I awoke to a new day and felt totally refreshed after the best nights sleep I had had for months but I was not in my own bed at home or in any other bed I should recognise, instead I was lying on a bunk in what appeared to be a hospital. But I couldn’t remember or imagine why I should be in such a place unless something unusual had occurred at last night’s party where I had been the guest of honour at a lavish celebration organised by my staff to mark my retirement from the company I founded almost forty years ago. It was their way of saying “Thanks” for the good years we had together, and what a party it was to be sure, well it must be because somewhere in the wee hours I slipped quietly into oblivion and that was all I remember until I awoke in this strange place.
I was blessed to have had the services of such a loyal and successful group of technicians and assistants who had served me faithfully and put-up with my many unreasonable demands over the years. They have been well rewarded for their hard work and dedication and they are all are major shareholders in a blue-chip company. Now at seventy-five years of age I would reluctantly bid “farewell” to everything that had been so important to me for so long. I will leave with the knowledge that the company is very strong and in the safe hands and not in need of a chairman who can no longer function to maximum capacity. I have noticed recently the signs of approaching senility… old age catches up with us all.
But where am I and why am I here? I’m in what resembles a hospital room, but it’s not like any I have seen before but it has that certain smell and clinical-cleanliness feeling about it. The room is cylindrical in shape, the only furnishings being the bunk that I’m lying on and a small desk and seat that seem to be cast into and forming part of the wall. On the roof above my bunk I see a digital display that is slowly counting down or going backwards whichever way one interprets is movement. Apart from that the room is bare with the walls and the ceiling decorated in an unusual greyish green colour or is it brown or white, it’s difficult to ascertain because the décor appears to be changing hues as I watch, unless my eyes are playing tricks on me. A faint hum almost resembling the rhythm of a powerful heartbeat permeates the room. I’m alone here in this cell-like compartment but I’m not afraid, in fact I feel really well, safe, secure…it’s almost uncanny.
Although my body is completely nude and there are no apparent covers over me a pleasant warmth envelops my whole being making me feel completely relaxed and at ease. If there was some way of experiencing life in the womb I reckon this would be similar. I feel as if I could just lie there forever, safe in the security of my virtual mother but that was not to be because I am a man of action. There must be something that needs doing. I try to sit-up only to discover that I’m unable to do so as my body appears to be restrained to the bunk with invisible bonds and it’s then I begin to feel concerned and thrash about trying my hardest to get free form whatever was holding me captive flat on my back and defenceless. I must have achieved my purpose because suddenly my right arm jerked free and my fist lashed hard into the wall beside my bunk. The wall reacted and moved away from the pressure of my knuckles and a small voice I believe to be female cried; ’OUCH’ and then sternly ‘You shouldn’t be awake yet…this is indeed a problem.’
What the hell! The wall is alive and talking to me…that can’t be right. I must be hallucinating; they must have spiked my Guinness, I thought. And there it goes again…that talking wall. It’s a male voice this time.
‘Don’t panic N Six… we do have a slight problem but it’s nothing we can’t handle, it has happened many times before…they wake up and they panic… we just erase the memory entirely and send them back to attend to their roses and they never know anything unusual happened or that they have been here. You leave it to me N Six…I’ll handle this problem. It’s my job to deal with the unexpected.’
‘Thanks D One. You take over the procedure from now?’
‘Mr O Sullivan! We have a problem… you shouldn’t be awake yet! N Six hasn’t finished her work on you so we may have to reverse the process.’ The talking wall chided.
‘What the hell’s going on?’ I demanded. ‘Where am I and what are you doing to me?’
‘You are in one of our debriefing and regeneration units where we prepare people like you for retirement on your world.’ The voice answered
‘I have retired…yesterday.’ I shouted. ‘And why is that bloody clock going backwards?’
‘We know you are scheduled to retire to-morrow the 30th of June and that’s why the clock is going in reverse, you see we have the ability to play around with time. Here we are the masters of time… we are not its slaves. In fact we can do as we wish with time because the past, present and future are as one in this world.’
‘What are you telling me?’ I demanded.
‘You have not retired yet on your world because we have not debriefed you properly. You have to do what is expected of you…you have no option. You are not capable of continuing in the important position you have held for many years but you just can’t walk away without making the final contribution and for that you need our assistance.’
‘Who in Gods name are you, are you telling me that you have abducted me and I am no longer on Earth?’
‘You are on Earth but it’s not your Earth, this Earth is in another dimension but occupying the same space… this is an anti-matter world where we can do much more with time than you can. My identity is of no importance and we work for a much higher authority. They are the controllers of the universe…we are the workers and we carry out their commands. One of our tasks is to recover data from the brilliant minds on your Earth and to safeguard that knowledge for the future and betterment of all of mankind. You are retiring because it’s time and you have been suffering a degree of short term memory loss…that’s why you are here.’
‘You have two choices in the dilemma we now face, you can have all memory of this encounter erased from your mind and that is what I would have done to you but for the intervention of my Superior Being from above. As you appear to be in a somewhat privileged category and may be considered of future use to the Lords of Time, you can choose to have that procedure done and have no memory of this encounter remain. The other choice is to go back and tell the world all about your adventure here. Of course no one will believe you, they will laugh at you as they have for years laughed at those who have seen UFO’s and such. They will ridicule everything you tell them and you will be called an idiot, a madman or worse but you know something they don’t…The Truth Is Out There.
‘The choice Mr O Sullivan is your’s. If you do choose the second option you can join a creative writing group… science fiction is always in demand.