it off! Poor ol’moggy!” ‘He looks quite the depressed cat, your Leo, doesn’t he?’ I suggested. “Yes quite” he said. Albert picked up the lighter and proceeded to puff his pipe alight. “Are you in the Montreal Pipe Smokers Club Phil?” he asked. ‘Erm, no I’m afraid not Albert, but, my Granddad might have been.’ I hesitated a moment and realised that my Granddad would now be alive in 1954. ‘Erm, I mean he might be I don’t really know.’ Albert responded, “Well, you don’t know what you’re missing. Pipe smoking contributes to a somewhat calm and objective judgment of human affairs.” I remembered one of Albert’s achievements and said to him, ‘I heard once that when you were boating one time you fell into the water but you heroically managed to save your pipe from drowning!’ “You heard about that Phil?” he replied as he chuckled quietly to himself.
Sai - I have had another bash at editing it and removing some earlier mistakes. Please, if there are any basic errors I keep repeating, let me know, because I want to learn! Thanks for the congrats! ;-)
More O Me & Ink Blogger: does that mean if Mrs has the wisdom and Mr has the power then their combination is likely to be a recipe for disaster?
I always have the greatest admiration for anyone who can put pen to paper...er, finger to keyboard...and bash out a story, especially if it's a good one like this. I look forward (or should that be backward? It's so hard to tell with time travel) to the next episode.
- Nigel
If this truly is your first ever effort at writing a short story, then I am so jealous. Your description of the living room was so atmospheric and I felt drawn in to it ... could smell the pipe tobacco. I am intrigued. I want to know why Leo is depressed, and how many times you've travelled back, since that letter HAS to have been posted in the past. I want to read more ....always a sure sign of a good writer to me. Well done Phil. Please can we have the next installment soon?
Sunday 11 March 2007 - 11:49AM (GMT)
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