It was night, sometime in the third watch. Potentia was quiet, save for the occasional hoot of an owl, or sharp bark from an aggrieved dog being teased by a suspiciously large orange cat. At the Villa Georgenius, all was silent. Only the occasional snore came from the room where Cleopas slept, dreaming of musical triumphs to come.

Demetrius, too, was sleeping. He sort of wished he wasn't.

The airliner was large and luxuriously appointed. Soft recessed lighting lent an artificial lustre to the cloth-covered foam seats and clean plastic of the interior and somewhat mitigated the unpleasant effect of the grey-and-mauve-patterned carpeting that muffled the footsteps of the boarding passengers. Smartly-dressed women in high heels bent elaborately-coiffed heads above the seats, offering passengers pillows and comforting statistics about the safety of air travel. They assured them that drinks would be served once the plane was in the air.

The airliner was roomy. Six seats across with an aisle in the middle. People were well-dressed, though less so than the flight attendants with their professional smiles. The atmosphere was subdued but anticipatory. A stewardess (ah, yes, that was the word) stopped by and offered to show Demetrius how to fasten his seatbelt. Her manner was oddly flirtatious.

A businessman sat down next to him and proffered a section of his newspaper. D. glanced at the date: May 15, 1964.

'Ever been on one of these before?' asked the businessman.

D. shook his head. 'No, this is a new experience,' he replied. 'I'm a time traveller.'

Now, why on Earth would I say that?

Instead of moving away, the businessman leaned closer, fascinated. 'Do you know anything about the future?'

'Yes, I do,' D. found himself saying, rather against his will. This dream seemed to be on autopilot. 'There will be a lot of technical advancement in your era in the next few decades.'

'Hey, Joe!' the businessman called to his friend across the aisle. 'This guy's a time traveller! He can tell us where the smart money's going to be!'

'Er. . . ' began D. But it was too late. Soon, half the business travellers on the plane – all of them men in grey suits – had congregated around D. in his seat, eager to hear about investment opportunities.

D. found himself spewing information, the possession of which he was previously unaware of. Apparently he was teeming with a lot of news, with many cheerful facts about Pentium microprocessors. The businessmen found his narrative absolutely riveting. It was as if, he thought, he were reciting the Odyssey to an audience hearing it for the first time.

D. found this rapt attention disturbing. What if he mucked up the timeline? Oh, well, he thought, completely forgetting at this point that this was a dream and he was not, in fact, messing up anyone's timeline, maybe I can do some good here. He tried to steer the narrative away from high-tech industries, which to his knowledge disrupted economies and caused the mining of rare minerals in underdeveloped countries. Instead, he laid emphasis on the looming danger of human-induced climate crises, and the – possibly very lucrative, but certainly extremely virtuous – possibilities of renewable energy resources.

The entrepreneurs weren't impressed by the idea of wind farms. They wanted to know more about this artificial intelligence business. Could those eggheads over at the university actually, finally, be good for something? D. fielded questions with a growing sense of despair.

Help, he thought. I'm talking and I can't shut up.

Out of the corner of his eye, D. noticed something odd. He might have been aware of it sooner if the businessmen hadn't been crowding him.

The plane he was sitting in had grown smaller. Instead of three seats on each side of the aisle, there were only two. The upholstery had changed, as well. The sound of the engines warming up was also altered: instead of the whine of jets, D.'s ears now detected the whirr of propellers. The businessmen, oblivious, asked questions about television technology.

D. kept talking. Apparently, ending this conference wasn't in his power. He spoke of solar panels: they wanted to know about offshore drilling. He mentioned recycling: they demanded details about container shipping. His vivid portrayal of giant islands of plastic in the middle of mighty oceans left them unmoved.

Suddenly, D. realised he was sitting in a much smaller airplane. One whose sides were constructed of what looked suspiciously like corrugated aluminium. He was sitting in a wicker chair. Of which there were only two to a row. Five rows' worth. This was a very old airplane. The engine seemed louder, with less between the passengers and the working part of the plane. He shrugged with Gheorgheni resignation and kept talking. By now, most of his listeners were standing on the tarmac, separated from him by an open, now-square window.

As D. tried to dodge questions about wars and epidemics and their effects on supply chains, he had a growing sense of where this was going. Sure enough, eventually he looked down and saw that he was the sole occupant of a single-seater, open-cockpit biplane.

He waved to the crowd as he taxied down the runaway and took off into a blue sky dotted with puffy white clouds.

Demetrius awoke to purring cats and a raging thirst. He went off in search of water.

DG

18.03.24 Front Page

Back Issue Page