Parallels

The immaculate Big Ben clock chimed three times before Christa nudged her friend Quilla to wake her from the drool pool she left on her desk after she fell asleep in the last half hour of Mastering Neurolinguistics. The class gathered their belongings hoping to dust out of the classroom already excited for the weekend. Not before Professor Du Pettey (emphasis on the pronunciation and meaning of petty) gave them a twenty minute long lecture about how they should not waste their weekend drinking, clubbing or doing some heinous act. The students watch him with a bewildered. “What does he think young people do in their leisure time, rob banks?,” Quilla said in a sarcastic tone while rolling her eyes leaving the classroom. “Oh Ms. Tilda, what I’ve said is not an advice but a warning, but do have an eventful evening”, he went ahead of Christa and Quilla and disappeared into the busy crowd of people scattered throughout London.

 To get their minds off of the creepy Professor, Christa suggested they begin enjoying their weekend in the city of London instead of returning to Kent. At first Quilla was rather sceptical about being out late after she told her mother that she would be home at six o’clock that evening, but then she noted within her inner thoughts “ I’m twenty-seven years old and I was with a friend, everything would be fine”. Quilla messaged her mother to let her know she was going to spend the night at Christa’s house and that she would return home tomorrow morning. Thereafter, Christa insisted that they try a club that her flatmate recommended, it was unique because the club was in the underground and it was based in an abandoned metro train called, Escapade. Quilla was very curious as the last time she was underground she was five years old and travelling with her mother. Other than that she could not recall another time when she used this facility. They walked about seven blocks before coming to a mob of people in queue going down stairs which lead to the underground.

“Oh no look at that line, it’s going to take forever for us to reach inside”,Quilla sighed in dismay wishing that the line would disappear or that they could have reversed time so they got here a half hour earlier. “Hey you two, you don’t have to wait”, Christa and Quilla slowly turned around to see a tall handsome white British gentleman with black hair with golden highlights and a black walking cane and top hat. “There’s just one catch, what is the password.” Christa and I were stumped, how could they know a password to a place they’ve never been to …..but suddenly if like by magic time stopped and it felt like it was just the gentleman and Quilla in a parallel universe. He mimed two statements to her which she simultaneously said out loud “eid uoy, eid ew”. “That’s correct!”, he exclaimed and ushered them to follow him past the crowd and down the stairs into the underground. On their way Christa profusely questioned Quilla while still in disbelief of how she came across the correct answer on the first try, even Quilla was confused as to how easily she came up with the answer.

They followed the gentleman down a lonely tunnel hearing the echoed voices of the crowd slowly disappearing into the distance. Finally they came to a halt where the gentleman stood in front of a train which they assumed was the infamous train. He stood in front of the train and reached into his pockets for a small rounded object that resembled a human eye ball and inserted it into a hole in the door. The doors slowly slid apart and an eerie sound coupled with misty fog emerged. Before they had a chance to think about escaping the gentleman shoved them into the train and shut the door behind us. At that moment the mist filled the train which made it impossible to see anything. When the mist cleared the air the gentleman was nowhere to be found and they were pressed with many variables, being easily tricked into getting stuck underground alone, in a dark tunnel “ I cannot believe how naïve we were to be tricked into getting stuck on on an old, abandoned and immobile…..”

SCREECHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The screech from the train made Quilla lose her train of thought as the train though slow began to move off on the rickety tracks down the dark tunnel. The eerie music began to play even louder and the mist returned but along the ground so they could see one another’s face. Christa attempted to use her phone to call the police but her phone reception was out of service. The train began to speed up so it would be impossible to open the doors and try to jump out with a safe landing. Then they both thought that if they could get to the front of the train they could tell the conductor that they accidentally got onto the train. The doors separating the coaches were numbered so they had to make sure they were going the right direction, the coach they were currently in was number 5. So they deduced that once the next coach was 4 they were heading in the right direction. As they slid the door open the number read 4 and they quickly began their strut through each coach hoping to reach the conductor as quickly as possible. Coming to the final coach Christa stopped Quilla midway from opening the door completely and told her to duck down but leave the door open slightly so they could listen.

“Finally after so many years of planning we are finally going to blow up the London Bridge thanks to your insight as a college professor in the heart of London.”, in walked a tall scary looking mixed gentleman with jet black hair and -1/3 tattooed under his left eye followed by, “Professor Du Pettey” Christa placed her hand over Quilla’s mouth to keep her from making anymore loud outbursts. “Finally my brother we can avenge our brother who was shot down in cold blood by accident they said when he was just trying to do his job and provide for his family. This is why we bare this mark” he points at the -1/3 tattoo and Professor Du Pettey pulls down his sleeve to reveal a - 2/3 tattoo. “This tattoo will always signify the loss of our brother making us a negative pair instead of positive triplets”.

Christa and Quilla began panicking they were not even sure of how this had happened. The possibility of a man impersonating a professor to infiltrate their school to know of a way to get a bomb underground using an abandoned metro train to transport the bomb directly under the bridge without alerting any local authorities. They slowly closed the door and began walking backwards.

SNAP!

The loud sound of Quilla’s foot mashing a leftover bag of crisp made enough of a noise to get the attention of the two men. They got up and noticed the two girls scurrying away through the coaches. It was a race for their lives, neither one dared look back in fear to reveal how close the men had caught up to them. Christa slipped and was caught by the other gentleman while Quilla kept running and was eventually caught by Professor Du Pettey. “Looks like you girls decided not to heed my warning, nevertheless I’m glad you are here because you have proved my point that young people these days do not appreciate their free time and choose to squander it on frivolous activities and enjoy wasting their life. If only my brother was still alive he would have used his time to finish university to become a doctor because he wanted to help sick people while working his part time job to provide for our family.” The two girls were scared out of their wits they had no idea what they were in for whether they would live to tell this tale or be buried along with the hundreds of people who were unknowingly using the London Bridge for the last time. 

“Please Professor we are so young we have our whole life ahead of us please reconsider what you are going to do, all those innocent lives you are going to sacrifice for revenge”, Christa pleaded profusely. “What about my brother, no one seemed to care about his sacrifice,  he was one of the good ones who wasn’t involved in drugs, gangs or any kind of violence he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, caught in a crossfire between the neighbourhood gangs and the police force, one of the bullets ricocheted off of a wall and went right through his heart while he was making a routine stop delivering medicine to an old man.” As the train came to a halt the Professor paused for a brief moment, “Don’t take this personal girls I really have nothing against you two I just think that someone has to pay for the grand injustice that befell my own brother, but I leave you with these words of my forefathers eid uoy, eid ew which translates you die, we die”, the Professor grabs the switch and there is a loud explosion and burst of blinding light destroying everything along with Quilla and Christa disappearing from sight.

“Excuse me, Excuse me Ms. Tilda can you dream on your own time and please wipe your desk”, Professor Du Pettey slams a ruler onto Quilla’s desk to wake her up from drooling from a very intense nightmare. “Oh my word I just imagined it”, Quilla falls to the ground bending her head in prayer rejoicing for her life. “Ms. Tilda please contain your wild outbursts, now please class turn to page 12..”, the buzzer sounds ending class. As the students vacate the room Quilla hangs back to talk to Professor Du Pettey, “ Excuse me Professor I was wondering something do you have any siblings, maybe brothers?”. Professor Du Pettey was shocked, “I did have two brothers but we weren’t biological but we were as close as brothers we were triplets but unfortunately we were separated when we came to England, one of  my brothers sadly was caught in a cross fire walking home a day and was killed on site, I have had to live with that regret for these past years. I’ve actually never told anyone this before especially since it sends me into despair and I became more depressed but strangely talking about with someone makes me feel like his life wasn’t just for nothing but that he was real because he lived and his memory will always live on in me. Thank you Ms. Tilda”. He smiled and walked off. Then Quilla left the class and caught up to Christa, “What was that about”, Quilla just smiled and kept walking towards the train station. Suddenly something caught Quilla’s view, it was the handsome gentleman with the black walking cane and top hat who she thought she dreamt. He mouthed one more thing to her, “evil uoy, evil ew – which translated you live, we live”, and then he disappeared. 

One thing to recall always, “Tomorrow is never promised never squander your time on earth you have one life, live it well so that when it ends you have no regrets.”