Acme Time Travel Incorporated - Volume 1

Frinton-on-Sea

The afternoon sun plays gently across the Sunny Vale Care Home (for the elderly). It is a pleasant old building, built in the 1930s, set back from the main promenade that runs along the cliff top at Frinton-on-Sea. The care home itself is built in a mellow brick. There are mature trees in its front garden.

It is a lovely warm sunny day.

The entrance to the grounds sites an old wooden sign. It has been re-varnished and re-painted many times. The sign says

Sunny Vale Care Home

Taking good care of elderly folk

The home’s outside doors have a security keypad, to keep people in rather than out, and just inside is a reception desk and office. Off to the right are the ground-floor residents’ rooms. Down the corridor is a door which has the number 3 on it, and below that a wooden name plaque saying

John Cullen

The letters of the name have been stuck onto the wooden plaque using letters from a child’s Letraset kit.

John’s room contains his bed (single), a bedside table, a small wardrobe, a small kitchen area, and a small dining table. On a small shelf are three old photographs, two of them black and white and one is in colour. All have simple wooden frames, covered by a thin sheet of protective glass. On the door, off to the right, there is a ceramic tile on which can be seen a stylised picture of a toilet and a bath.

John Cullen is standing alone in the kitchen area of his small room. His face shows a slight grimace.

“The old leg’s playing up again today, Vicky.”

“We have spoken of this before, John,” a disembodied young female voice replied. “You know I have done as much as can be feasibly done. Your body is nearly 100 years old, and parts are wearing out that cannot be replaced or augmented.”

John grunted his acknowledgement.

“You know John that I can continue to give you pain relief ... but I can’t offer any further structural improvements. You do understand that, don’t you John?”

John looked down at his feet. He looked saddened by this piece of information, even though it did not appear to be anything that he had not heard before.

“Yes, I know that Vicky, and I can hear the sympathy in your voice. And I do know that in the time of your manufacture that I could have been given greater medical support, but we could never have made that journey, could we?”

“I’m sorry, John,” Vicky murmured.

Vicky had had this conversation with John before. Several times in fact, but it was becoming more frequent. Vicky assumed that as John’s body and mind were nearing the extent of their natural longevity, that the pain and the exasperation were becoming greater.

“We took the decisions we took gladly, and with good grace, but even so, I am growing very weary,” said John.

“Every time that I visit Mary’s grave ... well ... I just don’t think I can face going on much longer.”

John leaned down and picked up his electric kettle. He began filling it with water from the tap above his small sink, then placed it back onto its base unit and switched it on.

“Maybe a cup of tea ...,” John muttered to himself.

He reached up from a shelf and pulled down a tin labelled TEA. Levering off the lid of the tin, John pulled open a drawer, extracted a small plastic spoon, and scooped a quantity of tea leaves into a small brown teapot.

John turned as the kettle began to whistle. Steam was beginning to puff from its spout.

Picking up the kettle, he carefully poured hot water into the teapot.

“A nice cup of tea might make you feel better, John,” Vicky said.

John glanced over at the photos on his shelf

“I miss her Vicky,” John said. “All these years, and still I miss her.”

. . . . . . .

John picked up the photograph which showed himself and Mary laying in the meadow. It had been a wonderful, warm and sunny day in June 1951. Their friend had brought his new camera along and had taken several pictures ... some of John and Mary and some of the general landscape.

“That was the day that I asked Mary to marry me, you know.”

“Yes, I know that, John. I remember it. It was a wonderful day.”

“Who would have guessed that we would have a photograph taken on that very day?”

“You were very lucky, John.”

“How incredible that my friend would have a good camera with him on that very day. I mean ...”

John gazed closely at the old photograph. He and Mary had both been laying down alongside each other, feeling the soft, tufty meadow grass beneath them. The mid-June sunshine was warm on their backs. The meadow was alive with the sound of small insects and birds. She had tied up her hair with a red and white polka-dot scarf. She had plucked a daisy and was stroking its petals along her own cheek. John’s friend had taken a photograph right at that very moment, and then had wandered off over the field, camera in hand. John had watched his friend go. He had turned to Mary, took hold of her hand and ... with a look of mock seriousness, asked her to marry him. She had shuffled closer to him, nuzzled her face against his, and said “Yes John ... of course.”

“You know that I couldn’t do anything to help her, don’t you John?”

John continued staring at the old photograph.

“You do remember, don’t you John? You would have needed another device like myself to help her.”

John had heard this before.

“I know ... you’ve explained it before, Vicky. I do remember, but it doesn’t ...”

“John,” Vicky continued, with an air of sympathy, but also of slight exasperation. “You know that I needed to be in proximity to yourself to maintain your own health. To help Mary I would have needed to be attached to her constantly. As her dementia progressed, I would have needed to be with her all the time. I couldn’t care for you both ... I am very sorry, John.”

John peered again at the small photograph, the one containing the image of the 32-year-old woman he had loved more dearly than life itself.

“I know that Vicky, and I don’t blame you. We all discussed it. Mary knew what would happen. She fully accepted it. She accepted it gladly.”

“I know that John,” Vicky said.

“But it was a difficult decision for all of us, and it made it no easier, not for her, and certainly it was not easy for me,” said John.

John carefully took hold of the teapot and began pouring tea into a china cup, using a metal strainer balanced on the cup to strain out the tealeaves. He lifted off the tea strainer and shook the tealeaves into a small bin by the sink. Taking a bottle of milk from his miniature fridge, he poured a little into his teacup. Taking the teacup, he moved over to his chair by the window and sat down.

“John?”

“Yes, Vicky.”

“Would you like to experience that day in the meadow again?”

“Yes please, Vicky. That would be very kind of you.”

John sat in his chair, holding the teacup in his hands, but his chair was now in the middle of a beautiful meadow. He could feel the warmth of the sun beating down on him. He could hear the birds singing. In the distance he could see the old mill, its vanes un-moving in the slow, still air.

He took a sip of his tea and smiled.

“Thank you, Vicky,” he said.

. . . . . . .

The afternoon had worn on, and the street lights had come on in the street. Daphne had brought him in today’s ‘light evening meal’. It had been two small Yorkshire puddings, some mashed potato, garden peas and a thin gravy. He had thanked her politely. He was sure that it would be very nice indeed.

John scooped up a forkful of the mashed potato and looked at it speculatively.

“I think maybe it’s time, Vicky. I have grown weary. My family and friends are gone. I feel no purpose here.”

Vicky had heard John talk like this before, but never with such a sense of finality.

“Vicky ... you have been a good friend to me. No-one could have wished for more, and I would have had no life without you, but I think it’s time for you to leave me,” John continued.

“Oh John,” Vicky murmured.