Paul Jones - Towards Yesterday

“Well,” said Lorentz “keep running the tests, let’s see what else you can pull out of it.”

The music filled Jim’s apartment; Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini , the seventeenth—variation flowing seamlessly into the first few gentle piano notes of the eighteenth.

The lights were turned down low; a glass of red wine (a welcome gift from Horatio who was apparently quite the connoisseur) rested in Jim’s hand as he relaxed on the sofa, allowing the swell of the music to flow over him. No matter how many times he heard those opening notes he always found himself falling under the sway of the music. It was the sonic equivalent of a relaxing massage, unwinding his muscles and his mind, while allowing him to mentally escape the confines of the facility that had become his home over the past few weeks. He might not be able to leave the compound, but he could travel on the passion of the symphony.

Forbidden from leaving the security of the base, Lorentz had asked if he wanted anything brought in from the outside world beyond the complex’s security and razor wired perimeter. Jim knew that without his music he would go mad. He needed to maintain a connection with normality, something to remind him he had a life… once upon a time, at least. There wasn’t even a radio in the apartment, for God’s sake. If he was going to have to work here for any length of time, that would need to be rectified. The following morning he poked his head around Lorentz’s office door. “Knock, Knock,” he said.

Lorentz was busy at his desk running over figures, his eyes were red and puffy and he could read the relief in the scientists face at the excuse to break away from the computer screen.

“Come on in, Jim. What can I do for you?”

Jim had outlined his request to Lorentz who in turn called on Mina. She relayed Jim’s request to the appropriate security staff, and less than twenty-four hours later Jim awoke from a late afternoon nap to a heavy handed knocking at his door.

Standing in the corridor, two burly looking men in overalls and crew cuts pushed a couple of dollies stacked with securely taped brown boxes.

“Dr. Baston, we have your requisition,” said the bigger of the two men matter-of-factly. “Where do you want ’em?”

“Just drop them in the middle of the living room there, please.”

Wheeling the trolley into the room, the two men unloaded the packages and carried the dollies out.

“Thanks guys,” Jim said, as he closed the door behind them.

He ripped through the packing tape with a knife grabbed from the kitchen and pulled each of the separate components out of their respective boxes. By the time he had opened all but one of the boxes he had a set of seven pieces neatly laid out next to the now empty boxes: an amplifier, CD player, a tuner and four speakers, each with their own stand.

Fitting all the pieces together, he moved to the final unopened box, quickly cut through the packaging tape and rummaged through its contents until he found the exact thing he wanted. Jim pulled the silver disk from its case and slipped it into the tray of his newly assembled music system, turned the volume shuttle to an acceptable level and pressed the play button.

Instantly the room was filled with the synthesized tones of a Wurlitzer and as Ali Campbell’s voice began to sing about the magic of Kingston Town, Jim—fingers snapping to the offbeat accent of the tune—reggae-danced back to the box containing his music collection from the cabin at Shadow Lake and began to search through the CDs.

There were many years of memories tied up in this collection. The CD had been replaced years ago by instant streaming; at least in his future-past it would be, but right now, that was still years away. But, even in the distant future Jim had maintained his collection on disk just as those who had grown up with the vinyl album had sworn CDs just didn’t have the same kind of sound quality that their LPs had.

The album he was playing now had been a gift from his dad when Jim had been a kid, his very first music CD. He still remembered opening the tiny gift-wrapped package on his—when was it? His eighth or ninth birthday? He also remembered with a smile the look of conspiratorial smugness in his mom and dad’s eyes when he had said to them thanks, but you need a CD player to play a CD . His Mom had suggested that maybe he should go take a look in his bedroom. He’d grabbed the UB40 CD and sprinted upstairs. Bursting into his bedroom he saw a large wrapped box sitting on his bed, a big red bow tied around it and a note, written in his mother’s elegant hand that simply said, Happy Birthday. We love you son .

He was surprised the CD was still playable; he had listened to it so many times when he was younger, it was a wonder it hadn’t simply worn out.

Jim let out a sigh as bittersweet memories came rolling back.

His Dad had died in 2012 from lung cancer, a lifetime of smoking had first taken his left lung, twenty-five percent of his right, and finally on a rain-swept evening in September, his life. His mom, always a rock he could hold onto no matter what the problem, had simply fallen apart. Over the span of three years, he watched her collapse inwards until one day he received a call from his mother’s neighbor telling him he should maybe come on home; that something terrible had happened.

His mom had locked herself in the old Chevy Blazer, run a hose from the exhaust system into the interior and turned on the engine. She left a note to him that said, “ I love you and I know you will understand .” The real sadness was he did understand. His mother and father had been inseparable, two halves of a single soul that could not bear to be apart for any longer than they already had.

Now, as he sat in the electronic glow of the amplifier and graphic equalizer display he allowed his mind to drift back to his childhood, to better days.

Always fascinated by the sciences, it still surprised him that he had become as successful as he had. Jim had never been a fan of convention. He had found the stodgy, methodical, teaching of most of his lecturers to be boring and unenthused, too slow for his desire to explore everything. His teachers were forever berating him for wanting to move onto the next experiment before they believed he was ready: You have to learn to walk before you can run James , was a cliché he had heard more times than he cared to remember. They failed to understand his natural ability to instinctively comprehend the processes involved in every experiment or project he worked on, mistaking his enthusiasm to move on for sloppy procedure.

That was all before he met Mr. Davies.

Jim knew that here was a teacher who was unlike any other he would ever meet when he witnessed the new teacher pull up for his first day at school in a grungy, weatherworn, leather jacket and sitting astride a huge Harley Davidson. The bike had roared and growled into the reserved area of the teacher’s parking lot like some tiger clawing at the gates of academia.

It was Mr. Davies who had shown him for the first time what it was to be a true scientist: you had to be thrilled by the wonder of it all, and you had to allow your imagination to run rampant if you ever wanted to push back any of the boundaries facing science.

Yes, he owed Mr. Davies a great deal.

Jim remembered the first day he had met him. Davies had wandered into class and immediately the children had fallen into silence. Looking more like a pirate than a teacher with his thick ginger beard and massive build, he had stared at the students for a moment, his eye finally falling on Jim. “You!” he had said pointing directly at Jim, “Come on up here and give me a hand would you?”