DOOM

“What time is it?” Doom scratched his head and rolled over in a thick bricket of dry shrubbery.

“11:45” replied Amy

“No, the year, what time is it; where am I?”

“What? It’s 2024”

“Oh man, what a hangover”

“Who are you?”

“I’m Doom, I dunno why I’m here; what’s going on?”

“Well, these are my friends” Amy pointed around “That’s Thomas, Donny, and over there is Ronnie – Ronnie’s a bit quiet.” Amy was wearing a heart shaped locket around her neck.

They all looked on inquisitively “Why are you naked?” Tommy asked.

“Oh, oh. I actually, ah, I don’t know – I can’t remember anything” Doom rubbed sleep out of his eyes and tried to tongue his dry lips moist again “time travelling is a hell of a thing – I haven’t quite got the hang of it.”

“Wait. Hold on. What? Wait a minute – time travelling?” asked Donny.

“Yeah, time travelling” Said Doom with a spooky laugh. He raised his hands to create more mystery.

“Where, sorry, when do you come from?”

“I forget, I don’t have a time anymore; it’s all more or less muddled into one. Last week, or yesterday, or even tomorrow; I was looking at dinosaurs”

“You can’t be serious” said Tommy

“Yerp – pretty big. Look more like cassowaries than lizards”

“Cool” said Tommy with a smile

“So where are you guys going? What are you doing?”

“We’re trying to defeat the evil Mrs Mythra – she ended the world in 2023 and we’ve got to stop her doing more damage”

“The world never ends” said Doom.

“Ours did” said Amy.

“Oh, how so?”

“Well, all the water’s gone and Mythra keeps it all for herself, in her factory”

Doom looked around and saw dirt, twisted steel, and a hazy red sky. Smoke and ash filled his nostrils. Dust and rust.

“Is that so – can you get in to get it?”

“Well, she does sell the water back to us, it's just at a highly inflated price”

“I guess that would be a highly inflated price considering water is meant to be free”

They all looked at Doom.

“Look, I’d love to help but I have to get home”

“Can’t you do some kind of time travelling trick and kill her when she was born?”

“Yeah but nah, it never works out how you’d think”

“What happens?”

“Basically anything other than what you want to happen.”

“Oh.”

“Seriously” said Donny “please, you’ve got to help us”

"Did you lose your clothes?" Tommy asked

“Ok. I'll help” Said Doom, and he disappeared.

*

Doom woke up in a bathroom. White porcelain and tiles. Still naked. He peeped through the cubicle door; no one was around. He stepped out and opened the bathroom door, big and heavy, and peeped out there too. No one was around. Hmmm, where am I? he thought. Also, when am I?

He spotted a big beautiful draping curtain in the hallway. Hmmm, I'll have to make do. He gently pulled it down and wrapped it around himself like a cloak and held it firm at his chest. It was the perfect fit – it covered everything. Nobody in this time would even know he wasn’t wearing shoes. Haha! Then he ran back into the bathroom and started drinking from the closest faucet. He watched the water flow freely down the sink hole and thought about it… is water wasted down a sinkhole? Does it ever stop being water? I guess it just gets muddied up but it always remains water, if there’s a cistern.

Hmmm, well I guess I need some food too, he wondered. Then he thought further, "Do I?" He was confused and remembered that that definitely meant he was hungry. Maybe this place was a restaurant or something.

He walked out and up to a counter to order food. What was he going to use to pay for it? He’d figure that out – he’d been around a while. Then he noticed a sign on the wall: July 4, ’76. "What the hell does that mean?" he wondered. Seventy-six when? Oh this time travelling stuff gets tiresome after a while.

A girl with horn rimmed glasses popped out through a side door and met him at the counter.

“Hello, how may I help you, Sir? Also, interesting costume; are you a wizard? Is it for the celebrations outside?”

“Oh no, I’m… um, I’m Jonesy.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you Jonesy, I’m Martha. Now, were you looking for something in particular?”

“What?” Doom scratched his head and then realised it was a library, he saw PUBLIC LIBRARY on the wall above the time indicator shelf and wondered why he hadn’t pieced all this information together from seeing the books on the shelves. He supposed it was because he was intrigued these people used little cards to indicate time, almost like a scoreboard, like time was a race to the finish line.

“Um, I’m not looking for a book.”

“Then why are you here?”

Doom noticed Martha had a pad with beautiful handwriting in it. When she noticed his glance she immediately reached over and closed it with a precious preservation, but left her hand on the cover. It read ECONOMICS

“Studying Economics, are you?” asked Doom

“Well, yes actually, I’m in my first year”

“That didn’t look like economics to me” he replied with a smile

Martha looked at him “no, it wasn’t. Look….”

“May I ask what you’re writing about?”

“No” she looked at him in the eyes and didn’t blink or look away. Nervously.

“Well, Martha, that looks like a story to me and a man named Marcus, was it Marcus? yes I think it was, well he told me that to divert from one’s own nature is very bad, but worse still is to divert from the nature of the whole”

“What are you talking about?” asked Martha

“Oh, Marcus was my friend, anyway, he wrote a book once; only one”

“So?”

“Well, I’d like to know what yours is about”

“If you must know it’s about a beautiful princess named Mythra”

“Haha!” smiled Doom! “I love it!”

“Really?” said Martha

“Well of course, you’re writing about yourself aren’t you; about your fantasies”

“Well yes…”

Just then an old lady walked up to the counter and screamed “THAT MAN IS WEARING THE LIBRARY CURTAIN! GET IT OFF HIM” and with that Doom disappeared and the curtain fell to the floor.

*

Doom reappeared somewhen else. Thirsty, all the rest. Four people were looking down at him. He rubbed his eyes and let them focus.

“Hey what’s up, Amy, Donny, Thomas, and Ronnie” He recognised their faces from some other place or time.

Ronnie said “Who the hell are you and how do you knows our names?” He raised a metal flask of water to his lips.

“Never mind” Doom said “can I have a sip of water? My mouth is awfully dry”

“Sure” Ronnie said and handed over the flask. He was wearing a heart shaped locket and now Amy wasn’t Doom noticed.

“Thanks mate, see you guys later”

“What?” They all looked at each other as Doom walked off into the distance.

Amy said "that filthy man was naked, we should report him!"

They all agreed.

As Doom walked along he thought to himself, hmmm, there was no plastic in that flask. Interesting. The sun began to lower over green trees and pastures.

“Maybe this time it worked” Doom thought. “I wonder what Mythra’s up to now, hopefully something kind".

He walked along and looked off into the trees and felt the wind on his face. He breathed the air and it was fresh. Then, he opened his eyes and saw a factory. "Ahhh, they never learn" he thought to himself.

Then he looked closer. On the factory, in huge letters, it read:

JONESY, and in big letters still underneath: ENVIRONMENTAL WATER PURIFICATION PLANT and then still again, in smaller letters We Believe in Each Other, We Believe in One Another.