"Echo from the Portrait of Time"

“You’re not looking too spry today, Farthing!”, a well-dressed man in a maroon waistcoat, shiny black shoes, and a cane, around 5 and a half feet tall stated, looking at a young 6-foot man, probably in his 20’s, slouched back on a park bench with legs crossed, hands on his left knee, and his chin on his chest as if asleep.

His eyes quickly shot up stating “Say what?” in the typical British fashion of speaking. Looking up, his blue eyes, light brown moustache and strong square jawline are seen from underneath a rough brown 1920’s Brooklyn newsboy cap. “You talk’n to me?”

“Your name is Farthing, Alexander Farthing… is it not?”

“Yeah it sure is, but I never did see you before.” He replied, dropping his head down once more.

A shady smile began to crawl over the face of the man but dissolved back into a straight face when Alexander looked up again with a questioning expression, then he raised one eyebrow, pulled his hat off his shabby hair, and pointed at the old man with his cap, “Blimey, I do declare! You look as if you stepped straight outta the 20th century, who are you?”

“You’re not too far off the mark! Why don’t you have a look around yourself… and think about what you just said!”

Alexander diverted his eyes from the man and looked around, what he first noticed, was that he was not on a park bench, but in an art museum seated on a stool placed against the wall. In a flash of thought, he remembered why. He had been called to the museum by the director for a job interview. At first, this made him think that this man he was speaking with was the museum director, dressed eccentrically for tourists, but what he saw next almost shocked him 6 feet into his grave. Everyone around him was frozen, as if by some magic that paused time. “Heaven help me! I’ve a gone and lost my mind!”, He yelled in shock.

“No, you haven’t, but by the end of tonight, you very well may!” Said the man. “And by the way, I’m Nikola…”Alexander’s head shot back in his direction, “Nikola Tesla”. A look of terror crossed over his face. As Tesla reached out to shake hands, Alexander jumped back with his hand in the air at a 90° angle to his elbow.

“Why so jumpy, you know something about me do you?”

“I’ll say I do, you’re a mad scientist from the 1930’s. But you were found dead almost 100 years ago, and here you are again!

Why, How!?”, Alexander asked, now panicking.

Tesla grinned, “You know what you say, and yet you don’t. I was found dead, yes. But my death is still a mystery to the world to this very day, is it not. I have always been a man of solitude, seeking nothing but to keep to myself, with my birds for company. You speak the truth, my body died, but not the Nikola Tesla himself.”

Alexander was trembling, “I-I…I don’t understand. You speak nonsense!”

“Your right, and it’s nonsense that let man unlock the power of power, is it not.”

“I beg your pardon”

“Electricity Farthing, my own! But getting back on topic, I took a portrait image of myself. You have seen it, so has almost everyone else you’ve ever met. But the original sits in this very museum on the far-right wing wall. Well, that photograph is the key. When I died, I managed to transfer my soul into the photo when I took it, that is what you see in it, just misinterpreted as a ‘safe’ lighting generator. Garbage if I do say so myself, it killed me! As the lighting struck me, it struck the camera at the same exact moment, putting my soul into a state of suspension, except at night.”

Alexander fell to the ground on his knees, hyperventilating. He looked up with bloodshot eyes, “why have you come to me? And how do you know my name”

“You have a stronger heart than most, though you may not feel it now. Anyone else would likely die of shock without thinking! As for your name, I enabled the abilities to see through the portrait from another realm of black and white suspension, so I heard your name”, He looked at Alexander with his deep, unblinking eyes. “You, will do just fine…”

“For what”

“For my success story. See, I am bound to staying within this building, as I must go back into the Portrait of Time’ before 12 hours is up, or both me and the photo will disperse into nothing. But if you put your hand on the photo while I am not in it, you will take my place, and I will be free for life, to go and do as I please. But above all else, to reach out to the world with my inventions, and take it over. I will be like a king of old, praised and served, with the power to keep and take a life at will. I will be the greatest contradiction the world has ever known!”. When Tesla said this, he seemed to grow, his eyes went jet black, and his voice rumbled like an earthquake, making Alexander fall to the ground unable to get back up.

“No, you can’t do this” Alexander cried.

“See if I can’t”, Tesla roared, pulling out a terrifying looking weapon, like a gun with coils on the end, sparking like a taser, though silent, and aimed it straight at Alexander’s head.

Alexander stiffened, as if bracing for death. He shut his eyes as Tesla pulled the trigger. But to his shock, he felt nothing, instead, he noticed that he had been lifted of the ground by painless sparks of electricity wrapped around his body like a vine. He struggled, but this just made Tesla angrier. He pulled down harder on the trigger, and while the electricity still didn’t heart, he started to feel constricted, blood flushed to his head, and he felt himself slowly blacking out.

Tesla laughed an evil laugh, “You will wish for death when you find how I’ve lived for the last 100 years!”

Alexander was almost out of consciousness when he was brought before the picture, he noticed that the chair was empty. He thought of something.

“Now comes your end! My true beginning!!”

Alexander acted as if he had given up, but right as he was about to touch the picture, he flung his legs up over it, landed down with his heels on the top frame, and kicked the picture at Tesla with all the force he could muster. Amazingly, this worked. The picture swallowed Tesla as he cried out in anger of defeat and despair. But as he did, the electric coil slipped off Alexanders waist and onto his leg. It constricted for a split second, but so hard, it snapped his ankle, right before disappearing into the photo with Tesla.

Alexander fell to the ground in pain, but in an effort, pushed a sculpture over onto the photograph of Tesla. He had succeeded and smashed the photo into 1000 pieces, and as it did, the photo flashed with a blinding light, before disappearing into thin air.

Alexander woke up in a hospital surrounded by doctors and nurses in light blue masks. He couldn’t understand it, had he lost his mind and dreamed the whole thing up? It seemed this way, perhaps he was in a mental hospital. He sat up, but as he did, he felt that searing pain he felt when he broke his ankle. Everything that happened, had actually happened in real life!

“Your ankle is fractured, though it is strange to me, there was no evidence of how this may have happened, but it is slightly cracked on all sides. Now that your awake, could you tell us what happened?”. The doctor looked down at him with questioning eyes.

Alexander paused in thought, he knew what happened, but he felt it would be unbelievable. He wasn’t into lying though, so he stated out of context about his thoughts on the weapon that did the damage, “I have no clue, I am baffled myself”.

Today, 15 years later, Alexander Farthing questions if he had imagined the whole thing, but believes himself once again whenever he feels the light pain of a once broken ankle that never did heal completely. He remembers that Echo from the Portrait of Time!