
- 471 words
- 1 min 53 sec reading time
I remember the first time my Gran mentioned them, the Memory Men. She mumbled the exact words over and over again – the Memory Men sing, the Memory Men play, the Memory Men stay. They only come at night, she whispered in my ear so quietly that my parents didn’t hear.
Mam and Dad dismissed her ramblings, the nonsense of an addled mind. She was like that since Mam was a child, and I was kept far away.
When I eventually met her, let me say she was not precisely how Mam described her.
She looked half her age, more my Aunt than my Gran and moved like a cat, swinging her front door open and slinking back into the house, leaving us standing in the doorway.
‘Well, come in,’ her voice drifted from the bottom of the dark corridor she disappeared into.
Mam and Dad were about to turn and leave, but I was curious, so I stepped into the darkness.
I liked her straight away. I was eleven. Even then, I knew there was more to what they told me. I just didn’t realise how much more.
‘Call me Amee. It’s the name they gave me.’ She preferred it to her other one.
‘She fills your head with silliness,’ Mam would shout. She didn’t like us getting close.
Somewhere, deep inside, I believed Amee.
And I was right.
Infinite possibilities
The first coffee of the morning is always the best.
Mam, Dad, Amee, they are all gone. I am now its keeper, the keeper of the book.
A nearby bus smashes into the car to its left, metal on metal grates so loud everyone stops.
Usually, they are more subtle than this. The insertions are accelerating. Amee warned they would. Now I have the book. It is all aimed at me.
The bus driver opens the door and comes running in my direction like a heat-seeking missile.
I have one sip of coffee left in the cup, and to hell with him if he thinks I won’t drink it.
Hopping cars, knocking people, and tumbling-filled tables. I take the last sip of my coffee. Open the book, and whoosh, a kaleidoscope of light and the Time Shadow is sucked from the driver into the open page.
He stops dead at the corner of my table, confused. Everyone is looking at him. A second later, he is tackled to the ground by a very well-built concerned citizen. Closing the book, I pop it into my satchel, swing it over my shoulder and walk away.
A war between the Memory Men and Time Shadows is being played out on Earth. A few of us have the books, but too few. I inherited Amee’s. I must find the others before it is too late.
0 Comments