Writings




Father of the Man



The hotel wasn't quite as he had left it that morning. Nothing was stolen, but there were unexpected additions as if some child had been setting up the room for an impromptu drama or science-fiction game.The alarm clock was decorated with a twist of aluminium foil, like a miniature space helmet; the bookshelf was adorned with two tiny plastic kangaroos facing each other, and similar decorations had been carefully posed on every available surface.Frank rang the reception desk.

"Did you give my key to anyone while I was out?"

"No, Sir, that would be unthinkable..."

"Well then, do the chambermaids make a habit of leaving plastic animals and toy space helmets in guests' rooms?"

"I'll check it out Sir..."

"Thanks"

The incident was not resolved that night, but Frank didn't worry.He had other things on his mind: preparing the deal with Microploop Inc.So he spent a few hours writing, called for cocoa and nestled the cup between two woolly mammoths, so that it would not get cold too quickly.
The night was warm and restful and the notes he had written were quite satisfactory.He felt content.

The following morning, he reached out for the notes, but they were not the same.The handwriting was larger and clumsier and the wording was childish in the extreme. Instead of "Ladies and Gentlemen, I wish to prepare the following plans for a cooperative venture to provide effective competition against ever increasing Japanese imports", it read: "Come on lads and lasses, let's stick together and show the Nips a thing or too." Instead of "Our trading partners in South America have indicated their interest in our Munich factory product range." it read "They told us gringos that the Krauts were onto a good thing and they might buy a couple of dozen down in Rio."

Frank decided it might be better to leave the notes behind and rely on his memory.
He opened the door to retrieve breakfast, expecting to find it on a tray by the door, but it was in the hands of a small figure who looked disconcertingly familiar.

"Thank you... you needn't have waited, really..."

"I wanted to see you" interrupted the boy - with a faraway expression.

"Do you know anything about the notes, the plastic animals and the wooly mammoths?...Wait a moment, I know your face, don't I? Where have I seen you before?"

"You shall know in the end", replied the child, "but the time is not yet right..."

The boy left the tray between a plastic rhinoceros and a furry anteater and Frank ate in silence, ruminating on the notes he had lost.The boy's grinning face stayed with him, distracting him, taking his mind from silicone to sand pits and from file-servers to star-war machines. It took an hour to regain his concentration for the job on hand, but when he got to the meeting he was able to impress the committee with his stale ideas.

Eventually the committee adjourned for afternoon tea. It was brought in by the tea-boy...
the same boy who had brought Frank his breakfast.No he knew where he had seen that face before - it was his own face, that freckled grinning face which confronted him with the morning toothpaste in the bathroom mirror before the weary school-day, the twelve-year-old face which could never keep straight in front of a camera. His own past!



"Frankie.." said the adult Frank softly, oblivious of the other members of the committee.The boy turned slowly with no flicker of surprise. "Frankie, that's your name isn't it?"

"What's that to you, old man?", came the unhesitating reply, "I don't recognize you any more, you know... You're not really what I expected ...You know, you've become quite boring. You should have used the notes I gave you, don't you think?"

"So you admit.." Frank started, but he was aware that the other wanted to continue the meeting and he stared helplessly as the boy left the room with a cheeky grin.

Back in his hotel room he was not really surprised to find a row of models representing the evolution of the horse, a crown of tinsel above the bedhead and a lifesize picture of Superman on the ceiling. Why was Frankie here, twenty years on? His birthday was tomorrow, would that be his thirty second or his twelfth?

The night was not so restful:the plastic kangaroos chuntered in his dreams, the wooly mammoths and the furry anteater conspired in some unknown language and the Superman image was calling out about having to save Earth yet again. The businessman's brain found no rest among these childish fantasies and he tossed and turned, moaning: "Frankie, stop it, stop it!"

The boy tapped on the door, entered the room and announced, as if to himself: "The experiment is at an end. The businessman may disappear", looking straight through Frank as if his command had already been obeyed.

Frank was vainly searching for a suitable reply and shrank visibly into his crumpled pyjamas. "Don't bother with trying out your free will - I've removed that. It was only an illusion I created for you. ... I suppose I'll just have to try a different future", he added with a sigh, oblivious of the horror on Frank's face. Frank tried not to believe the child and made a final effort - picking up the phone by the bedside he rang the hotel manager, but the manager's voice was distant and fading and the phone gradually turned into a toy ray-gun. A supreme effort and Frank made it turn back into a telephone, but, when it shot out a beam of light into his face, the illusion was finally shattered and he saw all the decor of his childhood come flooding into the room and the smell of his mother's baking bread emanating from downstairs.

"I'll be back", said the child mockingly, as he left the room, "Don''t fade away just yet..I may still have a use for you." Frank's wavering image stumbled towards the armchair and tried to recollect its thoughts, now that its alleged creator had gone. "Those twenty years must have been real," he muttered, "I never invented future selves when I was that age, did I? Am I a work of fiction after all? If so, how would I remember?"

He went outside the room and found the green landing carpet of his old home, no sign of the hotel he thought he was in.
Downstairs he saw his late father - or rather his formerly late father - bustling energetically around and he called out "Dad! Is that really you?"
But there was no response. He picked up a tennis ball and threw it to try and attract his father's attention, but it described a strange geometrical curve and returned to its starting point.

He rushed downstairs, past Frankie, who scarcely even noticed him, and out into the street... out into oblivion. And Frankie began again...

©D W Solomons 1996