Cecil and the Stranger

The end begins in an empty, fog-laden town. Bare-bones, name already forgotten–this place is nothing but a pit stop for Cecil. A pothole-ridden road connects the parking lot to the train station. In between cracks in the asphalt, green weeds shoot this way and that. Pervasive through it all is the fog, so thick that Cecil can scarcely see three feet in front of himself.

Still, he walks with an unshakeable sense of giddy glee.

He feels it in his fluttering heart, in the smile that plays at the corners of his lips, in the feather-lightness of his feet. 

The fog ripples with movement, and a figure appears. A silhouette against shadows, camouflaged in cloud. Anxiety washes over Cecil, seizing his heart. The feeling morphs into piercing fear when the stranger emerges fully from the fog. For the briefest instant, Cecil sees the stranger clearly–old and weathered and inexplicably off-putting, hawkish eyes boring into Cecil’s. 

Scarcely a second later, the stranger is gone–swallowed up once again by the fog. All that is left of his presence is retreating footsteps. 

Cecil quickens his own step now, hurrying towards the train station. Instinctively, he places a hand on his bag, the leather worn smooth with time. Fog shrouds the path ahead, and Cecil finds himself glancing back over his shoulder more than once. 

Could he know?

A rickety brick building manifests in the fog, and Cecil laughs–a breathy, nervous thing. The air is clearer over here, just enough to make out the railroad tracks. At least ten other people are scattered about the platform, none of whom pay particular attention to Cecil. 

He settles onto a wooden bench, shoulders rigid with tension as he tries to convince himself that there is no reason to be so rattled by a stranger. Still, his eyes dart side to side, scanning the platform. He just wants to ensure his tracks are covered, so to speak–that’s all. 

With a welcoming whistle, the train chugs into the station. Cecil takes one last glance around before boarding. Soon enough, he is moving steadily towards his hometown. 

The train ride passes without incident, of course, and by the time Cecil arrives at his destination, the spring in his step has returned. He exits the train with a familiar sense of lightheadedness, taking in his home for the first time in years. 

Dark clouds in the sky block any sunlight, but the town is even drearier on the ground. Half the storefronts on the main road are closed permanently, For Lease signs crowding their front windows. Warm light emanates from the one coffee shop whose doors are still open. A bell rings as Cecil enters the shop. Instantly his nerves calm as he takes in the whirring espresso machines, the din of quiet conversation across tabletops, and the smell of roasting beans.

Cecil takes his mug of coffee to a table by the steamed-up windows. He has the time, after all. As he settles in, a gray-headed man looks up from across the cafe. The stranger from the road, Cecil realizes with another jolt of unease.

The stranger smiles, and Cecil is struck by the familiarity of it. It is at once uncanny and achingly recognizable, and Cecil wants to run but he cannot. So he stands and approaches the stranger, choosing to tower over him rather than lower himself onto a chair. 

The stranger folds his hands atop the newspaper in his lap, and looks up at Cecil without reservation. “Have a seat,” the stranger offers, his voice weighted with age.

Cecil remains standing. “I’d rather not.”

There’s something so peculiar about his eyes, and Cecil finds himself staring into them. Beneath droopy gray eyelashes, the hazel eyes are quick and sharp and knowing. Cecil has a feeling that the stranger can see things that he would rather keep hidden. 

His eyes dart away from the stranger’s and for the first time, Cecil notices a clock mounted on the wall, tick-tick-ticking along. Looking back at the stranger with newfound courage, Cecil squares his shoulders. “What do you want?”

The stranger smiles again, and this time Cecil sees the sadness in it. But the stranger unnerves him, and his sad smile garners no empathy from Cecil. No, the wrinkles around his eyes and the melancholy inside them churns Cecil’s stomach with unease. Wrongness like an alarm bell blares inside him, but still he cannot not say why. 

Cecil turns on his feet without another word, his coffee forgotten, and heads out into the blustery cold. He tucks his hands into his pockets, balling them into fists as the anxious thoughts berate him. Again, he wonders if the stranger knows. The way he smiled–

The stranger reminds him of his grandfather, Cecil realizes suddenly. The very same smile. Bushy gray eyebrows. All-seeing eyes. Of course the familiarity would strike him, like seeing a ghost back from the dead. 

From the main street, he follows a familiar route. He smiles with recognition at the blue house on the corner of Tempus Street, at the half-empty branches of the towering oak tree, at the stray cats running through front yards. Nothing has changed here, as though this part of town is simply exempt from the passage of time. 

Of course, other sights are not so familiar.

Cecil knows his old house has been knocked down, along with all the others on the neighboring streets. Knows the devastation it caused. Knows that in the years since, small warehouses have cropped up in place of homes. And yet, it has never been clearer to him that knowing and seeing are completely different concepts. 

It doesn’t matter, he repeats to himself as he passes the gray warehouses, many of which have already been abandoned. None of this matters.

The mere thought brings him excitement, excitement that crescendos with his every step. Above, the sky darkens as Cecil arrives at the boarded-up door of the warehouse he seeks. No different than the others, but this one is on the land he once called home. This is where it all began, and this is where Cecil sees fit to end it. Not end, he corrects himself. Begin again. 

With a single kick, the boarded door yields to Cecil. He struts in with a ballooning sense of triumph. There are no lights, of course, but Cecil has brought his own. He reaches into his bag, feeling around for the bulk of the flashlight. But before he can find it, something crashes against his head. 

When Cecil wakes, the empty warehouse is lit by a single flashlight, pointed directly in his eyeline. His head throbs with pain. He blinks rapidly, rushing to get away, but something holds him in place. Ropes pull tight around his entire body, fastening him to a pole in the middle of the warehouse. He tries to slither out, but the ropes do not budge.

“You don’t want to do this,” Cecil says to the low-life holding the flashlight. “You have no idea who I am. I have more money than you can imagine. I’m going to change the world.” He is more annoyed at than afraid of this warehouse-dweller.

The light moves, slowly tracing down Cecil’s body and landing at his feet, which peek out from underneath the rope. Cecil squints through spots of light in his vision to make out the figure. 

White teeth emerge from the darkness, and Cecil’s stomach drops. 

“Have a seat,” the stranger says once more, tired amusement lacing his words, as though he’s spoken them a thousand times before. 

“Who are you?” Cecil shouts. He hopes his fear is not evident in his voice. 

The stranger breathes out slowly, his shoulders sinking. He pulls up a chair, which screeches obscenely against the concrete floor, and sits several feet away from Cecil. The flashlight he leaves on the ground. It points upwards and basks them in a murky half-light. 

Cecil strains against the ropes, but he can scarcely move for how tightly he’s tied. So he settles for bargaining. 

“Let me go,” he says. “I can give you–”

“I suppose it makes sense that you don’t know me,” the stranger interrupts. “So intelligent in so many ways, but severely lacking in oversight. Though still, I wondered. I always do.”

“You’re from the future,” Cecil says, wide-eyed and suddenly insatiable, needing to know every detail–because it worked. 

“I’m from your future,” the stranger replies. 

Cecil narrows his eyes at the weedy, withered man, eyes filled with a thousand regrets, and decides to reject his implication wholeheartedly. But the eerie unease that has gripped him since he first saw the stranger explodes into full-on panic, and even he cannot deny what is plain before him.

The very same hazel eyes he sees every day in the mirror. His features, aged fifty years. Cecil notices the ring on the stranger’s wrinkled index finger for the first time–the same silver band he’s worn for years. 

He sees his future, in all its bleakness.  

The stranger walks away and comes back with Cecil’s bag in hand. He drops the bag on the floor as if the future of the world isn’t tucked carefully inside its leather flaps. Cecil strains against the ropes, desperate to protect it. 

The stranger gestures to the bag. “Of course, it works.”

He knew it. 

“It’s strange, isn’t it? How great the chasm can be between a person at different stages in their life? I feel as though we are two entirely different people, and yet I remember this night so vividly. The excitement I felt on the train, like a child on the first day of summer. How giddy I was as I made my way to this very warehouse, without an inkling of foresight. How I made the worst decision of my life here.” The stranger’s face darkens. 

“You think you’re so righteous–”

“Of course not,” the stranger replies. “What I did–what you are about to do–it leads to a kind of destruction that is unimaginable to you now.” He is quiet for some time before he speaks again. “You know, I scarcely recognized you the first time we did this. I’d forgotten how unburdened I used to be.”

Cecil’s mind stills as though it were stuck in mud. “The first time?”

The stranger pats his pocket with a grimace. “The first dozen or so times, I attempted to reason with you. You, predictably, never listened. Next, I destroyed your prototype. You just rebuilt it. Several times, you managed to run away and evade me entirely. The outcome was always the same. You–I–created the device, and destruction was all too quick to follow.”

“I’m going to change the world,” Cecil says again. Inside, he is reeling, uncertain what to make of the stranger’s tale. 

“You would,” the stranger agrees. “But this is the end for us.”

With a click, the flashlight extinguishes. 

Goosebumps erupt on Cecil’s arms as he shouts into the dark. “No, wait,” Cecil cries, a final endeavor. “I understand now. I want nothing to do with this any longer. Please, just let me go.” 

“You say that every time.” The stranger’s voice is distant. “You know, you’ve never once meant it.” Weary laughter echoes around the warehouse. “I’ve grown tired of this game now.”

There is no time for panic, pain, or regret. In an instant, before he realizes it’s happened, Cecil’s world is reduced to nothingness.