GOODBYE, GRANDFATHER

Midnight chimes echoed through the dark passages of the old mansion as Martin crept across the lounge of his grandfather’s home, silenced pistol held securely in his hand.

He was relying on hypnotically-enhanced childhood memories to guide him from his temporal gateway through the great old house to the bedroom. Through the window, above the vast lawn and grounds, he could make out the faint glow of the city in the distance. Thus far, the layout of the building was exactly as his boyhood memories had indicated, although many of the furnishings were different. That was to be expected. His grandfather was still a young man in this time slice with his whole future ahead of him. Many things would have changed before Martin would have spent his childhood years here.

Martin shook off those memories and noted that – so far – he was in a past which was identical to his own, real, remembered one. This universe was either the same as his own, or a perfect duplicate. He could not contemplate the latter. Either way, it was the only one he could access at this stage of his project. So, this version of past reality would be identical with his own until he disturbed something, interacted with anyone, or left some trace of his passing. And he certainly intended to disturb and interact, leaving only a single trace – the dead body of the young man sleeping upstairs. He had fifteen minutes to do this before he was dragged back to his “home” timespace. Fifteen minutes was more than enough, but it was all he could afford. He had one chance to commit the perfect crime.

It was to kill his own grandfather that he was here, to prove his own theories of time. Of course, he had not explained this to the team, who must by now be wondering why he brought a weapon. They believed him to be here to kill off a different creature entirely: the “Grandfather Paradox.”

The Grandfather Paradox held that if a time-traveler (in this case a he) killed his grandfather before his parent was conceived, then he would not come into existence in order to travel. Hence he did not travel and the murder remained uncommitted, in which case, he would then be born and be able to time-travel in order to commit murder – looping forever. The theoretical solution was that, once history was changed in any way, an entirely new, alternate universe was set in motion – a paraverse as he had named it. A paraverse that existed “side-by-side” with his own reality. A paraverse in which some unknown assailant murdered an innocent young man, then vanished into his a different reality to take Sunday tea with a vibrant old codger who refused to die and leave his grandson all his money.

Martin refined this theoretical solution, leading first to the temporal monitor (as yet an extremely limited device by means of which his colleagues were watching his every move, back “home”), then to the temporal projector, which produced an intangible, ghost-like image in the target “past,” but had not appeared – so far – to have generated a paraverse. Finally, the temporal gateway – a technique for actually slipping between the timecules and making a physical appearance in the target time.

He was taking the next step – “a giant leap for mankind” – in time-travel experimentation which the shady – but mega cash-rich – conglomerate CMGQX Inc. was funding. They had privately told him he needed a biggie – a major demonstration of his progress – or no more money. He had this one shot and he was going to give them a real biggie. A definitive one. One which would shake the scientific world to its socks! He would shatter the historical conceptual obstacle and actually interface with history. He would take that one shot.

After many voyeuristic sorties into the past using the T-monitor and T-projector he had now fully emerged into the environment, at last.

He breathed its air. He trod its floors. His body tingled. He was aware he had already generated a paraverse as the constituent sub-atomic particles his own body was composed of would otherwise have been – theoretically – in two places at the same time. But that was not dramatic enough. He had to go for the big one. It was not his own flesh-and-blood grandfather that he truly sought to kill, he told himself. It was the Grandfather Paradox he aimed for. His own grandfather was, unfortunately, the most appropriate victim.

Oh, yes, he had told himself, the victim is/was/will be/would be the man who would have become his own grandfather, but only until he died. Then he was no one’s grandfather. He would become a stranger, someone Martin was meeting only once, someone who looked a little familiar. He was only doing what soldiers have done for uncounted millennia for their countries and for the good of humanity – killing someone on first meeting. “For the good of humanity.” That was justification enough for Martin. And anyway, he could not be found guilty of murder without a body as proof and there would be no body; in his own reality, his grandfather would be as hale and damnably hearty as ever. Whole new chunks of law would have to be passed before he could be successfully prosecuted. He smiled to himself – his actions would keep lawyers on the gravy train for centuries to come! Helping lawyers was an unfortunate side-effect.

He snapped out of his reverie at a small “plop” behind him. He slipped behind the nearby sofa and

cautiously spied around its edge. No one was going to get in his way tonight.

A slim, male figure stepped cautiously across the room. Martin could make out little detail, except that he held a gun in his right hand. A burglar. A god-damned burglar, tonight of all nights. There had been several burglaries at the old house, but he never thought to consider such a coincidence. Well, at least he had caught him before he had done any real damage. “Phut!” The silenced pistol in Martin’s hand jerked slightly, just once, and the intruder fell. He pondered this. He remembered no discovery of a dead burglar in the family tradition. Perhaps it had been covered up or deliberately forgotten. It was not enough, Martin convinced himself.

He slipped out from his hiding-place, intending to confirm the fallen man was truly dead.

“Plop!” The noise came again. And again. “Plop.”

Martin froze. Two more intruders were silhouetted against the great bay windows, apparently trying to orientate themselves and reacting with surprise to each other’s presence in the room. Martin felt this was not, in fact, a team of burglars he had encountered. Three independent intruders on the same night was too improbable – especially on this of all nights. His mind raced, he did not want to believe what it told him. But there it was again, “Plop”. Three, now four, now five men had assembled in the room. And one was raising his pistol with clear intent.

Finally, Martin had to admit it. His counterparts from other paraverses were seeking the same objective and – being essentially the same person – had all selected this place and time at random. God alone knew what had happened to generate so many paraverses after his grandfather had not died tonight in their own, common version of history, but Martin was determined to be the one to commit the murder. It was reassuring that the old fool was consistently as selfish across a wide band of realities. As the first arrival, he had an advantage, which he ruthlessly seized upon. Without a second’s hesitation, he fired off a volley of shots into the rapidly growing crowd of alternate Martins stepping through an uncounted number of T-gates forming around the room. He fell to the ground and wormed his way towards the door as a hail of returned fire peppered the wall above him. Some Martins bundled into each other, all seeking the cover of the sofa; this sparked off multi-way hand-to-hand fighting, while fresh arrivals stumbled into the cross-fire of the more trigger-happy versions of himself.

Martin One, as he now thought of himself, reached the open door and cursed. Amid the “plop” of very surprised new arrivals and the “phut” of their weapons, a series of “bangs” indicated at least one clown was using an unsilenced gun. The household would be awakened. Time now became even more crucial.

Time! How long had he left? Time to hurry, that’s how much, he thought.

Some version had caught on and was calling for a cease-fire, trying to explain what was happening, but Martin in all his versions was too single-minded and ruthless to listen. The voice died away in a gurgle of blood from a throat wound or punctured lungs. No one else tried calling a halt.

Slithering around the doorway, Martin One rolled to his feet and raced for the stairs, pausing only to eliminate two other Martins charging into the hallway after him. He scaled the ancient stairway, ricochets whistling around him as he ducked and bobbed behind the balustrade of the upstairs gallery leading to the servants’ quarters and the bedrooms.

Someone emerged from a doorway ahead, illuminated by the flickering candle in his hand. He looked ludicrous, challenging Martin in an ankle-length nightgown. Female screams pierced the air from inside the bedroom. The rumble of footsteps on the stairs behind indicated other Martins in pursuit. Martin One fired at the man in his way, cutting him down with a shot to the chest. He raced past the groaning victim without a second glance. This was becoming a massacre, but his adrenaline raced and his unquenchable desire for success drove him on. Another death meant nothing to him, now.

He turned the corner to the master bedroom. The door was opening. He launched himself at it, shouldering it wide open and knocking the occupant to the floor. The young woman in the bed screamed, dragging the covers over her nakedness. The man on the floor rolled to one side, seeking to gain his feet. Martin One savagely beat him across the head until he lay still. He locked the door behind him as the approaching footsteps arrived outside. They would not beat it down in a hurry and the shouts he heard revealed a conflict over who should shoot out the lock. He paused to recover his breath, then smiled wickedly as he listened to the shouting and the “phut”, “phut”, “phut” as they fought for the privilege.

He turned to the bed, dragging the covers off the terrified woman. Could this be his grandmother? Was his father already conceived? He raised his weapon as she cowered, then paused. A perverse image drifted across his fevered brain, a new twist to time paradoxes. Could he impregnate this woman and beget his own father? There was a deviant excitement about the thought.

He cast it off. He had no time. He shot her through the head at point-blank range. No surgeon from these times could save her now.

A groan from the man on the floor brought Martin One to the task in hand. He knelt, seized the man’s hair, and roughly yanked his head up. He placed the tip of the silencer against the man’s temple. “Who are you?” he snapped. “What’s your name?” To him, the man looked just like any of the Martin’s outside – vaguely familiar.

Their eyes met. “Henry de Monton.” Came the reply.

Martin’s finger tightened upon the trigger, then eased. The strain of the past minutes weighed upon him in another indecisive moment. Could this – by any chance – be another Martin who had beaten him to it? A Martin who had succumbed to the temptation of fathering his own father? A Martin who had developed some means of staying around longer? Perhaps it was Martin One, returning after further refinements to the process? He decided it didn’t matter. If this was the man whom Martin One had always regarded as his grandfather, then it was a valid kill.

As the bedside clock gently pinged the quarter, Martin said, “Goodbye, grandfather!” and pulled the trigger.

“Click.” Went the empty gun.

“Plop.” Went Martin as he was snatched back “home.”

* * *

The team argued back and forth all night. On one hand, there was horror at the slaughter, tempered by the fact that it had started as action against an armed, presumed burglar and had escalated partly out of self-defense – but only because Martin was of a homicidal bent to start with in all his versions. The final slaying of the servant and the woman and the attempted, premeditated murder of his grandfather were, however, totally unacceptable. There would resign and denounce Martin, but to which authorities they were still unclear; probably the press – if they could work out how to explain it in clear English.

Others, of a more detached frame of mind, sided with Martin’s arguments about ultimate rejection of the Grandfather Paradox. The team united in reassuring the distraught Martin that – although the massed bodies of the identical assassins would have returned “home” along with their bullets, the slaughtered “timespace-locals” and walls full of empty bullet-holes found in the house had no match in this reality, so they certainly would have generated a paraverse, which proved his modified theory. That was enough to secure the additional funding from CMGQX Inc..

But it was not enough for Martin. He wandered around the Institute like a lost man. He had wanted to kill

the old man and he had failed. It was as though his entire life’s work had been to produce a means of slaying the man he despised most, but the intervention of his own selves had prevented it. It would have been easier to take if it had for some other reason, but that hate rolled across uncounted paraverses and was an absolute. Worst of all, he had even locked the door, thus preventing his other versions from succeeding. Damnation – he had saved the old sod’s life!

He drifted back to his apartment to seek solace in the bottle. He stared deeply into his glass, ignoring the phone and the whole external world around him. It was only when the man stepped into his field of vision that he snapped out of it. His door was wide open and light flooded in from the corridor, where there appeared to be a growing number of other people.

“Excuse me, sir,” the young man began, “but would you be one Martin de Monton?” Martin nodded, deferring to the visitor’s probable authority and purpose. He raised his hands to receive the handcuffs but none were forthcoming. He looked up. He saw the gun in the visitor’s hand.

“Goodbye, grandfather.” His visitor said as he fired directly into Martin’s face.

————————————————————————————————

– GRANDFATHER? – A PLAY

(An intimate family tale of quantum mechanics, causal loops, and casual sex)

THE CAST

FRED: thirty to forty

JANE: twenties

BERT: middle-aged

MAN: thirty-ish

THE SCENE

Hotel Bedroom with ‘Just Married’ sign visible.

Two people under the covers in the bed.

Lighting: Gloomy, not blackout.

* * *

FRED enters, pistol in hand. He bumps into furniture. Bedside light goes on.

JANE: Who’s there? Who is it?

FRED: Shhhh! Quiet or I’ll fire.

JANE: Oh, you’re a burglar? It’s alright, Bert. It’s only a burglar with a gun.

BERT: Are you sure?

FRED: Wait a minute. He’s called Bert? (Consults a sheet of paper.) Isn’t this room 25 at the Grand Hotel?

JANE: Yes, he is and yes, it is.

FRED: And you are Mrs. Jane Brown?

JANE: Yes, but only just. (Showing off her wedding ring and giggling.)

FRED: And you are Peter James Brown?

BERT: (Draws bed covers down slowly to reveal his face.) Well, actually…

FRED: (Jumps in surprise at seeing Bert. Gestures with the gun.) Get up, both of you. Hurry up!

JANE: (Gets out of bed, wearing a nightdress.)

BERT: (Gets out of bed. Is fully dressed apart from trousers and shoes. Raises hands in surrender, stands quivering in fear.)

JANE: Is this a Hidden Camera thing? (Peers around for the cameras.) Let me tart up a bit. (Wraps a bathrobe around herself, continues to fix hair, makeup, etc. as the scene proceeds.)

FRED: (Gestures with the gun.) You’re grandma, alright. I’ve seen your wedding photos.

JANE: Oh, are they ready, already? And mind your manners. Grandma, indeed!

FRED: Are what ready?

JANE: The wedding photos, you said you’d seen them. Odd type of delivery service though. (She scowls.)

FRED: (Ignores her and gestures at Bert.) But who the hell are you? You’re not granddad.

BERT: Err…

FRED: I’ve seen the photos.

BERT and JANE in unison: Photos? Of us?

FRED: No. I’ve seen granddad in the wedding photos. And I remember the brutal swine when I was young. You’re nothing like granddad. But you’re grandma, all right.

JANE: Grandma? I suspect you’re under the influence, cheeky sod. How old do you think I am? And I don’t even have any kids, let alone grand-kids.

FRED: You will have. A daughter. My mother. Or maybe not… Anyway, that’s what I’m here to find out. Actually, to see if my granddad (Gestures at Bert) has any children. Depends if I kill him or not. Or if I already did kill him in the past. Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t. He’s like Schrödinger’s cat.

BERT: (Looks puzzled.)

JANE: You definitely need treatment. First, he’s your grandfather, now he’s your friend’s cat!

FRED: No, not my friend’s. I don’t know Schrödinger. Never met him.

JANE: Then you should leave his cat alone.

FRED: I mean where the cat’s in a box and it’s either alive or dead, or both, but no one knows.

JANE: (Trying to puzzle her way through.) Wait a minute. So this German bloke you’ve never met has a sick cat that looks like Bert. And the poor thing’s in a box and no one will look to see how it is and you’re looking for your grandfather? (Shakes her head in confusion and pity.)

FRED: Look, let’s start again. (Walks to side of stage, turns and enters again. Aims gun with determination.) Where is your husband?

JANE: He isn’t a vet…

FRED: Vet?

JANE: For your German friend’s cat.

FRED: Look, put the bloody cat out of your mind.

JANE: Well, you introduced it into the conversation.

FRED: (Snarls, threatens her with the gun.) Forget the bloody cat.

JANE: Well, if it’s in a box, we can always say, ‘Out of sight, out of mind.’

FRED: (Nods, relieved, eager to move on.) Yes, let’s do that. Now about your husband.

JANE: He isn’t a vet.

FRED: (Bangs his forehead with the gun barrel.) Concentrate, everyone, please. Look, I am your grandson—your daughter’s son. Fred Brown. I have invented a time machine in your future to come back in time to kill my mean-tempered, violent, drunken, ruthless, bullying bastard of a grandfather. I can stay only a short time. I need to do it quickly. Get it?

JANE: (Stops dressing, covers herself with a bath towel.) Kill your grandfather?

FRED: Yes. You got it, at last.

JANE: (Cautiously.) Kill your grandfather, not your father?

FRED: Right!

JANE: Just reassure me, this ain’t a twist on the Oedipus thing, one step removed, is it?

FRED: Certainly not!

JANE: Good. Just as long as that’s clear. (She continues dressing.)

FRED: I just came back into the past to kill granddad.

JANE: That’s nice, dear. From the future, you say?

FRED: (Nods.)

JANE: I think we were on safer ground with the cat.

FRED: Look, con-cen-trate!

JANE: Alright, so you hate your grandfather.

FRED: (Nods.)

JANE: You want to kill him dead.

FRED: (Nods.)

JANE: Before you are even born?

FRED: (Nods enthusiastically.)

JANE: Listen, dear, let me see if the cat’s under the bed.

FRED: Sod the bloody cat!

JANE: Language! I ought to clip your ear.

FRED: All you need to know is that I am going to kill my grandfather before my mother was conceived. (Aims the gun at Bert.)

BERT (Quivers in fear.)

JANE: (Speaking slowly, as if to a child.) But that’s impossible, dear. It would create a paradox. If you did kill your grandfather before your mother’s conception, then you yourself would never have been conceived, so you wouldn’t exist, couldn’t travel back in time, and couldn’t kill your grandfather. But if you didn’t kill him, then you would be born and could do those things and I’m getting a headache. (Goes for pills.)

FRED: Right. That’s why I am here. To test the paradox. So, let’s begin the test.

FRED: (Aims the gun at Bert.)

BERT: (Is terrified.)

FRED: (Stops, puzzled.) Wait a minute. Exactly who is this man?

JANE: The wedding caterer.

FRED: (Bemused.) Wedding caterer?

BERT: (Nods eagerly, starts to reach for his pants.) I have a card—.

FRED: (Scowls at Bert.)

BERT: (Freezes.)

FRED: (Disapproving.) Wedding caterer?

BERT: (Looks uncomfortable.) It was a private arrangement. I wanted her to keep her mouth shut.

JANE: (Laughing.) Oh, no, you didn’t!

BERT: (Looks more uncomfortable.)

FRED: (Realization hits. He turns angrily to Jane.) Grandma! You’re having an affair! And on your wedding night!

JANE: Just a one-off quickie, dear, for the discount.

FRED: (Looks puzzled.)

JANE: You should see the catering bill! I told your grandfather not to invite his Dungeons and Dragons cronies. My God, can they put it away…

FRED: (Shouting.) Shut up!

JANE: That’s no way to speak to your granny.

FRED: You’re not my bloody granny, yet! Listen to me. Where. Is. Your. Husband?

JANE: With the best man.

FRED: Best man?

JANE: As soon as he thought I was asleep, he sneaked out for a bit of what he prefers. They’ve always been such good chums, can’t get a crowbar between ‘em, the dears. Anyway, that’s when I let Bert in. I thought you were hubby when you burst in. You shouldn’t do that, you know, gave me such a fright. I shall speak to your mother about it when I see her.

FRED: (Confused as hell.) Look, who is my mother’s father? (Looks petulant.) And I didn’t ‘burst in.’

JANE: How the hell should I know? You haven’t got a bloody mother, yet!

FRED: So how can you speak to her about me?

JANE: (Thinks about that.) Can we start again?

FRED: (Walks to side of stage, turns around and returns.)

JANE: Looping? Of course, one result of creating a temporal paradox could be a closed causal loop. You’d be going round and round forever, and you won’t be able to break out of it. Hmm… That raises the question of free will.

FRED: (Points the gun at Bert.) I’m going to have to kill both potential grandfathers.

BERT: (Shakes his head vigorously.)

JANE: If you have to do it, then I guess your free will just went bang.

FRED: (Thinks for a moment.) Or is there anyone else I should know about?

JANE: Not recently. (Giggles.)

FRED: Let me think about this. You say this is a one-off quickie?

JANE: (Nods.)

BERT: (Gazes at ceiling.)

FRED: And this is August. Mother was born in September, conceived around Christmas. So this can’t be my grandfather. (Proud of his logic.)

BERT: (Sighs, relieved.)

JANE: Oh, that reminds me. Bert, dear, we want a big bash at Christmas. Shall we say the same arrangement over the bill?

BERT: (Terrified, shakes head vigorously.)

FRED: (Buries his face in his hands, sobbing.)

BERT: (Timidly.) Err… can I suggest something?

FRED: Right now, anything would be welcome.

BERT: Look, there is a way out of this dilemma.

FRED: Go ahead, Einstein.

BERT: My name’s Bert.

FRED: Right, she probably hasn’t got around to Einstein, yet. Go ahead, suggest away.

BERT: You could kill your grandma, instead.

JANE: (Looks horrified.)

FRED: (Looks interested.)

JANE: You bloody sod.

FRED: (Shakes head slowly, regretfully.) No. I could never kill my sweet, little gray-haired grandma.

BERT: She isn’t sweet or gray-haired, right now.

FRED: True… (Considering it.) No. (Stands and points the gun at Bert.) It has to be granddad. I’m testing the Grandfather Paradox not the Grandmother Paradox. That would make things confusing.

JANE: Unlike the current situation?

BERT: But that’s the weakness in the test, as you’ve just discovered. You never really know the father for certain, only the mother. You need to kill your grandma.

JANE: (Glowers at Bert.)

FRED: (Becomes uncertain. Lowers gun.) I wish I could start again.

JANE: Looping again? Looks like you’re already in a closed causal loop…

FRED: It should be so simple. Travel in time, kill someone you hate, and see if you get to go home afterward.

JANE: You didn’t get a return ticket, dear? Returns are always cheaper than singles.

MAN: (Bursts in, waving a pistol.) Is Fred Brown here?

FRED: Yes, that’s me.

MAN: You mean-spirited, selfish, fame-driven bastard.

JANE: He was just coming around to the idea of being some kind of bastard.

MAN: You starved mum and me, while you squandered all your time and money on your damned time-machine. Then one day—poof! Gone. And you never came back!

FRED: Never came back? That means—.

MAN: It means I’m going to kill you.

FRED: No, wait. If you kill me, then I can’t kill my granddad.

JANE: Kinda proves that you can’t create a Paradox, after all.

MAN: I made it my life’s ambition to build a copy of your time machine and follow you and kill you, Dad.

FRED: What? You’re my son? I don’t have a son, yet. I can’t have deserted you. That means I go home. Doesn’t it?

MAN: Am I too early? (Becomes confused.) Maybe I should come back later. But I’m not sure what ‘later’ means…

JANE: Looks like the causal loop is getting tighter. How’s the cat, by the way?

MAN: Cat? We don’t have a cat.

FRED: (Is grabbed by unseen forces and is dragged struggling and screaming into the shadows and toward the exit.) Damn it! Too late!

JANE: (Dispassionately watches him fade.) Running out of time when you have a time machine seems like a paradox all of its own.

FRED’s exit is complete.

BERT: Creeps out of the room on tiptoe, pants in hand, while their attention is on the fading Fred.

MAN: (Puzzled.) Now, if dad returned—as he just did—then I had no reason to come back and kill him… So is he dead or alive? I guess it depends on great-granddad’s survival. Did he kill his granddad?

JANE: (Shrugs.) One-track mind! Like father like son. If you survive, then he must have survived. It’s obvious. Men! Oh, and that reminds me. Have you heard how Mister Schrödinger’s cat’s doing? Help me look under the bed.

MAN: Who was that man with no pants on?

JANE: Oh, that was probably your great-grandfather. Now put that gun away and help me check on

the cat.

MAN: (Fiddles with the gun, accidentally fires it.)

JANE: (Falls dead.)

MAN: (Looks around in a panic.) Er… Oops?

There is a thunder. Lights start to dim.

MAN: What happens now?

Kill lights. Total blackout.

Out of the silent darkness, fade up The Doors, “This is the end, beautiful friend…”