A Matter of Time

of Time

  David Morais

  Copyright 2015

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  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  A Matter of Time

  About David Morais

  Prologue

  This short story was a part of my Creative Writing class portfolio.

  Based on a truth experience I had some years ago with magic mushrooms, I wish I could develop more of this story than what I already have. I was only supposed to write 2000 words and I have surpassed the limit by the end.

  Hope you like it.

  A Matter of Time

  The sun was right in the middle of the sky, indicating that lunch time was upon Liverpool. The day had not been that sunny since the late days of September, meanwhile the autumn and winter had been filled with rainy and grey days, so it almost came as a surprise to the city inhabitants were woken up by a blue, cloud free sky that day.

  Nathan was sleeping in his grandparents’ living room, in a couch older than him, when a ray of light slipped through the blinds, landing straight in his eyes. He had become aware that he was sleeping in his grandparents’ very uncomfortable couch due to the acute pain on his neck. He tried to fix his sleeping position twice, before giving up and opening his eyes. “Shit, I fell asleep!” he thought to himself before sitting and grabbing his boots in a matter of seconds. He knew that the lunch was ready by smelling the fresh essence of bacon and cheese omelet coming from the kitchen. “At least lunch is already served” he thought, as he picked his cellphone to take a look at the time. According to his calculations, he had to be in school by two, and that gave him a one hour lunch-time, more than enough. He finally managed to reach his cellphone. “Shit!” he had less than half an hour to eat and run to school.

  He bolted his way to the bathroom to wash his hands, and as he looked in the mirror he felt his heart pump twice. He looked again and saw himself, a seventeen year old boy, small structure, dark hair and a smooth face. He locked his sight in his mirror counterpart’s eyes and realized that the white part of his eye was now, red. “I’m dead starvin’”. That much he could deduce, so he rushed to the kitchen and sat in a bench, that looked as if it had survived a world war, before he picked his fork and started to devour everything in his plate.

  “Yer’ sure in a hurry lad.” his grandmother, could not excuse herself from commenting the unusual way her daughter’s offspring was chewing through the food. Her grandson was not known for his table manners, but the way he was eating left her in awe.

  Nathan knew he was in a hurry, so he did not pay much attention to what was happening in his surroundings, and the screams that were being produced his grandmother were nothing but white noise. As he finished, he got up, grabbed his dish and emptied it on the trash can, he did not enjoy doing this, due to the ridiculous amount of grease he had to touch in order to lift the can’s lid. But he did it out of courtesy and to avoid having to listen to his grandmother’s screeching about how irresponsible and messy he was. “Bye grandma” he kissed her on the cheek as he leaned himself over the old lady in order to reach his jacket. His grandfather was sitting in the, now unoccupied, couch. He leant again in order to kiss him goodbye and raced to the front door. He did not close the door because he knew his grandmother would come to wave at him once he reached the bottom of the building, and so she did. Nathan waved back, turned and closed the door behind him.

  Nathan looked again at the clock and felt a certain relief when he noticed that he was on time. He got out of the building and sprinted all the way through Madryn Street, the old folks in the middle of the street had to get out of Nathan’s way, using not so nice words while referring to him. He was dodging people like they were traffic cones placed there for the sole purpose of making it hard for him to reach his destination. The distance between the parked cars and the wall kept getting thinner and thinner, Nathan felt like he was running through a corridor and the walls were shrinking until they finally smashed his body into each other. The holes in the ground were not making it any easier for him to move, he kept evading them, and started to picture them as landmines that would severely damage his physical integrity if he stepped on one of them at the speed he was rushing through the streets. He looked up, and a traffic sign, appeared, out of nowhere, in his way.

  Nathan felt a sharp pain in his head as he opened his eyes. He was lying on a floor, on some sort of dark room where nothing could be seen, but darkness. The boy reached his hand to the source of the pain and felt blood all over his face. He started to get up when he spotted a tall figure, with long, pointy ears. “What the…” he was interrupted by a strange, raspy, male voice “Hi lad, quite a mess you made, now who’s the sorry bastard who’s cleaning those stains?” The voice was getting closer. As Nathan got up, he took a few steps back. “Where are we mate?” he asked out loud, getting no response from the strange figure that was getting closer. The young boy could tell that the figure that was approaching was wearing some sort of costume. Yes, it was definitely a costume of a dark furred rabbit. There was something strange with it, besides the fact of an adult structure wearing a black rabbit costume. It’s face was not that of a bunny, but rather some sort of silver bone structure of the rabbit, it was clearly metallic in nature.

  “Nathan, is it?” asked the mysterious figure.

  “Who the hell are you, mate?” asked the boy in return. “What the hell is all this?”

  “Where are my manners, my name is Frank. Now, it’s time for you to learn your manners too…” At this point, Nathan’s facial expression had changed completely. “Don’t you know that it’s not polite to answer a question with another question? And you asked two, there’s also that.” The black rabbit’s face was just a few centimeters away from Nathan. “So, Nathan, is it?” he asked again, moving his face away from the boy and letting out a giggle at afterwards.

  “Yes, me name is Nathan. Now where are we? And why are you wearing a dark rabbit costume?” Nathan had just realized what was actually happening. “Am I being kidnapped? I assure you, me parents are so poor that when the burglars break in, they leave us some money.” Frank did not say anything for a few moments.

  “Oi lad, I’m not wearing a black rabbit costume. I am a black rabbit.” Frank laughed again at the end of the sentence. “And no, I’m not into grabbing teenager boys who bump into traffic signs.” Nathan could tell that a lunatic like that was probably not kidnapping him and probably meant him no harm.

  “Oh, so you rescued me? Couldn’t you simply take me to…” Nathan was interrupted.

  “I’m sorry lad, we have no time for chit-chat since we already wasted a lot of time while you were playing sleeping beauty.” The rabbit grabbed Nathan’s hand and snapped his fingers. A flash of light filled the dark room where Nathan woke up.

  Suddenly, Nathan saw himself in a jungle. Frank was nowhere to be seen, only a couple of large mangroves stood out from the rest of the flora, and a lake that was clearly not very deep. But there was something off about this jungle Nathan was in. Nathan scrubbed his eyes, still amazed with he had just experienced, a grown man dressed like a black rabbit, who snapped his fingers and transported him to the middle of the jungle.

  After washing his face with the water from the lake, Nathan started to notice that the jungle was transforming. The green from the scenery was changing color, the same was happening with the monkeys on the trees, the colorful fruits were also turning into a brownish color. All life forms were being tra
nsformed into a wooden, mobile state. The monkeys kept jumping from tree to tree like nothing had happened, they were made out of wood, their fur was timber and they were moving about. Nathan was not turning into lumber yet, but he was petrified nonetheless. A giant elephant, calmly entered the scenery and drank some water, Nathan was so amazed at the level of detail of the timber elephant that he forgot for seconds that he was in a wooden jungle. The elephant started walking in Nathan’s direction, and although he could swear he was rooted to the ground, the young boy actually took a few steps back, wetting his boots and his jeans with water from the lake.

  “Hello Nathan.” The elephant had just spoke with a deep and threatening voice and Nathan returned to his previous state of mobility, none. “You sure grew a lot, since we last met.” Nathan looked at the elephant for about three seconds, looked down and then reached for his jacket’s pocket. “So, now we’re wondering if we’ve gone completely mental.” Nathan did not react, he simply produced a cigarette and lit it.

  “Don’t mind me, I’m just here smoking my ‘ciggie’.” Nathan sat down and looked away from the elephant. “It’s just that if I