Gone Away ~ The journal of Clive Allen in America

Living Backwards
19/11/2005

I was miles from anywhere when I first saw him. He was walking at the side of the road, gas can in hand, and I assumed that he'd run out of fuel somewhere. I didn't remember passing any stranded cars on the road but figured he could have broken down on a side road. Anyone would have stopped to give him a ride.

Because I had one of those mental debates while deciding whether or not to stop, the car was quite a distance ahead of him when I brought it to a halt. I watched in the mirror as he approached. He was in no hurry, it seemed, just ambling along as though out for a stroll. When he came level with the passenger window, I leaned over and called out to him.

"D'you need a ride to the next gas station, pal?"

He stopped and leaned over so that he could see my face.

"Actually, David, I was hoping you'd take me all the way to Akron."

I swear I'd never set eyes on the guy in my life before. How could he know my name? And the fact that I was driving to Akron? I was too dumbfounded to say anything in reply and just watched while he opened the door to get into the car. As he sat down, he threw the gas can into the bushes.

"Aren't you gonna need that?" I asked.

"Oh no, I was only carrying it so you'd take pity on me and stop," he replied. "Bought it at that gas station where you're going to drop me off. But you wouldn't have seen that, of course. You were gone by then."

This was becoming confusing. Was he claiming to have met me before or was he some kind of lunatic with wild delusions?

"Pardon?" I said. "Have we met before or something?"

"Yes and no, David. Look, it's complicated. Why don't you get this thing moving and I'll explain as we go, okay?"

I realized then that he was right. If he was a madman, the sooner I got him to where he wanted to go, the better. He didn't look dangerous or anything, in his early twenties but slightly built and pale, as if he'd been locked away out of the sunlight. I could easily win any tussle with him, I figured. So he wanted to talk in riddles? That was fine; it might be amusing and help the journey to go that much faster. I eased the stick into Drive and let the car move off.

"How d'you know my name?" I asked as we reached the speed limit and I hit the cruise control.

"You told me," he replied. When I said nothing but raised one eyebrow a little, he continued, "I'd better explain from the beginning. As I said before... Oh, you won't remember that, of course. Fact is, David, I'm living backwards."

A dim memory sparked in my brain. "You mean like Merlin? I read a book once by T.H. White about him. Called The Once and Future King, I think. Anyway, it was about King Arthur and all that but I remember Merlin was supposed to be living backwards in it. Is that what you mean?"

"Exactly," he said.

I waited for him to go on but he said no more; just sat there watching my reaction to his ridiculous statement. So I gave him none.

"Am I supposed to believe that?" I asked. "It's a pretty freaky thing to say, you know."

He laughed. "Yup, it's weird alright. Most people would be driving me to the loony bin by now. But that's why I chose you. You're going to believe me by the time we get to Akron."

I don't often snort but I did so then. This guy was a hoot. "Okay, pal, tell me more. I'll listen."

"We'd better get that sorted for a start. I'm not your pal, well, not yet anyway. My name's Merlin."

This time I couldn't hide my disbelief. I turned and looked at him. "Are you serious? Are you trying to tell me that you're the Merlin?"

"That's me," he said, without blinking an eye. "Old Merlin the magician, alive and well in the 21st Century, living backwards and loving it. Quite a kicker, huh?"

I couldn't help but smile. "You're crazy," I said. "Pretty entertaining, I grant you, but crazy as a loon."

He grinned back at me. "Yup, you're right. Nutty as a fruitcake, that's me. But that's got nothing to do with what we're talking about. I'm still living backwards."

There was a sincerity in his voice that stopped me from dropping him off right there and then. Crazy he may have been but I couldn't help liking the guy. I decided to play along and see how good his story was.

"So, okay, you reckon you're Merlin. But how can that be? He lived, oh, about fifteen hundred years ago, I reckon. How could you be that old? Look at you, you're no more than twenty-five at the most."

"Ah," he said, "That's the thing, you see. I'm living backwards so I'm younger now than I was then."

"But more than a thousand years? Come on, even living backwards you're not going to be born for a millennium at least."

"Always with the math," he sighed and eased himself back into the seat to watch the road ahead. "It's hard to understand, David, but basically it's like swimming against the tide. Easy enough for you folks just going with the flow; of course you live much faster. But for me it's a struggle. Takes me three hundred years to get ten years older."

I did some quick mental calculations. That would make him about seventy in Arthur's time; about right, I thought. And it also meant...

"So you're not going to be born for another six hundred years?"

"You catch on fast," he said.

There was silence for a long time then. I was trying to think of a way to catch him out and he seemed content to wait. The mid west hurtled by our windows.

Eventually, I thought I had sorted things out and was ready for him again.

"So, to you, the future is like the past? You can remember what's going to happen?"

"Yup," he said.

"And the past is like the future?"

"Just so," he returned.

I thought I had him then. "Ah, in that case, how can you know about King Arthur? How can you make jokes about being the great magician when you can't possibly know that's what he was?"

It was his turn to snort. "Oh come on, David; you can do better than that. I can read, can't I? D'you think we don't have books in the future? And, as it happens, I've read Mallory and that guy White you mentioned. Which reminds me..."

"What?" I asked.

"Oh, nothing. Was just thinking that I might drop in on old T.H. in a few years and give him some ideas."

"So now you're the reason he wrote that book?" This was becoming weird. "I suppose you created all our history on your way back to 500 AD?"

"Nah, don't be silly," he said. "Just think I might dabble a bit here and there."

"Oh great. Now we've got a lunatic running around in history, tweaking and fiddling."

He laughed again. "Hey, don't get worried. It's all past to you and anything I do is already incorporated."

We fell silent again as I pondered this. Then he began to speak and I just listened.

"You see, David, six hundred years from now we're going to be able to do things that you can't even dream of. Look at the pace of change over the last hundred years or so. It's accelerating all the time. In a few hundred years we're going to prove that time travel is impossible. But we're also going to find a way to turn ourselves around and live in the opposite direction. Not that many will, of course. In fact, I'm the only one. But it's a form of time travel, I suppose."

He paused to see how I'd react to this. Once again, I didn't. So he went on.

"We became aware that there was something that needed doing in the past. And I volunteered. I've always liked history and I wanted to see it for myself. To actually make a contribution to it was an unbelievable dream.

"It's slow, of course. Man, you can't imagine how slow it is. But it's the only way we've got. All to do with changes at the molecular level, you know."

He rambled on into a long explanation of how it worked but I couldn't understand it. He probably knew that but was just enjoying the opportunity to speak. And I turned everything over in my mind as I drove. It was all too much to be believed but he certainly made a pretty airtight story of it. His knowledge of my name and destination was hard to explain away especially. And that strange business of the gas can.

By the time we got to Akron, night had fallen. Merlin directed me through the dark streets towards the gas station and it occurred to me that he seemed to know his way around pretty well.

"You've been here before, haven't you?" I asked.

"Nope. Just remember it from the future. Take a left here."

"I'm sorry but I can't believe that."

He glanced at me then. "Okay, Mr Doubtful, get your head round this. When we get to the gas station there'll be a green SUV filling up. The driver's a young blonde woman in jeans and a pink top. And just after we arrive, a silver Honda will drive in from the opposite direction."

It was just as he said. I stopped the car and began to apologize for my doubts but he shrugged them off. "It's okay, David, I get it all the time. Thanks for the ride, by the way."

A thought crossed my mind then. "Oh, uh, Merlin, you said you chose me as your ride. Why was that?"

He winked. "Figure of speech. Actually I just traced you back from this moment."

He opened the door and was getting out when I realized that there was something else I wanted to know.

"And what about Arthur and all that?" I asked. "What was it that you have to change?"

He turned to look at me. For a moment he seemed to be considering something, as though he wasn't sure that I could be trusted with it, but then he shrugged and spoke.

"That Arthur thing wasn't it at all," he said. "It was just one of my little tweaks. After all, we know the Angles and Saxons win in the end, don't we?"

There was a slight pause before he went on. "No, after Arthur, I'm going to wander over to Persia. There's a couple of interesting guys there that I want to meet and get to know. And then, just before I die, the three of us have an appointment in a stable in a little town called Bethlehem..."

He turned away. The last I saw of him was a slight and unimposing figure walking into the bright lights of the service station.

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Clive

Trée
"Always with the math," A gem of a phrase if ever there was one. Beautiful Clive.
Date Added: 19/11/2005

keeefer
What an excellent tale. Most enjoyable Mr Gone. Would a baby Merlin be able to magic his soiled nappy clean? And what would he use as a pacifier....Babies with magical powes, theres gotta be a hollywood film script in there somewhere
Date Added: 19/11/2005

Gone Away
Thanks, Trée, glad you liked it. :)
Date Added: 19/11/2005

Gone Away
But weren't Merlin's apparently magical powers just the technological tricks of a much later age, Keef? And think of the fortune you could make on the horses! Easy to make predictions when it was just yesterday to you. ;)
Date Added: 19/11/2005

Twelvebirds
Oh, what a wonderful tale, although I must admit the concept of living backwards has my head spinning. I hadn't thought about the magical powers simply being tricks of the future until I read that comment. It makes sense and fits so well with the Merlin character. I think I am far too linear to get it all straight in my head, what with going backward but ending up forward, or vice versa. A great story but I have one question. Which of the three Wise Men was he?
Date Added: 19/11/2005

Gone Away
Good question, Twelve - just been wondering that myself. At a guess, I'd have to say Melchior, if only because it starts with the same letter and just might be a corruption of Merlin... ;)
Date Added: 19/11/2005

Mark Pettus
As Jesu helpe hym for hys grete myght, as he is the servaunt of Jesu bothe day and nyght. I don't know. It just seemed fitting.
Date Added: 20/11/2005

Gone Away
Well, dang, Mark - ya got me both ways with that. As a Christian and as a sucker for anything Olde English. It's fitting alright.

Great blog, by the way. Shall have to find time to add it to the blogroll. Found it a few times but keep losing it. Good luck in the new job, especially trying to write as well; I never found a way to do that...
Date Added: 20/11/2005

Autumn
Oh my! That was just wonderful, thoroughly enjoyed every aspect, not least the fact that my mind is now doing dizzying cartwheels :-)
Date Added: 20/11/2005

Gone Away
Thank you, Autumn. It's an interesting concept, isn't it? :)
Date Added: 20/11/2005

keeefer
happy 200th blog btw
Date Added: 21/11/2005

Gone Away
Thanks, Keef. :D
Date Added: 21/11/2005

Mad
I really enjoyed that!
Date Added: 21/11/2005

Gone Away
Makes a change, does it, Mad? ;)
Date Added: 21/11/2005

Mad
Just the kind of thing I enjoy Dad.
Date Added: 21/11/2005

Gone Away
Just joshin', Mad. :D
Date Added: 21/11/2005

Dr Callahan
What agreat story! May I have permission to use it on a blog giving you credit of course. Thankyou, Dennis O' Callaghan
Date Added: 21/11/2005

Gone Away
Thank you, Dennis (may I call you Dennis - oh, I just did, didn't I? :D). My feeling is that anything I put in the blog is out there on the net for anyone to read and use. So of course you may borrow it. :) But give me a link, won't you? ;) And here's to the Emerald Isle!
Date Added: 21/11/2005

keeefer
I got to pondering last eve and i was going to post this on my blog. However, those that visit my pages tend to be on the younger side of life and i think this question requires an older slant. I am a firm believer that when one gets older that person inherits wisdom (along with senility). So please, if you can keep your venerable mind on the matter, can you tell me why we have the phrase 'A pair of trousers'? I did think that maybe it was because there are two legs, but a shirt has 2 arms and we dont have a pair of shirts. Can you please enlighten me, oh forgetful one, on this delightful anomaly of language.
Date Added: 21/11/2005

Mad
Ooooh! I know, I know! It's because early pantaloons were in two parts, basically two legs that were tied together at their tops around your waist. So at one time it really was a pair of pants.
Date Added: 21/11/2005

Gone Away
Sorry, what was the question? Oh, yes. Well, I think you'll find that way back in the mists of time, trousers were invented as a form of leg warmer that slipped over your legs. The unmentionables were covered by a loincloth, probably. So you always had two trousers, otherwise you'd have had one warm leg and one blue. Then someone had the brilliant idea of attaching the trousers to the loincloth - voila! The pair of trousers were born.

All of this is pure conjecture, of course, but it ought to be good enough to fool your young friends, Keef. Come to think of it, it's an exact parallel to the development of the pantyhose... :D
Date Added: 21/11/2005

keeefer
Now thats what i thought but having limited knowledge of Pre 1900's Menswear i thought id best get a second opinion. so why do we have a pair of pants then was their originally a loincloth per testicle?
Date Added: 21/11/2005

Gone Away
One more thought on the matter (having read Mad's comment - he's right, of course). It all sounds perfectly sensible until one remembers that Roman soldiers wore trousers under their battledress. They didn't call them trousers (perhaps they were pantums) but certainly they were a dead ringer for what we call trousers today (admittedly cut off just below the knee). So who really invented the system? And don't say Pantus Trouserus...
Date Added: 21/11/2005

Keeefer
There, there, there,there, there,there, there,there, there,there, there,there, there,there, there,there, there,there, there,there, there,there, there,there, there,there, there,there, there,there, there,there, there,there, there,there, there,there, there,there, there,there, there,there, there,there, there,there, there,there, there,there, there,there, there,there, there,there, there,there, there,there, there,
Date Added: 21/11/2005

Gone Away
The word "pants" comes from "pantaloons", obviously. And Mad has explained about them. However, I would like to offer the following alternative theory:

Some bright spark had the idea of cutting off the trousers very close to the nether regions, thus creating short trousers or what are sometimes known as shorts. He noticed that the ladies' tended to breath a little quicker at sight of a nicely-turned male leg and jokingly began to refer to them as "pants" therefore. Offered in all seriousness. Almost. :D
Date Added: 21/11/2005

Keeefer
apparently the Phrygians made trousers too whilst the greeks wore Chitons (which was evidently a reference to the state of the clothing due to the lack of toilet roll available "oh look hes got chiton his clothing again')
Date Added: 21/11/2005

Gone Away
And, of course, the Phrygians invented them because they sick of people calling them Phrigids as they were always cold (Phrygia is in what is now known as Russia).
Date Added: 21/11/2005

keeefer
ahhhh hence why they needed those iron curtains
Date Added: 21/11/2005

Kate
That was wicked! It's really good, I mean. Thanks for posting it.
Date Added: 22/11/2005

Gone Away
Thanks, Kate, I'm glad you liked it. :) And, even though I'm ancient, I do know what "wicked" means these days! ;)
Date Added: 22/11/2005

Raven Ridesemraw
Wow! That was fantastic!
Date Added: 22/11/2005

Phish
If you could go back in time then why not hit all the hot spots of history? Very interesting that he ended up as wise and magical figures. Very imaginative. The comment thread about the pants was hilarious. Both the post and the comments here are always a good read.
Date Added: 23/11/2005

Gone Away
Glad you enjoyed it, Raven. :)
Date Added: 23/11/2005

Gone Away
Thanks, Phish. :) I have always found White's concept of living backwards to be quite fascinating; the possibilities are almost endless. And, as for the comment thread, well, methinks my commenters should take a bow! :D
Date Added: 23/11/2005

Marti
Wonderful story! Best wishes for a happy Thanksgiving to you and your family!
Date Added: 23/11/2005

Gone Away
Thank you, Marti! And I trust that you and yours will have a wonderful Thanksgiving too. :)
Date Added: 23/11/2005

Janus
Very good and very original, I wish I could age backwards at times.
Date Added: 24/11/2005

Gone Away
Thanks, Janus. Me, I think I'll stick with aging forwards. At least there's an end in sight going this way... ;)
Date Added: 24/11/2005

Scot
Clive, Oh, my, how you so digress from past to future and then end very present. But then again, sometimes we have to live backwards to discover the magic of who we are now. I loved how you set this up, and kept me reading out of curiosity to see where you were going. Nice.
Date Added: 27/11/2005

Gone Away
Thanks, Scot. If you liked it, I know I've done my job. :)
Date Added: 27/11/2005

Marti
Ah yes, I remember this one well! Excellent!

I am reading all of the WBA entries, and enjoying the journey very much.

Great post- thanks for sharing!
Date Added: 21/02/2006

Steven Roy
Without wishing to sound like the Gumbies from Monty Python my brain hurts. I have to think about all this living backwards business. It has to be more profitable living backwards though.
Date Added: 27/09/2008

Clive
Ah yes, it is a confusing concept, isn't it, Steven? I avoid trying to work out the ramifications and have retained a slight hold on sanity as a result. ;)
Date Added: 27/09/2008

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