THE TRAVELLER Part Three, a short story by actung. Date added: 2012-06-13. Times viewed: 551.
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- Intro: Third of four parts.
7.
Ollie, his aunt Vicki, Jean and mutual friend Kirsten arrived together at the town’s sports club, the venue for Ollie’s party. They were the first to arrive obviously enough. Ollie wanted to be there to greet the guests as they arrived and if something was to happen he could count on Jean to cover for him. Ollie and Vickie got to talking to staff members at the club. Kirsten helped Jean out with finishing off the decorating.
‘So you and Ollie, what is up between you two?’ asked Kirsten.
‘Are you trying to imply that Ollie and I are more than just friends?’
‘I am not implying or suggesting anything of the sort’.
‘For your information there is nothing going on. We are nothing more than just friends’.
Kirsten just stopped for a moment and stared over at her friend.
‘What?’ asked Jean reacting to Kirsten’s stare with a smile.
‘Nothing .... You are emanating a glow of positivity’.
‘Emanating a glow of positivity? Really?’ Jean spoke with an element of sarcasm and a slight giggle. ‘Honestly we are just friends despite the fact that there has been opportunity for more’.
It wasn’t long before the sports club began to fill up. Family, friends, and friends of friends turned up and there were even two people who turned up who were of no affiliation to anybody who had anything to do with Ollie. Ollie noticed them as soon as they entered the club. These uninvited guests, one male and one female, smiled when Ollie looked over toward them, the lady even threw a wave at Ollie.
These two strangers were unsure as to if they should approach the young man whose attention they had attracted but approach him they did.
‘You are he aren’t you?’ asked the man waving a finger in Ollie’s direction.
‘He who?’ asked Ollie.
‘You are, it is you. Isn’t it?’ asked the woman. ‘We have to get a photo’.
‘Oh yes we have to get a photo’ spoke the man.
‘No. There will be no photos. This is a party. If the two of you would like to stay here, then go get yourselves a drink and take a seat’.
‘Everything ok?’ asked Jean who approached noticing that Ollie was becoming frustrated. She was becoming an expert at reading his body language.
‘Yeah, we just seem to have a couple of strange gate crashers’ responded Ollie.
Jean watched as the couple moved towards the clubs bar, when she turned back towards Ollie, he was gone, vanished. The couple at the bar turned to each other. They were happy knowing that they were definitely correct in their assumption.
‘Ah crap’ spoke Jean.
Ollie appeared down his local town village. It was bright and warm and as far as he could tell no one noticed his appearance. He began to make his way toward the town centre. Only a moment or two after he began walking Ollie noticed her off in the distance. His mother was walking towards him.
His first thought was to warn his mother of what was to come but then he remembered what his older self had told him. If Ollie saves his mother then that action would lead to the death of his aunt Vicki and also the death of his good friend Jean.
Ollie stood where he was until his mother had passed right by him. She glanced at the young man as she passed him, continued on her way then stopped and turned. It was almost as if she knew something. However when she had turned, the young man had begun to walk away. Jackie continued on her original path. Ollie turned and followed keeping his distance. He noticed on a newspaper in a nearby newsagent that the date was indeed the date where his mother was attacked and killed.
The moment came when Jackie took her bankcard out of her purse to use at an atm machine. Ollie kept his distance and began to think.
‘Why am I here if I am not to save my mother? Why do I have this ability if I cannot use it? Do I really need to witness this? I do not have to be here. I can just walk away and keep walking until I return to where I should be’.
Ollie was about to walk away when he notice a hooded man move up right behind his mother. Being compelled to watch Ollie would be hit with a shocker. In the tussle between this man and his mother, the man’s hood came off his head to reveal the man’s identity. Jackie’s attacker, the man who was about to kill her, was the very same man who had chased Ollie when he had appeared near to another attack.
Jackie was not backing down so her attacker took out a knife. Ollie called out a ‘no’, began to move towards the attack and vanished. He reappeared at his own eighteenth birthday party still shouting out ‘no’ and fell flat on his face.
‘Oh boy’ spoke Jean as she went to aid her friend.
8.
It would be the day after Ollie’s eighteenth birthday party when Jean would finally get to ask Ollie what had happened when he vanished from his own party. Ollie sat on his own bed and Jean sat on a chair made from wicker which was by a desk nearby to the bed.
‘It was him, the man who came after me. I saw him attack my mum at an atm machine. He pulled out a knife just before I returned to the party’. Ollie began to cry.
‘Oh Ollie’. Jean hugged her friend.
‘I did nothing. Didn’t do anything at all to stop it. I watched her walk right towards me. I said nothing and she passed right by me. I could have saved my mother but I did nothing’.
‘Maybe you are not meant to save her’.
‘Then why was I there? Why the hell did I need to watch my mother fight this ... this whatever he was or is?’
‘You returned to the party right at the moment you were about to interfere, that would suggest to me that maybe it was just one of those things that was meant to be. I can only imagine how difficult it is to lose a parent but then watch it happen too’.
‘Then who decides this crap? I did not want or ask for this ability if that is what it can be called?’ Ollie’s anger was clear to see. ‘Is it god who is bouncing me around in time? Does he decide where and when I go? Is there a purpose to any of this’.
‘Ollie I don’t have any of these answer, though I am here for you and I am glad that you trust me enough to let me in. Bottling any or all of this up could only do no good’.
‘I know and I am both lucky and grateful to have you’ spoke Ollie with much more calm in his voice than what he had a moment earlier.
Ollie and Jean looked each other in the eyes and both were about to lean in towards each other at the same time when aunt Vicki let out a shout calling for Ollie looking to grab his attention.
‘It is all about time, I have both too much of it and not enough’ spoke Ollie to himself. ‘Yeah, what is it? Everything ok?’ he asked in response to his aunt.
‘You have a visitor’.
‘Ok I will be down in a sec’.
‘I will leave you to it’ Jean told Ollie before giving him a brief kiss on the lips. Ollie looked her in the eyes and smiled. The two went down stairs together and Jean said her goodbye before heading out the front door.
Ollie made his way into the living room where a visitor was awaiting him.
‘Sorry do I know you?’ asked Ollie.
‘You do indeed, well at least you will do. We will spend quite a bit of time together over the next three years’.
‘Well then for me this is the first time we meet so right now I have no clue as to who you are’.
‘I know. I am sorry. I should have introduced myself when you walked in here. My name is Clinton Adams. At this point in my life I am twenty two. I am like you a traveller however I guess in this moment of time it will be four years before I am born’.
‘Really? I know what this thing I have is and how it works but why are we to spend so much time together over the next three years if you are yet to be born?’
‘You still think of time as something which is linear and moves along one path in a straight line. I am here to help you change that way of thinking and to help you get past the emotional difficulties you are having too’.
‘Difficulties?’
‘Yeah, you see you are the first. Even though I am going to try and get you to not think of time as being linear, you still are the first, the first of many who have this ability we do. Boundaries are going to have to be set and you are the one to set those boundaries. People cannot just go around and change what they want to change, it causes and creates havoc’.
‘Isn’t that what you are doing right now? Causing havoc in your own way’.
‘What I am doing is the right thing to do. It needs to be done’.
Before the conversation could go any further Ollie once more vanished. His visitor Clinton was able to follow him. What transpired next is unclear as Ollie awoke back in his living room. He was lying on the ground and had blood on his clothing. Before Ollie could begin to make sense of what was happening, sirens went off outside as three squad cars pulled up.
‘What is going on?’ asked Vicki as she came into the living room. ‘Oh my God Ollie what have you done? Where is your friend?’
‘I ... I ... I don’t know’ was all Ollie could manage in a reply, holding his hands out in front of him. They were dirty and had trace of blood on them. Ollie’s eyes opened wide as he struggled to remember what happened.
Police knocked at the door. Vicki answered.
‘Madam, would Ollie Watson be home?’ asked one of the two officers standing at the front door.
Being half in shock Vicki did not know how to reply. Ollie walked out into the hallway and both officers drew their guns. Vicki let out a scream and moved back into the hallway.
‘Sir’ spoke the officer ‘I need you to place both your hands on your head and for you to step outside’.
Ollie complied. His hands were handcuffed behind his back prior to him being brought to one of the squad cars and placed in towards the back seat. Ollie could do nothing but sit lost in a daze. He had no idea what had happened, not idea of whom it was that had visited him. Where did he go when he had travelled? If indeed he had travelled at all. He must have travelled. How else could he explain the stains on his clothing and hands as well as a sudden arrival of the police? Just as if they know or suspect something that he doesn’t.
Sitting alone in a police holding cell Ollie would only temporarily be left with his thoughts. He would once again receive a visitor and it just so happened that the visitor was the same visitor who had been waiting for him back at home. Ollie immediately had questions.
‘Hello again my friend’ spoke Clinton.
‘First of all you are not my friend, at least not yet anyway. Secondly how did you get here? Can you control your travelling? And thirdly do you know what happened to me?’
‘Ah I am slightly saddened by your comment but since for you this is only our second meeting then I am willing to let it pass. As for your questions they can all be answered be answered with the same word and that would be a yes’.
‘Then I guess you know what is coming next, that would be me asking a how? And a why?’
‘I will explain the how at some other moment, but as for the why, well Ollie I needed to show you what happens when time is altered and messed with. I did set you up. When we had our first, well for you it was our first conversation you travelled and I was able to follow you and I will explain how I did that at another time too. I set you up to show you what can happen when people have the free will to go back in time and change a moment to their advantage’.
‘So you can change this?’ Ollie asked with relief anticipating the answer.
‘I sure can’.
With that Clinton disappeared and the holding cell Ollie sat in soon became the living room at home. His aunt came into the room with refreshments.
‘Ah is your friend gone already? I didn’t hear him leave’.
Ollie just smiled being relieved to be back home.
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