It was a morning like every other, although this one didn’t turn out the way I thought it might, at least, not the beginning, as you'll find out. I woke up naturally around 4 30 or 5 am. By naturally, I mean without someone waking me, or an alarm clock. I am quite good at this, and even better at judging the time. On this morning, Friday 30 March, I went into the kitchen as usual. The first thing I did was to put on the garden light; tthis gave enough light to see what I was doing, without being too bright on the eyes first thing. Then, I switched on the gas, and put the kettle on. It’s a big kettle, and takes a while to come to the boil, meaning that one is free to do other things, like getting a shave. This is a bit of an effort because the strip light in the en-suite bathroom hasn’t worked for a few months, and we haven’t seen it necessary to get a replacement yet.
Anyway, I finished in there, and then went into the front bathroom to put on the washing machine. I try to get one wash out of the way before the rest of the family get up. It’s a very warm bathroom, facing eastwards, thereby getting the full force of most of the am sun, and it seems to keep the heat throughout the afternoon, and also the night.
I put in some soap, then switched on the machine. I went out, closing the door behind me.
Back in the kitchen, I began to lay the table, putting the bread, fruit, butter and mugs of water under the large plastic food protector.
The kettle, now going for some twenty minutes, whistled the end of time. It was rather like the crowd at a football match. I went across, switched off the gas, and got the steel teapot from the tray. I emptied yesterday’s tea into the sink, rinsed the pot, and put in a good pinch of fresh tea. Then, having let the water cool to just under 100 degrees, I added some to the teapot. It was a thin tea, not really a breakfast tea; it was supposed to be medicinal as well. The tea however, was for later.
I picked up a tablespoon, and put some sugar and chocolate into my mug. It's a white mug, with a cartoon picture of a goofy rabbit holding a toothbrush. We had a gift after buying some toothpaste a couple of years ago. I didn’t tell people it was my mug; I wouldn’t want to be seen with it outside the house, by the front, for example. It is the sort of thing that a kindergarten or lower primary school student would enjoy. But in the kitchen, or the rest of the house, I didn’t care. I added the hot water, and gave the mixture a stir, turning it over to get it to cool a bit. A quicker way would be to add ice, but in the morning, that seldom occurred to me.
I looked at the clock on the wall; it read 5 15.
I went back into the bedroom and lay down next to my sleeping wife. She must have sensed me getting into bed, because there was a slight movement and she asked the time. I told her, then asked her to rub my back. I don’t suffer from a back problem, but I just enjoy a semi-massage first thing in the morning. Her hands went to the lower back, the centre and then the shoulders. There, they would move to the neck and up onto the scalp. I lay there, enjoying the experience in the pre-dawn coolness and quiet. After a few, too short minutes, she asked me to check the time. I got up, but before going into the kitchen, I went across to switch off the air-conditioning unit. Then, I went to the rear to look at the clock.
It said 5 30.
I heard the birds, but the dog had stopped barking, although it would most likely begin again. I could hear the washing machine speeding up for the final spin, and the rocking sound it gave out. I went back into the bedroom and lay down, muttering sotto-voce that it was 5 30. She began to massage my back again. I turned towards the curtains, watching through the cracks, the early dawn waiting to appear.
I don’t know whether I fell asleep again, a thing I am loathsome to do, as it brings on a deep and tiring sleep prior to getting out of bed, or whether I was just dreaming whilst awake, with my mind not registering the time. There was an urgent sleepy whisper.
‘What’s the time? You better go and check.’
I got out of bed, and went into the kitchen. The clock read 5 30. I blinked, and then looked again. To cross check, I went into the lounge and looked at the clock in there. It also said 5 30.
It was quite obvious I had misread the time on the previous occasion. I must have got up a full hour before time. I went and had a sip of my chocolate drink and waited. I then slowly finished the mug, rinsed it out in the sink, and put it back on the tray. I went back into the bedroom.
‘It’s 5 30,’ I told her. ‘I must have misread the time. Sorry.’
There was a slight intake of breath, and she turned over and went back to sleep. I lay next to her on my back, and looked through the early morning light at nothing. A number of thoughts came to me. I thought I might sell the house and get another one, a place a bit cheaper than the one I had, so I could release some much-needed cash. I wanted something I could rent out to bring a little, albeit modest, extra money. There were some places near my brother’s house in the centre of England. A place there would have the advantage that he would be able to look after it for me whilst I was out here. Then I went on to what I might get for lunch, and by extension, dinner this evening. She had told me before on a number of times that I shouldn’t worry, at 5 30 am, about what to eat at sunset. I agreed, but had told her that I wasn’t worrying about it, I was thinking about it, and that, in my book, was not the same thing. She has a tendency to confuse thinking about something with worrying about it.
I returned to the present and thought about the time. It must be at least 5 50 now, although the light was still opaque enough to be an hour earlier. I got out of bed yet again, tightened the sarong around my waist and went into the kitchen again. I switched on the main light this time. I blinked in the expected brightness, and after a few seconds of adjustment, looked up again at the wall clock. To my annoyance, it still read 5 30. That made a problem. The children, if we were running way behind time, would be late for school. I went into the lounge, and switched on one of the main lights there. Once gain, I blinked and waited before looking up at the clock. The hands pointed to 5 30.
Now this I found hard to take in. One clock going wrong was a nuisance; two were the makings of a disaster. I thought as quickly as I could, bearing the time of the morning.
Ah, yes, I thought, check the television. The problem with that was that it took a couple of minutes for the display to come on. I walked over, and flicked the On switch. I stood there, muttering ‘Come-on,’ a number of times. A bit silly really, because the machine wouldn’t know. The display area where one could see the channel and time began to flicker, and the green light came on. I picked up the remote control. The number was the ‘Animal Planet’ channel. I pressed a number of buttons on the remote, being unsure which one was correct. After a few tries, the time came on.
It showed 5 30.
This couldn’t be right. Two clocks showing the same time, and now the television.
I paused, now becoming unsure of what was going on, and what I must do. Maybe I was dreaming, although the kettle and the table had seemed real enough. The hot chocolate had, too.
I went back into the kitchen. I looked at the table. I felt the kettle; it was hot. This wasn’t a dream, but what was it?
I glanced towards the rear window, and out into the garden. The dogs of the opposite neighbour were barking again, and I could hear the birdsong. But where was the light? It was still the same half-obscurity of the pre-dawn. I went to look at the clock again.
It was the same, 5 30.
I went into the lounge and did the same. It was 5 30. I walked across to the television. To my amazement, it still read 5 30. But I had spent a minute or two in the back, looking out of the window, listening to the dogs and the birds, and looking at the clock. It must have gone on a minute or two.
Ah, I thought, I can check the computer. I walked back to the rear corner of the lounge where the computer had its home on the table. I pressed everything, and the hum began. I leaned across and switched on the fan. The pre-programme came on, and then the main part; I typed in the password, and waited a moment. I clicked on ‘Start’ and then ‘Control Panel’. Right, this would solve the problem.
I was so engrossed that the thought of getting the children up didn’t cross my mind at this point.
Here we are, I thought, ‘Date and Time’. It popped up halfway up the screen, blocking part of the picture. The picture I had chosen - wallpaper, I think the term is - was deliberately way different to the tropical scenery here; it showed the autumn in full golden colour, a land flanked by full leaf trees. I thought it pretty; others might think it boring. No matter, I look at it, not them. I looked at the time.
Yes, Friday 30 March 2007. It looked right.
I felt the hairs on my arms rise, and a coldness entered my stomach. I licked my lips and involuntarily swallowed, and my hand went to my throat. Oh no, I thought. The clock wasn’t moving. The second hand remained without motion. The hands pointed to 5 30, and the digital display beneath read 05:30:20. It too, had stopped. My heart and brain, momentarily I think, did the same.
I don’t know how long I waited there, staring at a clock that didn’t move. Then, I had an idea, if that is the correct word. I clicked on ‘Time Zone’, and found GMT. To my amazement, or maybe now horror might be the word, I saw the same thing; a clock that didn’t move, except that this one was eight hours difference.
I returned to local time; the clock remained without change.
I turned, and went into the rear and looked out the back. Nothing had changed. The light was
the same as it was when I first came out. I went back into the lounge, and pulled back the curtains that covered the sliding French window. I peered out. The lane was still lit by the weak orange light of the streetlights. Across the way, a neighbour’s house looked still and quiet. There ought to be a light on there now, I thought. She is a teacher, and gets up at the crack of dawn.
But she wasn’t this morning; that was clear. The whole place seemed motionless and quiet, as far as humans were concerned. The dogs had finally shut up at the back, but I could still hear the sounds of the birds. There was electricity in the house, the water was running, the gas worked, but the light remained unchanging, and the clocks were going nowhere.
What on earth was happening?
I had heard of the expression ‘time warp’ many times, in documentaries of course, and also in the film… bugger it, what was it’s name? I hate it when I can’t recall something. An American aircraft carrier, in modern times, goes through a time warp back to World War Two. But that was a film, right? Martin Sheen, Kirk Douglas, etc. This is not, I thought, my initial worry having gone through confusion, bewilderment to the beginning of apprehension. What was happening? Was I dreaming? Had something gone wrong in my brain? Was I here, or really in a mental hospital, but thinking I am home. I looked at myself. The legs, arms, torso seemed okay. I felt my chin; it was smooth. The shave I hadn’t imagined. Or am I imagining it now? I felt a warm flush of alarm come over me. I felt trapped. I began to shake.
‘This is awful,’ I whispered, ‘what is going on? This can’t be for real, can it?’
It was a foolish question. It was quite clear that it was real. Too much had happened for it to be otherwise. You don’t imagine the smell of the foam, the toothpaste, you don’t imagine drinking a cup of hot chocolate, you don’t imagine blinking in the bright light of the fluorescence. You don’t imagine switching on the gas, the television, the computer, you don’t imagine opening the curtains, and above everything, you don’t imagine the fear, you don’t imagine the sweat, the dry throat. No, I don’t think so. Everything was as real to me as any other morning here.
I came back to the reality of the present. I walked across the lounge and opened the first bedroom door, in apprehension. There she lay, fast asleep. I could see the rising of the breathing body. I softly closed the door and opened bedroom two. The boy lay there, clutching the pillow, fast asleep too. I sighed and closed the door. At least they were alright. That gave me a little easing up of the worry. I half-paused; that’s not good English, is it? No, I thought, but I can’t get out the words I want to use at the moment.
The thought came quickly. I hadn’t spoken to my wife. I opened the rear bedroom door and went in. She was asleep, laying on her front, arms stretched out across the pillows. The bed sheet had risen, as had her sarong, showing her legs right up to her thighs. That much I was able to make out in the dimness. I reached over and began to rub her back.
‘Wake up,’ I said a couple if times, ‘come on, it’s late, wake up.’
I knew bloody well it wasn’t late, but I had to get her attention. She turned over, groaned either in stretching, or in dismay, and put out her arm. I took her hand and pulled her up. She got out of bed and went into the bathroom. I pulled up the sheet and made the bed, making sure it was tidy looking; then I went into the lounge again. At this moment, I had no thought of how to explain what was happening, or what we could do, if anything. A few minutes later, she came out, her hair tousled; her eyes blinking like a naughty student caught breaking the rules about smoking. In the morning, she frequently looked as if she had enjoyed a night on the town with three or four too many. But in reality, the strongest thing she drank was a herbal tea.
‘What’s the time?’ she asked. I pointed to the clock. ‘Huh? You told me 5 30 an hour ago. I think the clock is broken.’
‘Try the kitchen one.’
She went to the back, to re-emerge a couple of seconds later,
‘Huh, two clock go broken.’ I pointed to the television. ‘Look at that.’
She walked across the lounge, and bent forward to peer at the number. She straightened up and looked at me.
‘5 30. Why we pay so much money for Astro when broke also?’
‘It’s not broken.’
I took her hand and we went to the computer. She looked at the unmoving clock for a long time. I expected her to be puzzled. She wasn’t.
‘How you break every clock in the house? You very good break things. When I small girl, I no money; I no break anything. I keep for twenty years; you keep one week, broken.’
I looked at her.
‘No, the time has stopped. The clocks are not broken; the time has stopped. Look at the light outside... it hasn’t changed colour since I got out of bed.’
There was a long pause as she pulled the curtains back, and like me, looked out onto a deserted lane, with no car movement, no people getting ready for work, no house lights on, except for the security by the car porch. She turned to me, licking her lips in a puzzled way.
‘What happening?’ She held my hand, and squeezed it a little.
‘I don’t know,’ I answered. I wasn’t going to try to explain the film about time warp at this time of the morning. It might not be a time warp. I mean, did they even exist out of Hollywood? I didn’t know. How long we waited there, in front of the French windows, looking at the deserted street with only birdsong and dog barking for company, I don’t know. She turned to me with a brisk motion.
‘The children? Are they…
‘Yes, I checked on them earlier. They’re fine.’
That wasn’t enough. She turned and went into both the bedrooms. I watched her pull up a bed sheet over the boy, before she came out again. he was a very caring mother, although a bit loud at times.
‘I make some Milo’,’ she said, and went into the kitchen. A few minutes later, I followed, taking the mug of chocolate from her, and sipping a bit. It was then that the roaring began. At first, neither of us paid much attention, as we are under the flight path of the helicopters that transport men and materials to the offshore oilrigs. The throbbing of the rotors is something we hear so often, it almost doesn’t register much of the time. This was our first thought, therefore.
Then I thought to myself, 'it’s 5 30. Not even the choppers get away that early, do they?’
I had little time to reflect on this, for the noise grew louder minute by minute. Again, I thought it might be the Air Force doing some early morning training; again, this was something not that uncommon. But this noise now was becoming different, a higher yet at the same time, deeper noise, a cross between a hum, a vibration and a high whine of a plane taking off. Then, to our mutual horror, the house began to shake, albeit gently.
My first thought was to give thanks we had a single storey place, or weren’t living in some condominium somewhere on the west coast. The shaking increased along with the noise, now coming in a pulse; the sky remained the same colour. I pulled my wife away from the window in case of the glass shattering, and we went near the doors to the two bedrooms. Looking in, the children weren’t being disturbed one iota. That was one good thing, I thought. The noise increased, and then without warning, there was a whooshing, rather like an overgrown firework having failed to ignite. I half expected to hear the theme music from ‘Dr Who’.
Then, there was total silence: no birds, dogs, cats, wind in the tree, nothing, just an empty, unmoving quiet.
Then there was a sudden quiet noise from the master bedroom. At first, I had no idea what it could be; I went to the rear, to find the alarm clock I keep by the bed peeping away. I pressed the top to stop the alarm, and looked at the time.
It showed 5.45. I felt my pulse racing, and my chest was tight. My wife came in and looked at me. I held up the alarm clock. She looked in amazement. I saw her trying to swallow.
‘How?’ was all she could manage.
‘I have no idea,’ I answered, half-breathing out, half-sighing in… in what, I don’t know.
A thought came to me. I walked back into the lounge and looked up at the clock. 5 45. I went across to the computer. 5 45. The second hand was moving again.
‘Check the TV,’ I asked her. She walked towards it, and bent forward.
‘Yes, 5 45,’ she said in surprise.
We went to the front window, and for the next few minutes, listened to the dogs barking again. On the fence, we could make out the shape, but not the colours of a bird, singing to itself or its mate. In the house opposite, a light went on.
‘Time to get the children up,’ I said.
A few minutes later, the two teenagers came for their breakfast, sitting half-awake around the grey circular table. They drank some water, had a banana and some bread. My wife was preparing the oats on the cooker. After stirring a couple of times, she put the hot oats into their bowls, and they tucked in. A couple of minutes later, they finished, drank water again, and then pushed their chairs back. Now it was their turn to use the shower, and then get dressed for school. This would take them about ten to fifteen minutes. Then, just after 7 o’clock, they would in the car and away.
But this morning was different. They both finished their water, and then there was a pause. They remained sitting in the chairs round the table.
The boy began, ‘I had a really strange dream last night. I was in a time warp…'
‘Me, too,’ the girl interrupted. ‘It was so real. I was dreaming of you and Mum in the lounge, when all the clocks in the house stopped. It was really funny.’
‘Yes,’ said the boy, ‘and Dad was by the computer clock, shaking with terror.’
They looked at each other and began to laugh.
‘Why are dreams so stupid?’ he asked me.
I swallowed, licked my very dry lips, and croaked,
‘I don’t know, I just don’t know.’
The two children got up from the table, pushed the chairs underneath, and went off to get themselves ready. In my head, I heard the noise of the humming, I saw the half-light of 5 30, and the unmoving clocks. The hairs on my neck and arms began to rise. My wife turned, and began to wash up the breakfast things. I walked over to her, and put my arms around her waist. She put her body against me. Both of us were quiet now in the morning air.
