What was and what is

Part 5

Year 2716½.

The pain was overwhelming, like a constant hammering in Arthur’s body, and he found himself in a blurry world in which there was no clear border between reality and imagination. Every little movement, even just the slightest shift, sent shivers of hurt down his spine, and he tried to stay in place as he slowly opened his eyes.

It was with worry that he blinked the tears down the cheeks in order to see clear. For what was he going to see? The last thing he remembered was fighting for his breath as a hand clenched his throat into a bloody mess. Then it all went black. Arthur groaned. First Alfred, then this? Apparently he was being put to sleep with rather harsh methods these days. It was almost funny. But he didn’t feel like laughing.

As Arthur was able to see again, he found his head was resting to the left, and the sight of a warm, red room welcomed him. He almost let go of a sigh in relief. He was still on some kind of ship, no doubt about that. The steady rocking was characteristically for a well built warship, - that he remembered clearly from his own days on the ocean.

As he tried to take in the details surrounding him, he noticed a movement from the corner of his eyes. He wanted to move his head, but it felt too heavy, and all he could do was to wait for this apparently living thing to move into his view. But it didn’t. It just kept rocking with the movements of the ship just out of his sights reach.

Arthur felt uncomfortable. Why wasn’t it making any noises? He slowly poked his tongue out to wet his lips, as he tried to collect enough air to form a sentence: “Who…?” he moaned. No answer. He tried again: “Who… is there?” A low chuckle was the only answer. He gulped down the spit that had formed in the back of his mouth. “Please… who…?”

Arthur was a proud man. He used to be one of the strongest nations on Earth, and though his power had shrunk in throughout the last years, he was still going strong, and was an old admired and respected nation. But even nations breaks, and Arthur couldn’t stop the tears that had formed in his eyes from spilling down his cheeks. A low whimper grumbled from the back of his throat, and he felt like a child being scared from its own nightmare. Just one difference; this seemed to be reality.

“Now, is the great wizard begging?” The moving thing went to his view and turned out to be a person. And not just any person. Though Arthur had no idea of the name of the man standing just metres from him, he had a clear idea of his position on the ship. The heavy boots, the long, red coat, the white shirt with frilled collar. The sword. The gun. Arthur closed his eyes before reaching the man’s face. What he’d seen had been more than enough.

“Captain,” he mumbled.

“Oh, they didn’t beat the sense out of your head, I see.” Arthur could hear him move towards the bed, then the sound of a chair being pulled over the floor and the low grunt as the man sat down. Then it all went silent.

At least in the room.

As Arthur started to listen more carefully, he could hear how the tree squeaked with every movement the ship made, and the calm sound of the waves slipping up the sides of the ship. Somewhere above them people were moving around, talking and laughing. He wrinkled the brows. It was like at the meetings. All the nations gathered around that long table. Talking. Laughing. Enjoying each others company despite the often serious subjects being discussed.

But just as now, he was always so far, so far away from the joy filling up the others.

“Why..” he whispered, even before he caught himself thinking the word, and he heard how the man beside him move.

“Why? Why what? Why you’re here? That’s what I want to know, wizard.” Arthur drew in a heavy breath.

“Wizard?”

“Don’t try to fool me!” The man sneered. Arthur yelped as fingers grabbed his hair and forced his head upwards. He opened his eyes, just to stare into deep oceans of green. “Now you tell me what a magician is doing on sea. Are you out for us, eh? Who sent you?” Arthur felt his lower lip shake, but at the same time an annoyance swelled up in his inner. Magician? Wizard? He was a noble gentleman! He hardly ever tried out his magic anymore, how dared this man-!

“I’m… no wizard…” The man hesitated. Then he let go of Arthur’s hair, and Arthur slammed the back of his head down onto the bed. He whimpered slightly. The pain quickly spread to the rest of his body, but as he tried to lift his right arm to scratch the hurt spot, he found there was something completely wrong. “Bloody hell!” he yelped as his face sunk into wrinkles of hurt, “what… what have..?”

“Your arm?” The man seemed to be enjoying himself. His voice was filled with delight. “You thought we would be stupid enough to leave it unharmed? Without that arm you can’t do your magic, right? Fooled by a pirate. Must hurt your pride.”

“More like.. Hurt my.. Body!” Arthur spat, anger filling his heart, “you… broke it…?” The man shrugged the shoulders. “Fuck…” Arthur narrowed his eyes. His sight was once again being filled with tears, and the face of the man was a blurry painting floating around in front of him.

“Now, wizard,” the man started, getting up from the chair and moving away, “if I’m not to break your left arm too, tell me. What is this?” A cell phone was shoved into Arthur’s face, and he made a grimace of confusion.

“Wh… at?”

“Indeed. What is it?” Arthur licked his lips, trying to make sense of the weird turn in their conversation.

“It’s.. a.. phone.” The man said nothing. “It’s for.. Contac..ting… others.”

“You can contact people through this?” The man held up the phone in the air, just as it started to ring. He narrowed his eyes. “Show me! It’s making weird noises again, that means contact, right? Show me how it’s used!”

Arthur felt dumbfounded. What it some kind of joke? ‘No.’ Though he couldn’t see the structures in the man’s face due to the tears, he was pretty sure there was no joking going on. “You’ll.. Have to.. Press.. The green thing..”

“This?”

Click.

“H..hold it to my ear.” The man hesitated. “I.. I will do.. No.. tricks..”

“Well…” Though he didn’t seem to believe Arthur, the man did hold the phone down to his ear, and the begging sound of Alfred reached the man’s ears:

“Arthur! Arthur, are you there? Arthur, damn it!”

“Alfred?”

“Oh, good!” Alfred started laughing like a madman from the other end. Arthur closed his eyes and felt like laughing too. It didn’t make sense. He was with some kind of pirate crew with a captain, who thought of him as a magician, and here was Alfred, on the phone, laughing!

“Alfred.. What…?”

“What the hell have you done?” Alfred’s voice went stern within seconds. Arthur wrinkled the brows, but didn’t have time to answer, before Alfred continued: “This is fucked up! Completely fucked up! There’s some kind of man here, telling us he’s from a ship being captured by pirates. And really big, weird birds are flying around. Arthur, they look like they belong to some kind of.. I dunno.. Jurassic Park movie!”

“Hey, what are you talking about?” The man seemed impatient. The hand that was holding the phone was shaking, as if he couldn’t decide whether to take it to his own ear or let Arthur continue. Arthur didn’t feel like wasting breath on telling the man to keep holding the phone, but tried to concentrate on Alfred.

“I’m… pirates… I don’t know.. What has happened..”

“Pirates?” There was a pause. “Arthur, there’s some kind of robot chick walking around in the garden. She’s been doing that the whole night. I’m telling ya - birds, robots. One would think the whole timeline has been fucked up.”

“Captain!” The man turned, moving the phone from Arthur’s ear, as a man opened the door, eyes big, voice hasty: “Captain, you’ll have to see this.”

“What now?”

“Some kind of… metal-bird has crashed down into the ocean!”

‘Metal bird?’ Arthur hopelessly saw the phone disappear into the pocket of the captain who quickly left the room with the man. Arthur closed his eyes. ‘Metal bird… big birds from Jurassic park… robots.. Pirates..’ A sad smile crossed his lips.

“This is… fucked.. Up..”