Chapter 4

Time and Motion

“I suppose the next thing you’ll tell me is that time travel’s as common these days as catching a bus.”

Wilbur’s expression altered, but too briefly to fathom. “On the contrary. No time machine has ever been built. Indeed, the debate continues as to whether it’s even possible.”

“Then how did— ?” Another realisation struck… This was just what they wanted me to believe. Whoever they were. “Now wait on. All right, I give you full marks for having the ingenuity to arrange all this, although I can’t imagine what the point of it is, but you can’t seriously expect me to believe this is the year 2070. I mean…”

Wilbur said nothing, though his expression grew darker, more full of concern.

“This can’t be happening,” I muttered, immediately recognising and forgiving the well-worn cliché given the trying circumstances. “Why are you doing this?” I implored, my voice sounding creaky even to me. “Why kidnap me and pretend all this? What’s the point of such a grand masquerade?”

“I assure you there’s no masquerade,” said Wilbur in his usual calm voice—his increasingly infuriating calm voice. “Everything I’ve told you is true. Everything I’ve shown you is just as it appears.” He drew closer and placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. “You have amnesia, complicated by some unusually thorough false memories. But it will pass, Ernest, and you’ll remember everything.”

His touch had been oddly if only slightly reassuring at first, but when he said ‘Ernest’, I pulled away. “No,” I said, “I already remember. I know who I am. And this”—I pointed at the doctored photo of ‘me’ receiving the award—“never happened. Again—why are you doing this? Who else is in your conspiracy?”

“No one is doing anything. There is no conspiracy.”

“What’s happened then? Are you telling me I’ve been transported to a future where Melbourne no longer exists? Or a parallel universe where perhaps it never existed?”

“You have not moved to a parallel universe. You are where you always have been. Melbourne did once exist, as recently as a generation ago—indeed, you yourself made me familiar with the name—but boundaries have changed, and other names have been adopted to suit.”

I must have stared at him emptily for some seconds, both of us unsure what to say next. Finally, my state of mind simply demanded the vacuum be filled. “It might still be a parallel universe, one where Melbourne used to exist.” My voice was oddly calm. “I could have been shifted to a parallel universe and to the future.” My voice grew oddly shrill. “At the same time!” I almost shouted. “That’s possible!”

“Not very,” said Wilbur. “Perhaps on a par with a pig that can float.”

“Fly! You mean, fly.”

“Flies do float, don’t they?”

I gritted my teeth and shook my head in frustration. I could not tell whether he was trying to be funny or had genuinely confused the saying, but I had enough else to deal with not to care.

“My point is,” continued Wilbur, “your theory is far less believable than mine, that you’re Ernest d’Alembert with amnesia from a bump on the head.”

“But why would I think I’m someone else? Why would I remember an entirely different life?”

My question prompted an answer from my own mind—a very unwelcome one. Perhaps I’d been hypnotised. Perhaps Wilbur was telling the truth, that I was Ernest, only hypnotised to believe I was Steven… Or was it more far-reaching? Was I unknowingly caught in some far-future role-playing virtual adventure which had temporarily replaced my memories? Was what I knew of as my own life nothing more than an invention? Was what I saw all around me, Wilbur included, not real at all, but a mere phantasm projected by the game? Or by a post-hypnotic suggestion?

“Perhaps it is not so different,” answered Wilbur, interrupting my thoughts. “Perhaps just key memories have altered—that’s been known to happen. Or perhaps what you think you remember as your own life is merely something you learnt during your studies. Something you read or perhaps even saw—a fictionalised documentary about someone named Steven Stone living at the turn of the century. Something that impressed you greatly or had a significant effect on you for some reason. The bump on your head could have brought it to the forefront of your mind in such a way that you’ve mistaken it as your own life.”

“No, no, no!” I said, with agitation. His explanation made a certain sense, but I could not accept it. “It was real,” I insisted. “It is real.” I pointed and swept my arm round the room. “This is the fiction.” I shook my head angrily. “It has to be a dream. Or a nightmare. How else could I have moved instantly to the bush from my bedroom? My real bedroom, not that experiment in chaos theory next door.”

“You must have dreamt your so-called real bedroom, Ern—.”

“I did not!” I started to pace back and forth across the room. “This is the dream. And I’d like to wake up now. Right now please.” I stopped and slapped my cheeks. “Come on, wake up.” I slapped myself harder. “Damn it, wake up.” I almost shouted the last words, then slapped harder again.

None of it had the desired effect. Instead, my cheeks stung so much I had to rub them.

“Sit down, Ernest,” said Wilbur, motioning me to a three-seater couch. “Please.”

I looked at him and, despite my state, saw nothing but well-meaning compassion. “Sure,” I said, calmly. “Why not? A little sit-down might do me the world of good. Who knows? I might sit down and then, with a great flash of light, find myself back in my bedroom where this all began, back in my real time, my real life.”

I sat down, with Wilbur beside me. Some silent pregnant moments passed. “No,” I announced, serenely, “it didn’t work. Still here. Can I stand again now? Maybe that’ll work. Or perhaps I should lie on my back, like I was when this all began. Yes, that makes sense.”

I moved to the floor, lay down, and stared at the ceiling, waiting, hoping. “Nope, still here. Got any other suggestions? Maybe I should dance a little jig?!”

Wilbur loomed into view above me. “Please, I can only imagine how disorienting this must be to you, but you have to accept this is the year 2070. And I and many other people have known you for some time as Ernest d’Alembert, historian. Whatever you think you remember about being Steven Stone in 2030 is not true.”

“What?” I said, quietly, almost calmly. An ancient Firesign Theatre album title came to mind. “Everything I know is wrong?”

“No,” he responded, “not everything—just some things you think you know.”

I remained on the floor, but placed an arm across my eyes and forehead, hiding everything from sight. “So how do I get restored to proper functioning? You going to cure my amnesia by dropping a bowling ball on my head?”

Wilbur exhaled slowly and deeply. “As tempting as that is, how about we try something more subtle? Like taking you to places and people you’ve long known—the likelihood is they’ll reawaken your lost memories.”

“This house didn’t.” I uncovered my eyes and stared at him. “You’d think it would have worked.”

“Not necessarily. The most obvious things might not work. And yet something as unremarkable as a faint smell might suddenly restore you.”

“Like a familiar fart from a close friend? Want to give it a shot?”

Wilbur, clearly taken aback, did not reply. The truth is, I had heard of such things. And I could see that from Wilbur’s perspective, it made sense. But I was still absolutely sure that Wilbur was wrong, that I was not Ernest d’Alembert.

Almost absolutely. As much as I wanted to, I could not entirely dismiss his explanation. Everything I’d seen struck me as consistent with it being the year 2070, and if, as I had tried to maintain, I was, for some unknown reason, the victim of an elaborate hoax, how could anyone have afforded the resources required to arrange it? As far as I could figure, and putting aside the more extravagant ideas I’d come up with, that left two options: either I was an amnesiac full of false memories giving me a mistaken impression I’d been transported forty years into the future, or I was who I said I was but I really had travelled in time. I did not want to believe either possibility. Nor was I convinced by them.

Easier to believe I was simply lost in a labyrinthine dream.

“I’m going to wake up any minute now,” I said. “Any minute.”

But I did not then awaken. Instead, the brief silence that followed was rudely interrupted not by some further reasoned attempt at pacification by Wilbur, nor by another frantic denial from me, but by something far more banal: the unmistakable sound of an empty stomach rumbling.

“I must apologise,” said Wilbur, almost at once, “for my lack of hospitality. It must be a full day or more since you last ate. Perhaps we should take an early dinner.”

It took me a while to realise it was my stomach that had rumbled. As soon as I did, I realised just how hungry I was.

I’d always had the impression, no doubt because of films and novels, that anyone beset by the sort of disorienting difficulties I was facing would be far too pre-occupied to feel hungry. Perhaps I was an exception, but in hindsight I suspect I was simply relieved to have something ordinary to have to deal with for a change.

“Good idea,” I said, moving rapidly to my feet. “I could use something solid, like a nice steak.”

Wilbur raised his eyebrows, clearly surprised.

“Don’t tell me I can’t get steak?” I groaned. “Let me guess: food is now only in pill form.”

“No,” said Wilbur, calmly. “It’s just… you’ve been a vegetarian since your late teens.”

“Really,” I said, starting to feel vindicated. “You’d think false memories wouldn’t negate a decision like that.”

“That’s still to be seen,” replied Wilbur, after a long deliberation. “Where would you like to eat?”

“How would I know? I’m a stranger here, remember?”

Wilbur nodded without conviction. “Well, you’ve always liked the local restaurant.”

“How far away? I’m famished.”

“No more than ten minutes’ walk.”

It was an accurate estimate. He led the way, partly back-tracking the way we had come, then diverging. Every street we walked along had the same features and style of the ones I saw travelling to Ernest’s house.

On the way, another two or three people greeted me as Ernest, but perhaps because Wilbur and I had spoken so much already, he and I barely exchanged a word.

We arrived almost without me noticing. We turned from one residential street into what initially looked to be another, until I realised one side of it was occupied by a group of about fifteen shops fronted by parking bays, and bicycle racks under a wide shady vine-covered pergola. Perhaps a dozen bikes were in the racks—none with clamps, all with carry racks—but only three or four cars were parked, each like the same odd ones I’d seen earlier. Several people were walking on the footpath in front of the shops, moving in and out of them, a few pushing something resembling the old-fashioned two-wheeler shopping trolley my grandmother refused to give up until she was too frail to use it. The other side of the road was undeveloped—an uninterrupted stretch of thick native bush.

Like the houses I’d seen, many of the shops were made of mud-brick, and all had large windows. Though individually designed, they looked coherent, simple yet subtly sophisticated, creatively functional, harmonious, inviting. On each shop’s door or window was a single sign, all with the same-sized lettering; no advertising, no prices or special offers, no product or brand names, no promotions or contests, just the shop’s name: Anton’s Clothing, Mother’s Milk Bar, Midge’s Hair Salon, Hillview Takeaways, Gabriel’s DIY, Barry’s Bakery, The Health Store, Alice’s Restaurant.

Another reason for thinking this was not the future—a joke that weak would have to have been long buried.

“Outside?” asked Wilbur, gesturing at a handful of seats on the footpath. “Or in?”

Through the restaurant window, I could see not a single customer, though there was enough room for about fifty. Five or so people were eating on the outdoor seats. It was clearly as much a café as a restaurant.

Feeling a desire for relative privacy, I indicated indoors. We moved in and took a window table. The décor was very low-key: muted colours, unassuming landscape paintings, round tables with high-backed chairs of curved wood. My appetite, already aggravated by the walk, soon reeled under the assault of alluring cooking odours. Unfamiliar instrumental music, vaguely jazz-like, played faintly, overlaid with indistinct voices and kitchen sounds emanating from a partly screened doorway at the back of the shop. Above it, a tall window stretched to the high slanted ceiling, letting in luxuriant light.

“Still too early for most,” said Wilbur, glancing at his watch.

To my disappointment I could see no menu on the table. I looked about the shop, hoping to see a waitress walking toward us, menus in hand, but I saw no-one. It was entirely an eating area, I could not even see a cash register.

When I turned to Wilbur, intending to communicate my impatience to him, he was staring down at the table, rubbing his thumb on it. At first puzzled, I soon realised he was studying the menu—the table top was like a bright liquid crystal display, and his thumb actions were causing the page it presented to scroll down. Assuming I had a similar display on my side, I searched for something to activate it, but quickly grew frustrated. On the verge of asking Wilbur, I noticed a small button inset on the edge of the table, and pressed it. My menu lit up immediately, small images of each dish accompanied by their names and descriptions.

I was as pleasantly surprised by the choice as the prices. There was the standard light fare of a café, as well as the more common meals of a hotel’s counter lunch—although with more vegetarian options than I considered usual—but also half a dozen or so more relatively exotic dishes, including a Thai beef and spinach salad, sushi, and a Rendang curry. Tempted as I was to try many dishes, I ended up deciding on a steak. Something tried and proven seemed in order, rather than yet another novelty.

Having made my choice, I looked about with increasing impatience for someone to take the order. “The service here could be improved.”

“What is it you want?” said Wilbur, looking up from the menu.

“To order,” I said. “What do you think? Directions to the local museum?”

“What dish have you chosen?”

“Steak. Number 14. Medium rare.”

With a sceptical expression, as if he’d just been offered a blank cheque from a hobo, Wilbur almost squinted at me, then pressed the image of the steak dish on his menu, and scrolled down. “I’ll have the vegetarian lasagna today,” he said, tapping that image. “What about drinks?”

I nominated a mineral water, watched him select that and his own then press a large red unfamiliar icon at the bottom of his menu. A new screen came up, showing two large buttons also with unfamiliar icons. “My shout,” he said, extracting his phone, the so-called Babel, from his shirt pocket. “Especially since you wouldn’t bring your Babel with you,” he added, directing a strange smile at me, one suggesting he hadn’t convinced even himself there was any reason to be amused.

I ignored the temptation to repeat what I’d said before we left Ernest’s house, when Wilbur suggested I not leave the phone behind: that it wasn’t mine. Instead, I just watched as Wilbur held his phone over one of the menu’s icons, which was replaced by another which he pressed immediately. The tabletop returned to its original featureless state.

“Let me guess,” I said, “you just ordered and paid at the same time.”

“Yes, of course,” he said, returning the Babel to his pocket.

“Very impressive. An all-purpose communication device cum smart credit or debit card. Probably even makes the coffee. And yet, remarkably similar to a smart phone’s e-wallet! You know, if you really wanted to convince me this is the year 2070…” I paused, waiting to see his reaction, but he was his usual closed book. “…the prices would all be much higher, not less than what I’m used to. You can’t tell me there hasn’t been inflation over the last forty years.”

“You still think I’m part of some hoax?”

“No,” I said, surprising myself at the certainty I felt. “I think I’m dreaming all this. A hoax this elaborate wouldn’t have such an obvious slip-up, surely. My subconscious, on the other hand—well, it’s only human.” Everything was far too detailed to be a hoax. No one could have set up such a radically different town simply for the sake of fooling me into thinking I’d travelled to the future—not even a covert government security agency, whatever paranoid reason they might have invented for doing so. It had to be a dream. A very realistic dream. Perhaps even a vivid dream. Although, unlike what I’d heard about vivid dreams, I was unable (so far at least) to steer this one anywhere near where I wanted it to go: home.

“There’s another quite simple explanation,” suggested Wilbur.

“I’d like to hear it.”

“Prices in 2030 were indeed higher than they are now, for most items.”

“O really. What happened? A depression or two with deflation? Or maybe a period of hyperinflation prompting removal of some zeroes from the currency—like in Germany after World War I?”

“There was some deflation earlier this century, but that’s beside the point. Prices are now what CAPE calculates them to be.”

“CAPE?! Like what superheroes wear?”

“You don’t remember CAPE?”

“No, I don’t!”

“CAPE is the principal method used to stabilise the economy. Cost And Price Equalisation. In the simplest terms, all of the economy’s costs are summed, and then prices are set so that their total for all anticipated output balances.”

“Those are the simplest terms?” He was about to respond, when I cut him off. “Never mind. The last thing I want this dream to turn into is a fantasyland macroeconomics lecture.” I turned from him and gazed through the window. “Tell me one thing, though.” I pointed at the store sign on the window. “Why such limited advertising? Every shop in this street is so inconspicuous it would be the easiest thing in the world to drive right past them without realising they had what you wanted.”

“I doubt that. Besides, anyone wanting to find a particular item only need use the Net to track it down.”

“The Internet?”

“Yes,” said Wilbur, with a partly quizzical, partly amused expression, “the Internet. Every store or supplier has its own site, with as much advertising as they could ever need, all directly and easily accessible via the usual search engines.”

“Some things haven’t changed at least. But even with a webpage, how can a business compete if it doesn’t draw more attention to itself than this?” I pointed again at the window sign.

“There’s an old-fashioned word,” smiled Wilbur.

“Which word?”

“‘Compete’. Not to mention ‘business’.”

That took me by surprise, but he continued before I could think of a reply.

“Most providers have all the attention they desire, sometimes more than they want. And they don’t compete. Enufism makes that unnecessary—along with many of capitalism’s other more arbitrary excesses. There’s certainly no perceived need to treat people’s foreheads and exposed flesh as spaces for hire, something capitalism achieved shortly before its demise.”

“Demise?!”

“Yes.” He looked at me quizzically before understanding suddenly dawned. “O, of course, you’ve forgotten that too.”

He was about to say more, but I cut him off again. “Never mind. I’ll hopefully wake up from all this before I need to ‘remember’ it.”

A young couple with eyes only for each other walked into the restaurant. They took a table some distance away, and chatted at great pace, just barely below our hearing level. Wilbur and I grew silent.

Almost immediately, a young woman carrying drinks on a tray walked through the screened doorway at the back of the shop and approached our table. Smiling, she nodded to both of us, then looked me in the eye. “Mineral water for you, Ernest?”

I felt like sighing again but restrained myself, and answered with a muted “Yes, thanks.”

“Surprised to see you here,” she said, placing my drink on the table, then doing the same for Wilbur. “What with your needay tomorrow.”

“Needay?” The way I was reacting to all the new information I was encountering, I risked turning into a parrot.

“You forgot?” asked the waitress.

I must have looked completely dumbfounded, because Wilbur stepped in. “I think it might be best, Alice, if someone else took Ernest’s spot tomorrow.” He surreptitiously winked at me. “He hasn’t been feeling himself lately.”

You can say that again, I thought.

“O,” said Alice, concern apparent as she turned from Wilbur to me. “Sorry to hear that. I’ll take your spot if you like.”

I was not sure exactly what was going on, but I saw Wilbur looking at me, nodding gently, so I said, “Sure. If you don’t mind.”

“Happy to,” said Alice. “Still need a few more needays to take next year off.”

“Okay,” I muttered, without a clue. “Thanks.”

“Your food’ll be along any minute,” she said, moving away.

As soon as she was out of earshot, I grilled Wilbur. “What was that all about?”

“You were rostered to work here tomorrow. But now Alice will do it for you. And hopefully by next week, you’ll be back to normal.”

“I work here? I thought I was supposed to be an historian.”

“You are. But sometimes, your needays are devoted to other jobs such as here.”

“A waiter?!”

“Waiter, cook, dishwasher, cleaner—the usual variety of services.” My expression must have climbed a notch or two further on the dumbfounded scale, because his eyebrows lowered and his voice took on a more serious tone. “I’m beginning to think we’re going to have to spend a lot of time re-educating you if your memory is ever to be jogged back to normal. I guess a good starting point will be to remind you how to transfer your needay, so Alice can take over tomorrow. We must remember to do that after the meal.”

I shook my head, hoping it would settle into a state of understanding—without success. I decided to give up and change the subject. “I take it Alice is the restaurant’s owner, as well as a waitress?”

Wilbur did not respond immediately. Increasingly, he seemed to be taking time to digest my questions and, presumably, conceive a response. Not surprising, I realised, if my questions were forty years out of date. My dream was a consistent one, I had to admit. Or else Wilbur was a consummate actor indeed. “She does not own the restaurant,” he said at last.

“So the name of the place is a reference to sixties culture after all?”

“No, it’s named after Alice because she is the principal founder, and many dishes are her own recipes.”

“Then she does own it.”

“No one owns it. Alice stewards it, along with everyone else who spends their needays here.”

“Somebody must own it.”

Smiling slightly, Wilbur just shook his head.

I started rubbing my temples. “Why is my subconscious doing this to me?” I groaned. “Why couldn’t I just dream I was flying? Or something else normal?”

Before I could indulge any further, Alice returned, carrying our meals. She was about to put the steak in front of Wilbur, when I said, “That one’s mine.” She gave me a look as if I had climbed onto the tabletop and imitated a gorilla on heat. The look never left her as she put both plates on the table, then, along with Wilbur, watched me carefully as I took my first bite of steak. Her eyes widened. Then, without a word, she returned to the kitchen. With no apparent reaction, Wilbur directed his attention to his own plate.

For a while, I was too famished to waste any valuable chewing time on conversation. It was a delicious dish, everything cooked perfectly. About halfway through it, Wilbur asked, “Enjoying your meal?”

In mid-mouthful, I did not even try to respond with words, settling instead for exaggerated animal grunts and moans accompanied by rolling eyes. “This steak is unbelievably lean,” I commented finally, when my mouth was empty.

“It looks about normal,” he said.

“What sort of cows have such lean meat? I hope they’re not treated like veal calves.” I was a seasoned carnivore but I had at least given up veal many years before, once I became fully aware of the atrocious conditions endured by the poor young beasts that provided it.

“The steak is not from a cow,” said Wilbur. “Not directly at least. It’s vatbeef.” My full mouth mercifully prevented me from performing another parrot impersonation, but my blank look was enough on its own to prompt Wilbur to continue. “All meat is now grown in vats. Animals have not been slaughtered for meat for more than two decades—although a few reclusive types out bush reportedly still do so.”

“It tastes like real beef,” I said, disbelievingly.

“It is real beef. Years ago, when the process was first developed, a genuine piece of prime beef—from a cow—was used as the starting point. All meat since has been grown from that piece and is identical to it in every way.”

Suspicious, I prodded the steak with my fork, but my taste buds over-ruled my doubts, and I soon continued eating. Perhaps the meal was helping me feel better, because I felt like I was starting to settle down a little. Rather than resisting, I began to feel like I might as well go with the flow. Whatever was happening or had happened to me, I seemed to be in no immediate danger at least. And if it was just a dream, I might as well enjoy what I could of it.

“These are unusual beans,” I said before long, poking at one before putting it in my mouth. “Quite tasty.”

“They’re winged beans. Originally from New Guinea, they’re now a staple part of most diets world-wide. Been around a while.”

I gave a subdued groan, which prompted confusion from Wilbur, making me think his ‘joke’ had been inadvertent. The question suddenly occurred to me that if I had to be dreaming all this, why hadn’t I dreamt up someone with a better sense of humour?

“The entire plant can be eaten,” he added. “Not just the beans themselves, but also the roots, leaves, stems and flowers. Even the juice, which tastes something like coffee.”

“With all that going for it, I suppose it must be fattening or carcinogenic.”

“On the contrary. It’s about as healthy as soybeans. And a very rapid grower as well. There are some in my garden. I can show you later if you’re interested.”

“At the moment, they interest me only as a stomach filler.”

Not long after, the young couple at the other table—having become well and truly lubricated by the bottle of wine they were sharing—began to converse loudly enough to be overheard in parts.

“He’s a real worko,” said the man, with amused contempt.

“Whereas my brother’s a burdo,” said the woman, with genuine disdain.

I looked across at Wilbur, as he ate the final mouthful of his meal. “Burdo?!” I said, shaking my head slightly. “Worko?!”

“Burdens and workaholics,” he replied when table etiquette allowed. “People who work considerably less and more needays respectively than is standard.”

I thought I understood. “And what is standard? A 35-hour week still?”

Wilbur, dabbing his mouth with a napkin, stopped in mid-motion. “No,” he said, resuming his motions, “this year the needay was reduced for the first time in three years. It is now seven hours.”

“So, like I said, a 35-hour week. Or has it been cut down to a nine-day fortnight?”

“No,” said Wilbur, putting his napkin on the table, and looking me steadily in the eye. “There is just the one needay each week.”

For some seconds, I did not move other than to blink in astonishment, unsure whether I’d heard or understood him correctly. “Are you telling me you have a one-day working week?! A seven-hour working week?!!”

“Yes.”