The whole business began with contact being made through the dark web.
It was then that his extensive evenings of research had finally paid off. When the cloaked messages between him and the other party, who referred to himself as the ‘Mystic’, where finished, he knew that all he had to do was wait. He was happy to do that. He had found the service he required… for a price. It would be worth it; just to see her again, to be with her for that precious time before the accident had taken her life almost seven years ago. He was told what to expect. A blue envelope with a birthday card. On the back a number of precise instructions. He would need to read the instructions carefully, place the cash in the envelope with the card, reseal the envelope and take it with him.
It arrived a few days later. The information typed on the back of the card was quite specific. It gave the numbers of two bus routes, with times. These would take him on an hour and a half journey across the country to a town he was unfamiliar with. It said that the mystic would be doing the same. He was to walk from the appointed bus stop into the town’s main square where he would find a telephone booth near a chemist shop. He needed to open the directory at the beginning of the v-section, find and take the packet and replace it with the envelope. He was then told to walk back to the bus stop, the one that was indicated as being the start of his return trip home.
On the way back he found it impossible to resist repeatedly taking the tiny package out of his pocket and turning it over carefully with his fingertips. It was a folded square of stiff, white paper, not much bigger than a postage stamp. It was sealed closed with clear sticky tape. It would contain a small amount of white powder. The details for mixing this with water had been carefully memorised. It would be that evening… that very evening, that he would go back, he would reverse time itself and go back, back to the time when he held her in his arms… His heart was pounding.
That evening, he sat looking at the mixture in the glass tumbler. It had turned cloudy when he slowly stirred the powder into the exact amount of water. It sat on the coffee table in front of him. He had to pause. He had to think about the incredible leap he was about to take. He sank back into the armchair and lit a cigarette. He knew that once drunk, there would be no stopping the process. That had been made clear. Suddenly, giving way to an unexpected impulse, he picked up the glass and took the contents down with a series of full gulps. He sat back again and waited.
Nothing happened for several minutes. The clock on the far wall kept its steady ticking. It seemed to be louder than usual, but he put that down to imagination. He began to feel warm. In fact, he was sweating. The first thing he noticed was the smoke rising from his cigarette resting in the ashtray. He was sure it was drifting up more slowly. Then it was the ticking of the clock. It was definitely slowing, with the ticks becoming further and further apart. Then, his heartbeat pounded in his ears as the ticking stopped and the stream of smoke froze in mid-air. For long moments nothing changed. Then, the second hand of the clock slowly began to creep anticlockwise. At the same time, the smoke began to fall steadily back down. As the long drawn-out minutes passed, the ticking returned to its normal rhythm and the cigarette sat unlit in the ashtray.
It was at this point that he whispered the shockingly ludicrous question to himself, “Just how long is this going to take?”