The Time Traveller

Isn’t the power of prayer amazing?

At sixteen, when it really started to happen for him, Jason Nozzle’s appearance was nothing to write home about. No one would have thought that this boy hid extraordinary talent beyond all who came before him.

A mop of brown, curly hair skimming as best it could the shameful acne and wild hazelnut eyes.
Growing up on the outskirts of a basic English town, life was never anything other than average, unless he was practising his art.

He lived, up until very recently, in a run-of-the mill semi with his Mum and two sisters.

Here, Jason Nozzle concocted what would be the greatest discovery on earth; time-travel.

When he was five years old, his now estranged father took him to watch an athletics meeting at a large London stadium.

This historical day would be known throughout the world as the defining moment when Jason Nozzle conceived a method for time-travel based purely on the power of prayer.

Jason decided there and then that he would break the 100 metres world record by the power of his mind alone.

By the time he’d reached the ripe old age of ten, he could make small, shaped bits of paper move from one side of the kitchen table to the other, just by willing it to happen.

Jason kept his art to himself, though. He believed, quite rightly, that giving it away would spoil the end-game. He was aware that any premature form of fame would forever diminish his chances of winning the Olympic Gold for the 100 metres, which he was certain he could do.

His only goal was to increase his size and capacity of his soul, as if it was a battery, to such an extent that it would be full to the brim throughout his life if replenished as required.

At the age of fourteen, Jason fully perfected the art of time-travel and was practising on an everyday basis, playing tricks on his sisters as to his whereabouts, ringing the doorbell from outside thus disturbing one of them, only to then jump out from nowhere on the landing before the sister could reach the top of the stairs.

His Mum and his sisters found it weird that he could be in two places at once, but they got used to it.

Sometimes, that’s what happens in families; you take weird things for granted and become used to them.

For instance, if his Mum wanted something from the cupboard while she was making dinner, he’d have it out of there in a flash, placed next to her favoured right hand.

‘But,’ she’d said, sweating from the vegetables on the boil. ‘How did you..? You didn’t even move.. Oh, whatever. Pass me the coriander, will you, Jase.’ And, like magic, there was the coriander.

It was easy to dismiss as folly. Life’s like that; when something good happens, we don’t ask too many questions about it.

Jason Nozzle had invented time-travel without reading a single word on the subject.

As governments worldwide threw billions away on ‘pioneering possible theories of time-travel’ in the past decade alone, with heads of state bullying scientists to tear their hair out to be first over the line, Jason prayed quietly.

He dismissed religion as a truthful means for prayer when he watched a programme about those who stand at the wailing wall in Jerusalem, praying solely for the demise of those on the other side.

To Jason, this was against spirituality and so their prayers would be sure to go unanswered as a matter of course; greetings cards lost forever in the post, a Valentine’s balloon sent to Mars.

For Jason Nozzle, his own faultless form of time-travel had cost precisely the price of his ticket to the athletics meeting aged five, which had been free, as his Dad used to save coupons for such outings.

In order for Jason to travel in time, he only had to kneel and pray at his bed, as he had for so long. He hadn’t needed to tear his hair out or spend astronomical sums of public money.
More importantly, he was having a laugh.

One time, he challenged a friend to a race across the park, which was quite large.

His friend was confident that he’d win, so he offered Jason a sportsman’s bet on the outcome.

Standing still at the start, Jason watched as his friend scarpered across the park, looking back and saying ‘Come on!’

As his friend had nearly got to the other side of the park, Jason closed his eyes and removed himself from the spot where he stood and replaced himself just ahead of his friend, who nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw him there.

They kept it a secret (luckily, this was a good friend) until, one day, aged sixteen, Jason entered into a 100 metre sprint challenge at a local athletics academy.

It was on this occasion that Jason showed the world his powers.

As the gun was fired, all the other runners scrambled away as if their lives depended on it while Jason stood still and closed his eyes for a few seconds.

Needless to say, he transported himself to the finishing line and walked through the winner’s tape ahead of the grim-faced straddlers jostling for second place with gritted teeth and tight muscles.

When the runners up realised what Jason had done, they all started screaming, asking each other if they thought they’d seen the same thing.
It was mayhem.

Many people, mostly parents of the mere mortals involved, had filmed the event and Jason’s victory was a major headline on all the news channels that night, although the watching public at home remained sceptical.

An eminent public relations guru came grovelling at Jason’s door the next morning, along with half the reporters in the country, but he would talk to only one reporter, to whom he made it known that all he’d ever dreamed of was winning the world record for the 100 metres.

He also revealed that he’d be thrilled to be given the opportunity to race against Usain Bolt, who he admired more than any other man on the planet.

Once footage of his victory at the athletics meeting had been viewed by experts and distributed to the media, world leaders tried to get in touch with Jason’s Mum to put on the table a proposal for Jason to work alongside their team of scientists with no expense spared.

They all stressed that the copyright for time-travel would be in his name and that he would rich beyond his wildest dreams.

Within days, a bidding war had developed and already turned nasty, mostly between China, Russia and America.

The British government, surprisingly slow to understand the implications of Jason’s incredible discovery, rushed out a detailed bid, but all these leading nations were turned down.

Jason’s only request would be to challenge Usain Bolt to a 100 metres race, in which he would break the world record, after which he may be in a position to answer their questions about his discovery.

This request was granted by the international board for athletics, but he would have to wait till an appropriate date, mostly so that the media moguls could rake as much as they could from the whole thing.

In between the time that this was agreed and the time of the race, which would take place on June 15th 2010, some three weeks away, Jason and his family were moved to a secure location by MI5, who had slowly gained the confidence of the time-travelling lad, who had by then been given the nickname ‘The Invisible Superman’ by the media.

His sisters and mother could no longer live with the constant attention that Jason’s antics had drawn, and so they were all happy when they set off to the secluded mansion, escorted by the Secret Service and various members of the SAS en route.

Jason, though, would say nothing about the origins of his powers apart from that ‘it comes from prayer’.

Not wanting to put him off track, the men and women from MI5 who had befriended him tried to veer him away from the prayer aspect in order to get him to say more about the other origins of time-travel. They knew that prayer had been around for millennia and had solved nothing for the world’s poverty in the process, in fact it had worsened dramatically, but Jason would shrug his shoulders and tell them ‘it’s just about prayer and that’s it’.

They tried to make him time-travel but he refused every demand, however kindly.

His sisters and mother, meanwhile, were enjoying the spoils of the good life, dining at fine restaurants and lavished to limitless spending sprees at shopping malls by the media, escorted by Jason’s burly team of security guards.

With all the closed curcuit televisions in the mansion, Jason became so gripped by paranoia, constantly worried that he was being watched from every angle, that one night he decided to escape.

It was easy enough because all he had to do was time-travel to the far edge of the lawn from his bedroom window on the third floor.
Then, all he had to do was run into the woods.

When he got there, it was cold and damp. He couldn’t see much further than his nose, which, as his powers needed to be able to see and fix on his chosen destination, meant that he couldn’t time-travel anywhere.

Jason had no idea what to do or where to go, so he rummaged around in the woods hoping that he was going in the right direction away from the mansion.

After an hour or so, scratched, sullied and scraped, he emerged from the woods and found himself on a road.

The moon lit the road quite well, so he made his way until he came to a little cottage set away from the road.

He was in two minds what to do.

On the one hand, he wanted to go back to the mansion (his Mum and sisters would worry themselves sick if he stayed away).

On the other, he wanted to find a little place of his own to hide away in.

He walked up to the cottage and noticed that there were no cars in the driveway.

Although he perceived it to be normal for there to be no lights on considering the time, he had a feeling that this cottage was empty, and so he time-travelled into the hallway and stood there, hoping that there were no vicious dogs laying in wait.

Tip-toeing up the stairs, he found that all the bedroom doors were open and, on further inspection, empty.

Crawling into the bed of the smallest room, he fell into a deep sleep.

At about eight o’clock the next morning, Jason woke with a start.

He worried that his family would be tearing their hair out, and immediately went downstairs to switch on the television set in the living room.

The news unravelled his story in chunks as the main event of the day.
MI5 had found him out at dawn and were scouring the surrounding area with the aid of local police and others.

Reporters blurted out the obvious. ‘If this boy can time-travel, what chance do they have of finding him?’

His Mum and sisters were televised being comforted by members of parliament and other well-known figures, urging Jason to return to the mansion.

‘For whatever reason you ran away, Jason,’ cried his Mum into the camera, sporting a Gucci dressing-gown and handbag, ‘it’s not a problem. We love you, darling. Just come back, please.’

Even the prime minister made a plea for his safe return.

People were urged not to approach Jason as he may be ‘confused’, but to contact the police on a dedicated hotline, which was shown at the bottom of the TV screen.

Jason cried for a minute or so, but he made his mind up soon afterwards when he saw a little note on the table.

It was from the owners of the cottage, wishing the people who would be letting it all the best for their stay. There were phone numbers for ordering food from the local producers (which could be delivered the same day!) and the keys to the car in the garage were under the driver’s seat.

The people were due to arrive in four days, which pleased Jason so much that he screamed with excited joy at the prospect of being alone for a little while.

He had one hundred pounds, which would be more than enough to order food for his stay.

Without the constant grovelling of all of those heads of state and other boring, power-mad world leaders, he felt himself for the first time since leaving home for the mansion.

‘That dreadful mansion,’ he thought, checking on things to eat in the kitchen.

Thankfully, the owners had put a loaf of farmhouse bread and a litre of milk in the freezer, which he took out to thaw. In the fridge, there was bacon, eggs and tomatoes.

By the time the bread had thawed adequately for toasting, he’d been upstairs praying for a while and taken a bath.

As he soaked the dirt and scratches, he pondered on how his Mum and sisters might be reacting to his disappearance.

He knew they did truly worry for him and loved him dearly, but they’d been so keen to talk about him to the media since arriving at the mansion that he couldn’t help thinking that they cared more about their own new lives to worry sufficiently to actually pray for him, so he decided that he’d stay put, at least for a few days, until things calmed down.

He ate his hearty breakfast and watched more news of himself unravel over the course of the day.
The cottage was perfect for prayer, he realised quickly, and wondered if, one day, he might be able to live in such a place when things calmed down.

But Jason hadn’t yet realised the full implications of his discovery.

Things would never be the same again.