The Watch – Part 220:

(Tom’s perspective)

Tim walked into the shop with me closely behind. I kept my head down as we headed to the counter. They shouldn’t recognise me if the cameras were out, so, technically, I don’t have anything to worry about?

‘Ah, Tim,’ the woman behind the counter greeted kindly. She had bright pink, curly hair that appeared to be freshly dyed, thick-rimmed glasses. Something’s telling me she likes pink as her eyeliner was also pink, her sweater was pink and she had a single pink ring on her ring finger. Yet, somehow, they all were at the right shade so to not clash with one another. I mean, if all the pink that she was wearing was vibrant, that would be quite sore on the eyes, but a couple were a bit dimmer than others. Actually, the more I looked at it, the more he sweater changed to purple.

‘Morning, Amber,’ Tim greeted equally as kindly.

‘You appear to have a new member, unfortunately speaking,’ Amber said, trying to make eye contact with me, but I made sure that I kept my head down. Tim looked at me with curiosity considering that I haven’t shown this type of behaviour before nor even hinted that I was in any way shy as I am being today.

‘Yeah, he joined us yesterday evening,’ Tim explained.

‘So what’s your story then,’ Amber said, trying to make a causal connection.

‘He said it’s complicated,’ Tim said when I didn’t answer. Standing on the scene of the crime is the worst place to be right now.

‘Ah, say no more,’ Amber said as if she understood perfectly, which she clearly does not. ‘Well, I’m sorry to hear that,’ she said, sympathetically.

‘Thanks,’ I said.

‘He does have a voice,’ Amber said, jokingly. I continued to keep my head down and didn’t say anything after that.

‘Ah, I think I’ve startled him,’ she said. ‘Well, I hadn’t better keep you for too long,’ and she lifted the hatch so that we were able to pass through.

‘We’ve got a good selection of sandwiches today,’ she said whilst opening the door to the back. ‘And you’re in luck because the delivery truck gave us two boxes of crisps that were all nearing their sell by date. We did put out a couple, just to sell a few, but there was no way we were going to sell all of them by tomorrow.’

‘That’s what I like to ‘ear,’ Tim said happily. Amber led us to the area at the back where the many boxes full of food sat. And there were a lot of boxes. At least seven. A couple were open, revealing their contents: Sandwiches, chocolate bars, crisps, sweets, biscuits, I wasn’t sure how we were going to carry all of these back to the site without either bumping into someone or dropping them all over the floor, but Amber stepped over a box, lent behind a wall connecting to the main building and pulled out a trolley. That’s more like it.

‘Load them up and bring the trolley back when you’re done,’ she said.

‘Will do,’ Tim said, and we set about grabbing the bigger boxes first, making sure they sat comfortably on the trolley before placing the smaller ones on top so to not allow them to move and fall off during the trip back.

‘Do you get this much every day?’ I asked, actually astonished.

‘Oh, yeah,’ he said as if it was obvious. ‘I know that it’s basically all junk food, but being outdoors all day, cold showers, and various other activities throughout the day ‘elps with keeping our weight in check.’

‘Fair enough,’ I said.

Once we had all the boxes stacked neatly, Tim turned around and unhooked the latch on the door in front of me. I pushed the trolley out, Tim shut the door and we started making our way back to the site.

‘So,’ Tim said. I knew what was about to follow. ‘Your story.’

I guess I have no choice in the matter. I have to tell him. Should I leave out a few bits or should I hit him with it all. Either tactic will generate a load of questions, the trouble is knowing which one is going to generate more. I guess it wouldn’t hurt if I did tell him the lot. What’s the… Nope, not saying that.

‘Are you sure you want to hear this,’ I said, not hiding the fact that I’m stalling for time. I need to think of what words to use in what order.

‘You’re making it sound as if it’s something horrible,’ Tim said, curiously and worried. You could say that.

‘Where do I start,’ I said, genuinely not meaning that sentence as a casual remark at how much there is, but because I literally have not a clue where to begin. I know I should start from the beginning, but when is the beginning. Well, that would probably be when the meteorites appeared out of nowhere.

‘OK,’ I said, taking a deep breath, readying myself for his reactions. ‘What would you say if I told you that parallel universes existed?’ I asked, my brain saying something different to what I wanted to say.

He did what I expected him to do, and look at me with a weird expression, before answering it. ‘I would say that you would ‘ave to provide some substantial amount of evidence proving that statement,’ he said, fairly. ‘When you say it’s complicated, are you going to say some scientific jargon, because I don’t understand any of that?’ he asked.

‘Neither do I,’ I admitted, ‘as much as I would like to, at least, anyway.’

‘Well,’ and now I have to be very careful, ‘I… Through various situations,’ I started to say slowly, ‘I ended up in a laboratory. Me and a friend were stuck there for a long period of time before we were released. Unfortunately for us,’ my confidence grew as I got into the flow of things, knowing exactly what I wanted to say. I wanted to deliberately leave out Sebastian, the watch, the fact that I wasn’t just stuck in a laboratory, and the person in charge, as that could lead to a fair few more complications than I frankly deserve right now, ‘when we were released, I ended up here and my friend ended up somewhere else. I now have to wait for my friend to come and get me,’ I realised that I made Amy sound as if she had the watch, but Tim doesn’t know that.

‘So, let me get this straight,’ he said, ‘you’re from a parallel universe.’ And that was all he got from that.

‘Like I said, it’s complicated,’ I shrugged, signalling that I wanted to move on, knowing that, that wouldn’t be possible. I think I was allowed myself to be pressured into doing what I didn’t want to do. I’m not comfortable with what I might have released out into the open.

Tim went silent, obviously trying to understand things, or even attempt to try and see if anything that I’ve just said could be believed.

‘You may need to elaborate on a few things,’ he said. ‘Like, all of it.’

‘I can’t give you any more information than what I’ve already told you,’ I said.

‘Is that because you’re contracted to do so, or… what?’ he asked. These weren’t the questions I was expecting. What do I say? If this goes any further, which it will, I’m hoping to steer this conversation towards the fact that I’m simply a normal person who became accidentally trapped here and all that I’m doing is waiting for someone to come and rescue me. The first half of that is very vaguely true, but the second part is a hundred percent true.

‘No, I –’

‘You look a little young to be in an organisation,’ Tim said. ‘Actually, you look a little young to be using that kind of technology. Are you sure you’re telling me the truth?’

‘I did say it was complicated,’ I said.

‘I know you did,’ he said, simply. ‘I’ll tell you what,’ he said after a couple of minutes, ‘’ow about we leave this for now, and maybe we can pick this up later on, when we’re not pulling nine boxes of food with us. Does that sound fair?’ he asked. That is actually something I can agree with, that way I can think of some of the answers to the many questions he’s going to have.

‘OK,’ I said.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)