Tolu Alade was at his church on the 31st night of December when, all of a sudden, everyone seemed to fade into flickering holograms, and all clocks and timepieces are stuck at 11:59pm. Lost in a world he has never known, he’s been picked up by Riley, another survivor, as together they try to make sense of the mad world they find themselves in.
The more Tolu Alade made sense of this world, the less sense it made. He now leaned against the window of the front passenger seat, staring at the flickering after-images of men, women and children by the roadside as they sped past them. It had been a while now since he got in the vehicle as Riley regaled him with her story.
“I was at a house-party at a friend’s when the flickerings hit for us down under,” she’d said. “I thought it was the end of the world until I learnt about the portal.”
Every time he thought this all weird or made up, the flickering people around them kept proving him wrong. Every time he blinked the world around them was different. One moment they were within a city, the next they were in a desert. The next they were in a countryside with medieval buildings in the distance. He barely had a moment to register all of this before it changed again.
“This is how I understand it,” she said as she pulled a map from the glove box and shoved it in his hands. “It’s crazy, that’s what it is. But every New Year begins in the East, yeah. We’re usually the first to enter in Australia and the islands, then Asia, you guys in Africa and the rest of the world. See how it moves west. So at midnight my time in Brisbane it was 2020 already, but the rest of you were still in 2019. Ok, yeah so Australia entered the New Year but I was left out somehow. That line has reached you in Africa, and you were left too. By the time it gets to the west of the West, the earth would have made one full earth rotation and there would be no trace of 2019 left in current time.”
Tolu placed a hand on his temple. “This is insane,” he said for probably the three-hundred-and-thirty-ninth time.
“That’s how I understand it.”
“In one breath you said the earth is flat and that it also rotates. Do you know what you sound like?”
“That’s your take away from all this?”
“I’m just saying. I suck at geography, but even I know that this is messed up. How can you have driven all the way from Brisbane to Ibadan in minutes?”
“Hours, actually.”
“Yeah, that makes more sense.”
Riley shot him an incredulous stare. “Wherever it is that we are, this is not the world we used to know. If you’ve got a better explanation for this madness, kid, I’m ready to hear it.”
None of this made sense and it made him peeved. “You know, we’re about the same age. You don’t have to keep calling me ‘kid’.”
She smirked. “I’m not the one that’s still going to church with his parents. I mean, can you even drive? Ever had a ciggy? Probably never even slept outside your house for one night.”
He wanted to respond, but he couldn’t think of a smart comeback. He wondered if he would ever see his parents again. And considering how much he argued with them over their ideas of how he should spend his time, missing them felt strange. For all the uncertainties of the future this was the last thing he imagined. Being separated from his parents by a temporal phenomenon felt like something straight out of a bad sci-fi flick.
“So you believe in all that?” Riley asked.
“What?”
“Church and God stuff. You believe in God?”
He shrugged. “Who doesn’t?”
She arched a brow. “Who doesn’t? If you’ve been that sheltered then you’re in for quite a shocker, k—iiid. Sorry for calling you kid, force of habit. Your name’s hard to remember.”
“It’s Tow-LOO. It’s just two syllables.” And for good measure he added, “Riley.”
“Ok, Tolu.” She smiled. He didn’t. “So, how do you think God figures into all of this?”
He never thought about that. “I don’t know.”
“But you believe He has a plan over everything. ‘God works in mysterious ways’ and all that. Think He did this too?”
Tolu had never engaged with someone that didn’t believe in God. It was absurd to him, to say the least. But as he realised that she was genuinely asking, he also realised that he really didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t really bought in fully into all of this ‘God stuff’ as she called it. He believed God was real and in control. Knowing whether he was in God’s good books was where he parted company with most. And he had his own questions too.
“I just want to get back to my family,” he said. “That’s all I care about right now.” They rode in silence for a while. “And thank you for the ride.”
“A ride to a place you don’t believe in?” she winked.
“As long as it gets us home.” He noticed that the landscape changed anytime he looked away. It was always something new. The only constant in this place was that light ahead, this supposed portal. What if she was wrong? “Do you think we’ll ever make it back home?”
She kept her eyes on the road. “I don’t even know if there’s a home to return to. For all we know, this could be the end of the world. Armageddon and all that Bible stuff. What if this is the literal end of time and you and I are the only survivors?”
Tolu recoiled. “That’s a scary thought.”
“Guess we’ll find out, now won’t we?”
Tolu groaned, holding his head in his hands. “I just want to wake up from this nightmare.”
Riley didn’t joke this time. “You and me both. Half the time I’m trying to convince myself this isn’t my nightmare.”
“You say you got this from the boy? Your theory, I mean.”
She nodded. “Well, not all of it. He just told me that if I head for that light, it’s a portal out of here, but that it won’t be open forever. The rest was just my idea, but it fits, don’t you think?”
“Who is the boy anyway? And why does his opinion count?”
She shrugged. “In a world where the rules of reality are wobbly, he seemed to know what he was saying. I don’t know how to explain it. Until he told me where to go, I really was clueless.”
“This ten-year old boy told you what to do?”
“It’s panned out so far, OK. And—” she gestured ahead. “—you do see the light ahead too, don’t you? Nothing makes sense, but at least he did.”
Tolu backed off. “In my case this boy was a silly cry baby.”
She didn’t respond to that. “Hmm…”
“So … how could it be the same boy? What is he?”
“What is aces, mate. I don’t think he’s real, like you and me, but like something that’s a part of this place. I don’t know if that makes sense.”
“You’re not serious.” She didn’t respond to that. “Oh, you are. So, what, he’s like the Agent Smith to this system?” She was blank. “The Matrix? You haven’t seen that one?”
“Is it any good?”
“Is it?! It’s just like asking if Endgame is any good. And that doesn’t even come close to The Matrix. The first one, at least.”
She shrugged. “I’m more of a DC person, actually.”
“Seriously? You probably think BvS was a masterpiece too.”
“Don’t even go there, mate. We could do this all day.”
“I understood that reference,” he said. At least they were able to finally share a laugh. In the face of these dark moments it brought some relief, however brief it was.
“I think he’s like the universe’s response,” she said. “Something’s gone wrong, like an imbalance of sorts. Maybe we are just victims.”
Tolu had a hard time following her supposed logic. “So you believe the universe is … what’s the word? Sentient? But you don’t believe that God exists?”
“I’m a free thinker. I don’t believe something just because one person thinks he knows the way.”
“Like believing a boy?” She arched a brow. “Sorry, the parallel’s too easy to ignore.”
“He told me about the light and how if I drove in this direction I would reach it. Said I was in for quite a ride. Not in those words exactly, it was in sickening rhyme. Don’t know why he does that.”
Tolu tried to juxtapose the image with that of the boy he’d seen in church. “You sure this is the same boy I saw?”
“I hope so. Otherwise, we just may have left a poor kid behind in the fading moments of 2019. Man, I never thought those words could ever feel so ominous.”
Tolu leaned against the window once more, staring at the passing scenery. It was now a grassy forested area almost like one they’d passed before. Even the flickering man in red overalls reading a book by the railroad looked like one they had passed earlier. He sat back. The green hill in the distance hadn’t changed. But the light had been ahead all this time.
“How long have we been here?” he asked.
“Hmm?”
“Something’s not right.”
“I thought it was just me.” Riley eased back on the accelerator.
“Do you think we…?”
“We’ve been here before.”
“Yes, we’ve been here before.”
She pumped the brakes and the Suburban ground to a halt, sending exhaust fumes ahead. She scanned the land around. “I think we’ve been going round in circles.”
Tolu squinted. “How is that possible? The portal is still in front of us.”
“I don’t know, OK!” Her sudden retort surprised him.
She cursed as she got out of the car, surveying the area. She kicked the ground. “I don’t believe this!” She cursed some more. “Are you kidding me?”
Tolu got out as well, shocked by her sudden shift in attitude. Her confident happy-go-lucky composure was now gone, replaced by the frantic and confused girl that lay underneath.
She rested her hands on her knees, heaving with every breath.
Tolu had never had to calm someone down this way. He really didn’t know what to say. “Are you OK?”
She looked up at him, her eyes red. “Take a good look around, doofus. We’re trapped here for good.”
“But I thought…”
Tolu walked up to where she stood and now he saw. They were parked on a cliff, but beyond this cliff there was nothing. Not a waterfall, not a valley, not any landform. Just whitish vapours wafting in the breeze. The sky was still dark overhead, and the portal still shot into the sky probably millions of miles away.
“Maybe … maybe this is just another reality shift,” Tolu offered. But no matter how he blinked, nothing changed. I can’t believe I actually expected it to.
But she pointed ahead. “Don’t you get it?! That lousy boy tricked me. There was never going to be an end. You were right.”
“But … but what about the 24 hour window? Doesn’t the portal close soon?”
“How do you plan to get across?”
“There has to be a way.” He didn’t really know that for sure.
“No, she’s right.”
As one they turned to see the man that spoke. He was in an old tweed jacket, with graying hair and stubbly facial hair, and he wasn’t flickering one bit. He sat on a park bench in front of an old cottage.
He rested his hands on a walking stick. “You must be new here,” he said. “Get comfortable. You’re never getting out.”
“And who the hell are you even supposed to be?” Riley snarled.
He folded his arms and cocked his head, staring her down through his bifocals. “Someone who’s been here thirty-seven years.”
Now, even Riley sank to the ground.
>> The journey continues here.
Emmanuel Onimisi 