The Portal

As I stood and waited in the metal room, I had time to reflect. So many things. So many choices and missteps that all led me here, to the darkened, metal walled room that smelt somewhat like fish. Kraken must have spilt his food again. There was one source of light in the little room, a lamp in one corner next to a couch. It hit dully on the drab furniture around it. Six desks were arranged on the opposite side of the room, littered with papers, scarred with the scrawl of Professor Tan and his associates. Even some of my own hand was marked on the parchment. Countless calculations and revisions and theories. They all led here.

Kraken surfaced from a hidden place, springing onto the desk closest to me, upsetting a coffee mug with ‘I love cats’ printed in hot pink across it. The animal was a little overweight with tabby markings. Kraken reminded me of my cat from some eleven years prior. His name was Carlo. He got hit by a car. I was fourteen at the time and I remember it vividly. It seems absurd that a place like this, a place so foreign, could trigger such familiar memories.

Surely it was nearly time. Nerves flared like a pack of river dancers were partying in my stomach. Taking a deep breath, I forced myself to find calm, it was how I was trained. But now that it was all real… I sat down on the olive green couch in the corner, the springs groaning and signalling Kraken to dive into my personal space. His rolls of belly fat swung from side to side as he ran and jumped onto my lap. His sheer weight was remarkable. The couch groaned more with his additional mass. Despite his obvious imperfections, Kraken was one of my favourite individuals. He had a calming influence. It was the whole reason we had a pet for the place.

I contemplated the possibility of Professor Tan letting me take the cat with me. They were slim, but an amusement to entertain. The professor would get a new pet of course. I could picture the mug with ‘I love goldfish’ standing on the desk. Tan had mentioned replacing Kraken recently due to his fishy incidents. An empty threat of course. He loved the cat. But with a goldfish, the place would at least have a viable excuse to smell like fish all the time. Or that was the professor’s reasoning. Each moment passed, I realised my eyes were fixed on the door, the only sound was the lamp with its soft whine and Kraken, purring like a truck.

I had to be prepared. The transition could have unforeseen side effects. Memory loss, panic attacks, jetlag. The team had brainstormed it all. Memory loss. I wondered what that could be like. My magnificently marred past and its moments. There were many things back there I wouldn’t mind having scrubbed out. But the last twenty two months in the darkened room that smelt of coffee, fish and paper - they had been the best of my life. All I had to do was get lost. I’d just been looking for the laundromat. Instead I’d found the dusty bookshop that wasn’t a bookshop, as well as the Professor, Kraken and all the others. I can still remember clear as day the moment I stepped through the door. The moment marked my catapulting into a new world. One of worthwhile memories... and friends. I had not expected any of it. Least of all from beyond the gun that had been trained on me from the moment I stepped into the drab shop. She’d demanded who I was. I’d faltered, fumbling for my name, coming up with the lousy, ‘I-I don’t know.’ I suppose I didn’t.

The door opened revealing one of my colleagues, black dishevelled hair falling over his eyes. “Ready to make like Doctor Who?” Brad asked with a grin.

“I can’t even begin to think of a suitable way to respond to that.” I scoffed, scooping the tabby off my lap and gave him one last scratch under the chin. I followed Brad out of the metal room and into the wood panelled hallway. I forced myself to breathe, knees feeling weak and calling out for lack of oxygen.

“Don’t look so petrified,” Brad said suddenly.

“Easy enough for you,” I muttered. “You’re loving every moment. It’s your dream come true.”

“I’m just tagging along. This is your mission.”

We turned left, crossing the threshold of a large room. It was brightly lit, an upright hexagonal prism of a structure in the centre. The whole team was there. Professor Tan stood a few steps in front of them. Marie, a middle aged woman with dark hair tied in a ponytail had a video camera trained on her, Brad and I as we entered.

“And the envoys enter,” Tan exclaimed, his eyes trained on the slip of paper in his hand. “Perhaps the world’s… big-erm-greatest progress in science and the laws of quantum physics since the Big Bang…? That sounds right. BEHOLD! The greatest discovery…of human kind……. Lies through this portal…! The Portal!”

When I truly contemplated it, for me, it was the journey, all the events that came together for me to come here. Were they not the greatest discovery? All the mistakes? The true portal. I had stepped through a portal the day I crossed the fake bookshop’s doorway.

“Gosh, Prof.” Brad smirked. “You didn’t have to write a script.”

“I didn’t want to make any mistakes,” the man retorted. “Now! Time waits for no one!” I couldn’t help but grin at that.

We made our uncertain farewells. Finally, I stepped into the quiet of the Portal. No one knew what lay ahead. Whether this would work at all… I made my way to the chair that stood before the panel of glowing buttons and screens. Photos were stuck above the controls with blue-tack. They were designed to trigger memories if things went awry and Brad and I lost our memories. A user’s manual for the Portal could be considered more beneficial. The pictures were more sentiment than anything else. They were all I wanted to remember. Kraken, Professor Tan, Brad and the rest of the team were featured in the pictures.

I strapped myself into the chair. Brad did the same at the secondary controls to my left. The luminous green launch button had a clear protective covering and my hand barely trembled as I lifted it.

Everything until now, was….well, everything. The past was what made the future possible, like each step in a ladder that led to something brilliant at the top…and now I could enjoy the ride as it propelled me into the future. But now…there was no looking back now, no matter what happened.