A Further Small Part of Something Other.

Four people sit around the table, a table made of oak from another century.

A man, a woman, someone betwixt and Jack.

Jack self-identifies, he sees himself as himself, always has and is happy thus. He doesn't know about the others.

He also likes the table.

The woman is talking, Jack is listening but he is also running his hand along the edge of the wood.

He is thinking about the question the woman has asked, whether the most recent supreme-court ruling is an abomination or much to be expected.

He considers his own opinion on the subject, that an abomination is never less for being expected, and is about to offer this when his fingers feel a crack in the table edge. 

Distracted, he allows them to explore the opening and before long they feel the piece of paper hidden there, grip it excitedly and draw it out into the open for the first time in a hundred years.

The woman stops talking and glares, reasonably so since she has been chosen to lead the discussion.

The man coughs, he sounds nervous.

The betwixt looks quizzically as Jack carefully unfolds the manuscript, careful not to allow haste to crumble the words into dust.

“Go on then…,” the woman’s voice displays an uncharacteristic acceptance.

Jack looks up and meets her eyes.

Can ice-blue eyes blaze, he asks himself? Not for the first time he finds himself admiring her beauty and tries to dismiss the thought.

“We’re waiting.” Her voice echoes through the silent room. Cobwebs, in the highest corner, tremble. A spider scurries home.

“To whoms it may concern.” Jack begins. His voice reflects his own questioning of the surprising use of an s.

“As you read this, everything changes. Time will no longer proceed in a lineal fashion. Expect what once was, to be what will soon be.”

Jack looks up.

Everyone is watching him as if he were a conductor in the opera house about to signal to the lead violinist.

He feels sick.

He wants to vomit.

The room begins to spin in his vision.

He closes his eyes trying to stop it.

He blacks out and falls forward, his head hitting the table harder than it should.

A trickle of red blood seeps across the open page......

This extract was taken from A Small Part of Something Else 

by Al T Rego esquire.