The Man Who Had Seen It All

Donyard Dew had seen it all, no really he had. According to Donyard anyway. There was nothing you could show Donyard that would shock him. He would just smile, his lips creasing over his worn teeth and say wistfully, 'I've seen worse.'

And he had.

Not that Mrs Phillner minded. Donyard was new to the home and one of her better residents. He kept his room neat, he had no relatives to visit and cause upset, he was always on time for meals and most importantly as far as the other residents were concerned he could spin a good yarn. Donyard the dreamer was what they called him.

Donyard was sitting on the balcony in his favourite rocking chair, blanket wrapped around his legs his little red handwritten book resting on his lap.

'It's your hundredth birthday party Mr Dew. The whole town's is waiting for us up on the Ridge, the spot you chose. Remember.' She patted his hand reassuringly. 'Come on. Let's go up and join them shall we?'

'I'm fine Mrs P. Let's just wait a few moments.' He rocked gently and gazed out over the towns whitewashed houses, the painted boats at their moorings riding the glittering waters, sun faded pennants fluttering in the late afternoon breeze.

Mrs Phillner pulled up a chair, settled on her cushions and pulled her shawl round her shoulders. They sat looking over the town together.

From the pocket of his frayed tweed jacket Donyard drew out a copper bracelet and placed it on his book. 'Do you believe in time travel Mrs P?'

Mrs Phillner sat up. 'I can't say I do. It sort of goes against the grain.'

'How so?'

'Well surely if you could go back in time you could change things for the better and someone would have done that already if they'd discovered time travel.'

'But if you changed history how do you know you'd change it for the better, you might remove a dictator just to find he'd been replaced by an eviler one. Worse still you might inadvertently change something in history that changed the time you came from. The Butterfly Effect.'

'The what? Mr Donyard'

'The theory that the flapping of a butterfly's wings in Brazil could set off a tornado week's later in Texas.'

'I'm not sure I understand.'

'The theory applies to time travel. It suggests that should you go back in time, the smallest change there may affect your own time. Therefore best leave well alone. Time travel would only be acceptable to the future occupants of this planet if they remained spectators and did not interfere in what they saw.'

'So you think Mr Donyard, after all it's just a theory.'

'So I know. You see Mrs P I was bought up at Killaugh. Do you remember Killaugh?'

'I wasn't born then but I know. Who doesn't?' Mrs P sat up. 'You were there?'

'No of course you weren't born then. I hope you don't think me rude Mrs P. A silly slip of an old man. Forgive me. My family had a farm up in the hills at Killaugh. We grew grapes for a local co-op. There were three families, the Fortunes, the Beaskaks and us. Our families had farmed there for three centuries.'

Mrs Phillner smiled to show she was not offended.

'That afternoon was like this one. I sat with my parents on the porch. We watched a party go by on the dirt track in front of the house. They we're young crowd, fooling around as they went. Laughing and telling jokes. They were carrying baskets for a picnic up in the meadows behind the farm. I could tell they were not local. They had accents we did not recognise and their clothes, they were new, modern, and expensive but oddly ill matched, thrown together in a sort of haphazard way as if they didn't know what went with what. They were dressed like foreigners trying to fit in.'

'Like the tourists who come here in the summer for the boat trips.'

Donyard tilted his balding head in agreement. 'Later in the afternoon I found a bracelet on the dust track. After asking my mother's permission I ran up the hill to return it. It belonged one of the party, a young girl. She was so grateful I'd returned it she asked me to sit with her and share her picnic. I'd never been more than ten miles from Killaugh so to me they were all so different, so vibrant, so exciting. I was in awe of them. You understand?'

Mrs Phillner nodded.

'At ten minutes past four a lady hushed us and pointed at the sky. It was the meteor. The burning white ball raced down and struck the town below us. The explosion rocked us, the heat of the air burned our lungs but we were just beyond its reach. When the smoke cleared I could see everything had gone, just scorched black earth everywhere and a huge gaping hole where the town had been. My house had gone as well, consumed by the fireball that had swept up the hill. When I cried the little girl spoke to her parents. An argument broke out in the party. In the end she came to me and took my hand and said I could go with them.'

'I'm sorry. I didn't know you'd lost your family there.'

'I went with them. You see they were from the future, our future Mrs P. They had a history book. It listed all the greatest disasters that had befallen the human race. They picked events from it and we travelled there to view them. They saw themselves as spectators at history's most defining moments. The little bracelet I'd found enabled it - a type of device for bridging time encapsulated in a delicate ring of metal, the smallest thing enabling us to do the greatest thing of our dreams.' Donyard picked up the bracelet and reflectively ran his fingers around its edge. 'I was taught how to use it and the rules of time travel, the Butterfly Effect. The rules, they were very strict, no interfering just spectating. I suppose they took a risk taking me with them which was what all the arguments were about. But it didn't seem to change anything, the history book remained unchanged.'

Mrs Phillner leant forward the doubt spreading across her face.

'I soon saw through their supposed enlightenment. They were a shallow people a shallowness created by the lifestyle of their own time where they had all they needed. Thiers was an altruistic society which cared for all its members. It had made them bored and selfish. They were forever squabbling about trivial things. Where to go next, what to do, what to wear, what to eat. I grew tired of it. Surreptitiously I copied the book and took a bracelet, the one I'd found and then I went off on my own. I've spent my life traveling time Mrs P. I've stood on a windswept hillside and witnessed the tsunami that wiped out the Minoans at Crete, from a boat carrying a cargo of Roman amphora I saw the volcano explode at Pompey. I've felt the heat on my body as the libraries of Alexandria burnt, I watched in awe the dropping of the atomic bomb at Hiroshima. I've spent my life like time's gypsy moving to one event to another, staying for a little and then moving on. I've seen so much, more than any other man alive today or perhaps ever.'

'But all the death? Surely you couldn't have borne it. No one could.'

'It's destiny Mrs P, that's what they told me. After all it was in the book so it was going to happen anyway. Death comes to us all eventually. War, disease, famine. It can't be avoided. We should just accept it as it is and make our peace with it. You can't hide from it.' He looked up sharply. 'You do believe me?'

Mrs Phillner patted him reassuringly on the arm. 'Of course I do. Why don't you come up to the Ridge Mr Donyard? The others are waiting.'

Donyard rose unsteadily to his feet. He pulled his fob watch from the inner pocket of his jacket, checked the time and looked out to sea.

She followed his gaze, shielded her eyes and stared. The sun had turned a radiant red, far off over the sea a little crest of white had appeared.  

The birds so loud moments earlier had stopped singing, the warming sea breeze suddenly dropped away leaving the flags on the boats in the bay hanging limply against the boats masts. The hair on Mrs Phillner's neck pricked and rose in the sudden oppressive heat. In the stillness she could hear the sound of laughing and music rolling down the valley from high above them. She looked deep into Donyard's eyes. 'Are we in the book Mr Dew?' 

Donyard didn't look at her. 'When they saved me that day, at Killaugh, nothing changed, nothing discernable anyway. Yet I spent my whole life watching others enduring terrible things in the belief that I should not interfere. It was too dangerous, it would change the future. For what? We might not becoming those selfish, ineffectual people. Is that worth saving?' 

'It's not your birthday is it?' 

'It's a special day Mrs P. I've done something I should have done long ago. A little present to all the townsfolk.' He held out the book and bracelet. 'Would you like to take these?'  

She held out her hand, hesitated, then took the book. 'You keep the bracelet Mr Dew. I don't think we're ready for that.'  

Mrs Phillner checked the sea. She could pick out a long ribbon of white moving toward them. She held out her hand and took his. 'Come with me Donyard. Let them thank you for what you've done for them.'  

'No I'm fine Mrs P I think I'll just sit here a little longer. Why don't you go and join the others up on the Ridge. I think you may find some of my old friends up there as well. Say hello to them for me, they've been searching for me for years. Maybe by the time you get there they may have changed for the better- after all it only needs a flutter of a butterfly's wings.' He looked at the book in her hands. 'I wonder if my book will re-write itself. I suppose I'll never know. Make good use of it.'  

'I'll better go up then. They'll miss you, you know.'  

'Time is the fire in which we all burn Mrs P.' Donyard turned to look at the sea. 'Now I feel its heat upon my face. Go on. You need to be quick.'

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The concept of time tourism isn't new, a number of writers have come at it from different angles. The quote 'time is the fire in which they burn' is from Delmore Schwartz's poem- Calmly We Walk Through This April's Day.