Nothing good comes of the closest ties in Mama's Boy and Other Dark Tales, the new collection from Fran Friel and Apex Publications. Things can go especially awry when the tie in question is the one binding mother and son. Learn more 
SHORT FICTION: Dick Does Time
Dick sees Jane. It is the same Jane.
Jane is not calm. Jane moves strangely. There is no smile on Jane’s face. “Jane,” says Dick.
“Something is wrong,” says Jane.
See Dick run! He runs. Spot runs. They run in the garden. See the white palings. The white palings are a fence. They run to the fence and stop. They stand still. The sun runs.
See the sun run! It runs straight over the sky. Dick sees the sun run. The sun goes behind the world. Good bye sun!
It is night. There are stars. See the stars. There is the moon. See the moon. Dick does not know the moon. Dick thinks the sun is sick. He thinks, maybe this is what it looks like when it is sick. Its strength has gone.
Dick walks to the house. Spot walks to the house. Jane is in the house. It is the same Jane.
“Dick,” says Jane. “Let us talk. Let us put Spot out the door and talk.”
Dick says, “No! no! no!” Dick hugs Spot.
Dick cries wet tears. Dick runs to the door, but Jane is there. “No! no! no!” says Dick.
“Let’s talk,” says Jane.
Dick sits on the floor. Dick hugs Spot.
“We have done this a hundred times,” says Jane. Jane looks cross. Jane’s face is all creased.
“Stop! Stop! Stop!” says Dick.
“There is a brain in your head,” says Jane. “There are cells in your brain. Some cells in your brain process time. Some cells in my brain process time. Some cells in everybody’s brain process time. Your cells have been changed. Do you know this?”
“I run with Spot,” says Dick. “In the garden.”
“It is dark in the garden,” says Jane. “It is not day. For you there is only now. It has been that way for a long time. Do you know about the past? Do you know about the future?”
“No! no! no!” says Dick. The tears come from his eyes. They hurt his eyes. He closes his eyes hard. But the tears run. See them run!
“Things are worse than they were,” says Jane. “Your sense of time is going wrong. Days slip past. This is wrong. Your days should last months.”
Dick smells Spot. Spot smells of dog. It is like rug, or an old couch, and also hot lawn, and dirt, but good dirt. Dick puts his face in amongst Spot’s hairs.
“Do you recall nothing?” says Jane. “You should recall. Do you recall nothing? Your recall is dead. Your past is dead. You are stuck. Do you recall being caught? After you were caught you were sentenced.”
Dick says nothing. Jane comes close. “You are not a child,” she says.
Dick says, “I am a child.”
Jane frowns. “You have had seven years. Your sentence is ten years. At ten years the device will be removed. But now it is going wrong.”
Dick does not understand. He is scared. He asks the question, but does not want to ask the question. “Are you the same Jane?” he asks.
Jane says, “None of the Janes are the same Jane.”
Dick says, “No.” He says, “No.”
“You are a thief,” says Jane. “You hurt men. You hurt women. You hurt them. You took things from them. Your sentence is ten years. You cannot go beyond the white palings. You can listen to the scraping of the crickets in the grass beyond. But you cannot go see them. But for you there is no time, only the present time.” She frowns. “Your time should be longer than other people’s time. That is the law. Your ten years should really feel like ten years. They should not hurry past. You should live ten years the way children live ten years. You are not a child. But the device in your brain makes it so. The Senate and the people say, make ten years feel like ten years! They say, make the criminal see time the way children see time! So we put the device in your brain. But it is going wrong. You see days and nights like strobe. This is the wrong punishment.”
Jane says, “You were brought from another house to this house. In this house the days are kinder, and you have a dog. In this house we study you, and make you better.”
“Spot is my dog,” says Dick.
Jane says, “Spot does not belong to you.”
Jane holds a stick. It is a silver stick, and there is light inside it. The stick is as long as a finger. The stick hurts Dick’s head.
Jane says, “I’ll be done in a moment.”
Dick sees the window burn white. It is day. Spot is gone. Jane is gone. Dick sees the window fog and fade. Dick sees the window black. The day runs. The night runs. Jane is there.
“The malfunction is severe,” she says. It is the same Jane. “It is worse than we thought. We thought it was bad. It’s worse.”
Jane says, “We cannot fix the malfunction.”
There is a mirror on Jane’s forehead. The mirror is round like the moon. It is round like the sun. The light shines in it. The house has no mirrors. Jane holds the stick to Dick’s eye. Jane says, “It is always the present in a mirror. The glass has no future and no past.” She smiles.
Dick sees Dick in the mirror. Dick has no hair. There are lines everywhere on the ruin of his face like weeds growing. Jane has a silver stick. The stick has a light inside. Dick does not like it.
“Your brain has been irreparably damaged,” she says. “The state and people are sorry. I am sorry. We are sorry. You will never remember. You will never speculate. You have no past and no future. A lawyer will talk to you soon, so that you can apply for compensation. But compensation will be useless for you. The device cannot be removed from your brain.”
The day runs. See the day run! The night runs. Dick runs. See them run!
Adam Roberts is a writer and critic of SF. His latest novel is Swiftly (Gollancz, 2008), described as “A rip-roaring 19th century adventure, a love story and a thought-provoking pre-atomic SF novel about our place in the universe.” Visit his website at AdamRoberts.com for more information.
2 Comments
Wow. That was wonderful. Kudos to Adam.
‘wow’ about does it. coincidentally, due to an open can of coke and an incident with the mouse I’d rather not talk about right now, (to fresh, too painful), i ended up reading this backwards. it worked well, and you’ve got to love a story like that.