A Change of Pace

Matthew sat in his Ford Falcon and took a long drag of the Belmont resting on his lip. He leafed through the pages of The Herald, picking out articles he hadn’t read yet. A few bushfires were popping up in Gippsland, but nothing to be alarmed about yet. They were already reinforcing the stage at Festival Hall in preparation for the Beatles coming out later in the year. They were titling 1964 as the year Beatlemania finally hit Australian shores. Menzies was looking to re-introduce national service which the Herald suggested was to force young Australian men into fighting commies in French Indochina, or Viet Nam, or whatever it was called now. Matthew remembered pushing up through the coastal jungles of Malaya and then retreating. His mind briefly turned to fire, screaming and chain fences. Matthew was brought out of his memories by a nearby ding from the Droop Street tram – the eleventh one he had heard this evening.

Sighing, Matthew carefully folded up the paper and placed it on the passenger seat. He glanced through the driver’s open window at the warehouse side-door, assuming it even was a warehouse. Jackson Greene was the owner on paper, and the man Matthew was waiting for. It wasn’t the easiest to find. Thanks to a bit of digging at the State Corporate Affairs Offices and the right ten pounds changing hands at the Registration Office, he was able to navigate through several trusts and a shell company to find this otherwise unmarked warehouse in the heart of blue-collar Footscray.

At least he had interesting news to report to Mrs. Greene, albeit not necessarily what she wanted to hear. If she wanted grounds for a divorce based on an affair, she wasn’t going to get it. All the potential mistresses were red herrings. Careful inspection had revealed the con—Mr. Greene had constructed just enough clues to imply he was having multiple affairs and make his wife think the worst of his late-night escapades. The bigger question was: what was Mr. Greene up to?

Matthew plucked the cigarette from his mouth and checked the filter; satisfied at its tanning, he flicked the butt out into a puddle caught between the bluestones. The evening sky was still overcast, another uncharacteristically wet summer. At what point does uncharacteristically become characteristically? Jackson Greene characteristically left his house or the office every day at 5.20pm. He would then be unaccounted for a four-hour period before returning to his South Yarra home around 9.30pm every day, weekday and weekends. Matthew had sat at this location every day for the last seven days and Greene was yet to show.

Matthew stretched around into the backseat, threw the last weeks’ worth of papers onto the floor and found his Belmont pack. He fingered the lid for far too long, only to reveal its empty contents. He slumped for a moment before dragging himself out of the car onto the bluestone alley that led back onto Barkly Street. Only a couple of meters down the street was a late-night tobacconist run by a Greek named Dmitri who was always happy to strike up a conversation – there were worse ways to spend a stakeout.

Re-tucking in his shirt and adjusting his pants, Matthew strolled down the alley looking up, hoping that checking the sky will stop any sudden downpour. A gentleman rounded the corner up ahead and strode quickly up the alley, passing Matthew. Dark, almost black eyes, black wind-swept hair in an old style, or maybe a new up and coming style; hard to tell these days. He wore an ill-fitted grey suit, too tight around the waist and thighs. The man’s leather soles rapped across the bluestone. Matthew walked on; once you’ve made your mark, never react in that moment, or you risk spooking them. Don’t even turn for a second glance, because if they do the same, that’s enough to give up the game. Instead, just listen for… there it is, the slight hesitation in their gait as they turn to look back at you. One second, two seconds, three seconds.

Matthew kept his pace and swivelled his head slightly to look back – not easy on wet bluestone pavers. Jackson Greene had turned away and was striding directly towards Matthew’s Falcon parked opposite the warehouse door. Wait, Greene wasn’t going to steal Matthew’s car, was he? Matthew hadn’t locked it.

Fortunately, Greene took a sharp turn around the back of the warehouse and was out of sight, presumably towards the warehouse door. Matthew pivoted and started walking back towards the corner. He was thankful for getting the rubber soles on his shoes – a lot quieter than traditional leather.  As Matthew crept quickly, he expected to hear Greene get some keys out for the door that had been locked on every one of Matthew’s visits. Instead, he heard the door swing open with a loud creak. Too quick. Matthew reached the corner and poked his head around. Greene was out of sight, but he could hear the quick footsteps already disappearing off into the warehouse. The door had swung outward, obscuring any way for them to see each other.

Matthew let the door swing close for a few seconds before he grabbed the knob and gently eased it to almost shut, the nib resting against the frame. For anyone inside, it would look closed. He counted to five before slowly opening the door again and slipping through. As he went through, he gave the knob a test turn. Good, he wasn’t going to lock himself inside.

Matthew’s spine tingled as he quickly took stock of his surroundings. He knew this feeling well – danger. This was not a warehouse. It looked more like a hotel corridor, except the corridor was a strange shape; a quarter circle with the entrance at the bottom flat side and only one other door on the left side, with the room curving precisely around from the bottom right corner to the top left corner. Impressive, if not pointless architecture. Matthew quickly made his way to the next door. The floors were mosaic black and white tiles in a geometric pattern, and the wallpaper was yellow with orange diamonds running in evenly spaced stripes up the wall. Two old fashioned yellow sconce lights lined the left wall while a matching two sconce lights lined the curved wall. White skirting board ran along the bottom and top of the wall which led to a white roof with a basic four prong chandelier hanging in the middle.

Matthew could hear the quick tapping of hard-shoed footsteps from the other side of the door, gently fading as Greene kept walking. Next to the door was a single portrait-sized oil painting. It looked like it was straight out of the European renaissance, except its subject was the Beatles. Their stupid haircuts and smiling faces stood out as a stark contrast from the rest of the painting’s style. Why would someone paint something like this? Their music wasn’t even that good, but the youth of Australia seemed to love them regardless, probably more of an indicator of poor taste than anything else.

Matthew heard another door swing open from ahead and he pulled the door open to an identical room, just as the door ahead was closing. Did Greene build these circular rooms inside a warehouse? Matthew jogged over to the next door and grabbed the knob just before it closed. This room even had the same Beatles painting. Who ordered two of these? He ran his finger along the painting’s surface and felt the brushwork. Another door in the next room opened.

“Bugger this,” muttered Matthew. He needed to catch up and get answers. He jerked the door open to reveal an identical room again. The door in the side wall was already closed. This time, sprinting forward he reached for the door handle and was about to grab it before he stopped sharply, the hairs on the back of his outstretched arm raising in alarm. By his measure, this was the third segment of the circle, there were only a few possibilities of where this door could lead. This door could potentially lead back into the first room through some secret side entrance he hadn’t noticed. Or perhaps it led to a final dead-end room. The only other alternative was that it led back outside through some side entrance he somehow hadn’t picked up across the past week.

This place had Matthew turned around and disorientated. He also now saw there was another Beatles painting next to the door, as well as new addition, this time of a helicopter hovering over a jungle on fire. Looked like somewhere in Asia. He had seen fires like that before, but it was people burning rather than the trees. A door slammed close ahead. With a groan, Matthew opened the door more cautiously and peered through. Another quarter circle room. This wasn’t the same room as the entrance, otherwise the entrance door would have been to his right, but again, the room curved around to the left with another door in the left wall. These rooms must be gently spiralling around like a staircase, although he couldn’t tell if he was going up or down. He hadn’t noticed the slope. Unease started to creep in – this place was strange enough without there also being an optical illusion.

A third painting had been added to the wall, this time a bunch of Orientals saluting the viewer while standing in front a red flag with a bunch of stars on it. The footsteps from the other side had now picked up speed and a door slammed. Greene was running, presumably he had noticed his follower. At this point, Matthew’s instincts were telling him to retreat – these rooms were not natural. Fighting against that instinct. The running footsteps were still receding from the next room, and now they had an echo following them. Matthew ran to the next door and threw it open. He immediately noticed two new paintings: an armed soldier with Star of David necklace and an aerial shot of a convertible with a few passengers and a man hanging off the back.

Another sprint to the door. Through the door he heard the echoes of Greene’s footstep increase in volume. Another door slammed. Matthew swung the door open. Another three paintings on top of the first five. Before going through the next door, Matthew just managed to identify an astronaut standing next to an American flag at night and a more abstract picture of a grey rectangle with gold legs coming out of it.

Another room with more paintings again, at least a dozen now. The same he had already seen plus more. The Olympic Rings covered in blood, some kind of windmill against a backdrop of clouds, a yellowed human skull. The footsteps echoed even louder now, the loudness of the door slamming from ahead caused Matthew to flinch, like it was happening right behind him.

He ran into the next room, barely paying attention to what was now two dozen paintings covering the left wall and starting to encroach onto the curved wall. A television sitting atop a typewriter, a gathering of people in a dirty street somewhere. Greene’s footsteps echoed everywhere like he was walking through multiple adjacent rooms. The paintings were starting press down on him, spreading from the other door like a weed.

Matthew ran to the next door, opened it wide and slammed it behind him, the sound of the slam reverberating around this room, all the prior rooms and all the rooms to come. There would have been around thirty paintings in this room now. Green’s footsteps echoing everywhere.

A door slammed from ahead, and then another door, and another, all occurring in quicker successions. The footsteps also started to echo quicker until they went beyond a running speed, more like several machine guns firing off in the distance, accompanied by a constant stream of artillery fire. Matthew stopped suddenly, closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. Greene’s footsteps and door slamming began to merge together into a single undefinable noise before they faded away. Then there was silence, except for Matthew’s deep and slow breathing. He undid the top button of his shirt to let in some air and slowly opened his eyes to a room full of renaissance style paintings, but clearly of more modern things, although not many he recognised. There was man breaking through a graffitied wall with a sledgehammer, a building that looked like it had been bombed—a nuclear reactor perhaps, and then there was just a painting of a sheep just standing in a barn somewhere. He did a quick count and could see there were 34 paintings in total.

Matthew didn’t consider himself a superstitious man, but this place was frankly of another world and at this point never–ending. He would leave Greene for now. Matthew had at least enough to go by to report that Mr. Greene was not having an affair, but rather commissioning potentially dozens of paintings of the Beatles to adorn a series of rooms that felt like The Library of Babel. Matthew turned around and opened the door behind him. He was blasted with bright light and held his arm up to shield his eyes.

“Bloody hell!” It was like exiting the flicks after a particularly long one, except his eyes hurt. After about ten seconds, he adjusted to the day’s brightness. How long had he been in there for? For it to be this sunny and no longer overcast, he would have had to spent the night in there. Matthew quickly left the room, just glad to be out. He took a deep breath and sighed. The warehouse door slammed behind him and he spun around. It was the same door he had initially entered. Had he just stayed in one room the entire time? Maybe Greene had jumped him given him some of that acid that was becoming a problem now. Had he just spent half a day on mind altering drugs in a single room?

Now that he looked around, the brick wall had been repainted a deep blue, rather than the musty brown for yesterday. He walked over and touched the wall. Not only was the paint dry, but it was starting to wear. He also noticed two additions above the door. Two grey rectangles were perched on separate supports jutting out from the wall. At the end of the long end of each rectangle was a dark glass panel with a circle on the other side. One eye was watching him while the other was pointed towards the alley. The drugs were clearly still in his system. He turned around and headed back towards his car. It was gone. Matthew yelled in frustration. Greene had drugged him and stolen his car! He paced up and down in front of the warehouse. Once he had calmed down, Matthew noticed the car wasn’t the only thing missing. Greene seemed to have stolen the other warehouse that he had been parked in front of. The building was completely missing and a car park had taken its place.

The tingle ran down Matthew’s spine again. Everything was off. The cars looked strange, smoother in design and with dark windows. Matthew backed towards the alley, turned and ran towards Barkly Street. The alleyway was lined with vibrant mural art – this had not been there yesterday. The bluestones were gone and had been replaced with asphalt. Matthew emerged onto the busy street and immediately threw himself back against the mural wall. He poked his head out to take another look and couldn’t stop the, “Aw jeez,” from escaping his lips.

The streets were lined with Orientals. They didn’t look like Nips, maybe Chinamen? He poked his head out again and looked around the street. They were everywhere. Their skin was dark like the Malay or Singaporeans, south-east? Worse, their language was plastered across all the shops. He didn’t recognise it. He met the eyes of one of them, who responded with a quizzical look, but continued and specifically avoided further eye contact. He was too conspicuous. Matthew shifted his posture to a more casual loitering and continued to observe. He drew a few glances but soon realised it was because he was dressed oddly compared to these people. Most people were wearing t-shirts and shorts, despite not being at the beach. Sunglasses seemed to adorn most people’s faces and many were wearing sneakers, or sandals, rather than proper shoes.

Cars continued to drive along the road, but it wasn’t until a spacecraft straight from the comics drifted past on the tram-line that Matthew connected the dots. He was in the future. Menzies had clearly taken them to war against Viet Nam, and they had lost. Now Australia was a commie hell-scape. Although upon closer inspection, there were a fair few white Australians also moving through the street who didn’t look too concerned. Maybe the government lifted the Immigration Restriction Act and Orientals have flooded in; highly unlikely given they were on the brink of war.

Matthew closed his eyes again and took some deep breaths. He had travelled in time, or maybe to a similar dimension. Either way he was in the wrong time. It dawned on him that his parents were likely deceased by now. His mind turned to his friends, like Andrew, Tom and… well, sure there were some others. How old would they be now? They could be old men, or dead as well. Matthew quickly looked around at the sky. No flying cars, which means he couldn’t have travelled past the mid-eighties at least. He needed a cigarette.

Taking great care to walk casually up the street, Matthew made sure he stayed alert for surprise attacks, alarms or even for one of them to judge him too prosperous based on his clothing. He nodded amicably to those he passed, who shot back suspicious looks. Again, he was too conspicuous, clearly the commie world is not a friendly one. He stopped at Dmitri’s and felt his shoulders sink. Dmitri’s was gone and had been replaced by a corner store named Eleven with the number 7 behind it. For some reason the entire word was capitalised, except for the ‘n’ which was lower case. Given the language shift here, it would make sense less care was taken with English names.

He walked in and was assaulted by every colour of the rainbow. Candy bars, chip packets and magazines were so vibrant. He tentatively stepped down the aisles looking for the cigarettes, and ended up grabbing the only thing he recognised, a bottle of Coca-Cola, although it didn’t seem to be glass. Did they shift to the decimal currency in the end? Would his money be worth anything here? Actually, did they even use money? Or did they use labour hours, food tokens or something more nefarious.

He walked over to the magazine stand and picked one up that was in English – strangely, most of them were in English. Now Weekly had a picture on the front of a dishevelled man with brown hair. Large bold words said, ‘Matthew Perry spills all on his rehab adventure.’ They shared a first name at least and the last name was innocuous enough until he sorted out where he stood in this world.

“Matthew Perry,” Matthew muttered to himself a few times, while he looked for the more important information on the magazine cover. He found the date: February 1998. It was almost the turn of the millennium. How long had this been a Viet Namese country? With the magazine and Coca-Cola, Matthew casually walked over to the counter, keeping an eye on the front window in case he was drawing attention.

“Hey, where can I get a smoke around here?” Matthew turned to see a brown-skinned man giving him an odd look. They stood in silence for a few seconds before the man replied in a thick accent,

“We sell packs here, what do you want?” An Indian. He had fought alongside these people across the Malay Peninsula. He had even made friends with a few.

“Uh, Belmonts?”

“We don’t sell them here?”

“Oh, uh, then whatever you recommend.” The man walked over to a wall of cupboards behind the counter, pulled out a key, unlocked one of them and pulled out a pack of Winfields before placing it on the counter. Matthew picked it up. It looked almost the same except for the large bold writing on the packet that read, ‘SMOKING WHEN PREGNANT HARMS YOUR BABY’. Good thing he’s not a woman.

“Ok, thank you.” Matthew took the pack of cigarettes, the magazine and the Coca-Cola and turned to leave. The Indian behind the counter startled,

“Wait, you haven’t paid yet!” Pay? What kind of commie utopia was this? Matthew dug into his pocket and pulled out six shillings, dropping them on the counter.

“Keep the change. Oh, and… Apna khayal rakhna,” said Matthew with a knowing nod. He left the corner store and started walking city-ward. He needed to find his car.