The Bearded Man

I grew up without a nice, warm family like almost every other kid in my grade did. I was taken into the orphanage when I was five, with barely any memories of my family. They disappeared from my life as quickly as they came. In fact, I had little to no memories of my childhood. All I could remember was a strange, bearded man with a jagged scar across his forehead visiting me on my first day at the orphanage. He told me that my parents were dead, but never told me how. He walked funny with one leg and a stump for the other.

Fast forward twenty years. I was now 25, and already a famous, renowned author, writing about philosophy, literature and history. It was my dream job since I'd cultivated a habit of reading endlessly during my lonely days at the orphanage. No one would play with me because I didn't know how my parents died, or anything about them at all. Everyone had a story about their parents except me. But did it matter at an orphanage, when we were all parentless children? I spent my days running back and forth the headmaster's office, stealing stacks and stacks of books to bury my nose in.

But why, even when doing something I enjoyed, did I feel empty? Somewhere behind the facade of a smiling and cheerful young man, my heart was hollow, fragile and aching for answers to questions I could never get. I wrote books on the answers to the most complex issues in life, but I could never utter a single word to the question on how my childhood, when my parents were still around.

What happened to them?

**

I had an awful nightmare. The night was chilly but I woke up in a pool of sweat, feeling sick to the stomach. His ghostlike eyes, baleful smile, and most importantly his jagged scar flashed before my eyes again and again. And my parents. They were both tall, brown-haired, just like me. I couldn’t make out their faces, but they were arguing heatedly with that strange man. 

I knew him.

I was up before daylight. The sky was still dark and the wind was howling, slapping painfully against my cheeks. I wrapped my thick wool coat tighter around myself and slipped my frozen fingers into the coat pockets. 

The familiar alley in my dream loomed ahead of me, drowned in complete darkness and with no soul in sight. It was eerily quiet, and a street light mysteriously started to flicker when I passed it.

I headed straight to the end, where a small stairwell led to a rusty, black metal door. I had no idea why I was doing this, but something in my gut told me I was going the right direction. I needed answers.

The door swung open before I could knock. A short, bearded man stood there, his teeth so white that it seemed to gleam brightly under the moonlight. It was as though he was already expecting me.

"Welcome," he had a thick European accent, and a nasally voice. "Come on in. I've been expecting you." He said the very words.

It was him. But something was off.

His face was the same, but twenty years older the last time I'd seen him. His forehead was wrinkled, and there were crinkles at his eyes. Yet, he still held that baleful smile. It was all him. From twenty years ago. From my dream.

But where was his jagged scar? His missing leg? He looked like a perfectly normal and healthy human being, as though nothing had ever happened to him. I didn't even know how he'd gotten the scar and lost his leg. 

"You must be surprised," he cleared his throat when I'd stared too long at him wordlessly. "You're not wrong. It is me."

I started to take in my surroundings then. The walls were whitewashed, and the room was flooded with bright white light. There was nothing else in the room, except the big machine with tubes connected to it and a door with a red button beside to be pushed. 

"You want to know about your parents." he read my mind instantly. "You can do so, the same way I did." He gestured to the machine. "Maybe you could change things. Maybe you could live another life, in another place."

"What are you talking about?" I asked him impatiently. 

"This is a time machine," he dropped his voice to a deadly whisper, "I'm a mad scientist who created this. I went back in time to stop the accident that cost my leg."

I drew in a deep breath.  Meddling with time was a dangerous game, as it could change the future. I'd read about an alternate, parallel universe before... but did such things even exist?

"I don't believe you," I spat, even though it was clearly spelled out to me that he wasn't lying. Then again, he could be an impersonator. But he looked exactly how I'd remembered him.

"You can always try it," he said, "I know you want to."

"What happened to your future after that?" I asked daringly.

He let out a short laugh, one that I couldn't tell if he was amused, sarcastic or just plain menacing. "You see, that's the thing with my time machine. You only change yourself."

I furrowed my eyebrows. He didn't answer my question. "What do you mean?"

"The accident was going to happen. My body, then, was there, crossing the street. But I, as in me from the future, managed to stop it. So it never happened."

My mind was a whirlwind of confusion. What was he talking about? 

"What happened to your... other body?"

He gave me the scariest grin I had ever seen in my entire lifetime, and walked to his time machine, placing a hand on it. "I got rid of it. I replaced it. And I re-lived the rest of my life in the past."

My mouth hung open in shock, as I watched him circle around the machine. "I won't tell you how the technical things work," he chuckled, "You gotta go try it yourself. You want to know what happened to your parents, right?"

I started to back away from where I'd stood rooted to the spot. By this time I was trembling, and my sixth sense was telling me to GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE. 

"Actually, sir, -- "

He reached forward swiftly and grabbed my neck tightly, digging his nails into my skin, making me whimper. "You're not leaving," his voice was dangerously low, as he wrenched me forward and towards the machine.

I couldn't put up much of a fight, because before I knew it, the doors had slid opened and I was thrown inside the cold and metallic compartment. The last thing I saw before I blacked out was his evil grin.

**

It seemed like an eternity. When my eyes peeled open, the blinding, orange rays of sunlight pierced straight into them. I blinked rapidly, trying to adjust to the surroundings. I had a throbbing headache, and my limbs felt sore.

I got up on two feet and scoured the grass fields around me. I was at a farm, and suddenly, memories of my childhood came flooding into my mind. Realisation dawned upon me. A farm. I grew up in a farmhouse.

Suddenly, a deafening shriek, followed by a gunshot sounded in the distance. I whipped my head towards the direction of the sound, my heart thumping wildly against my chest.

There they were. My parents were tall, brown-haired... and my mother was the one yelling hysterically. My father had his arm wrapped tightly around her. They were both kneeling and begging in despair. 

I slowly brought my eyes towards the person they were pleading to, and the little boy in his arms. 

It was him. I recognised his jagged scar and his missing leg. He had one arm over the neck of the boy, and the tip of the pistol at the boy’s temple. 

I slapped my hand over my mouth, trying to prevent my guts from spilling out. This was sick. He was sick. The boy was me. The same brown hair, the same big brown eyes filling with tears. The same straw hat made of hay we had, that I worn outdoors everyday.

As stealthily as possible I crept nearer to them, crawling through the blade-like grass that sliced at my skin. 

“Please! Let him go! Take me instead!” my mother was screaming.

No.

“Don’t take her,” my father cried desperately, “Don’t take either of them. Just take me.“

“I don’t need to kill any of you two!” the man snapped, tightening his grip on the boy. The boy was now howling and screeching in fright. “Shut up before I put two bullets in your head.”

I had to do something. This was my chance. I could stop it. I knew I could stop it. I was taller, bigger and stronger than him. I could take him down easily.

As I prepared to lunge towards him, my mother was faster. In two fast leaps she’d her arms wide opened towards the boy. He was even faster. He dropped the boy and aimed the gun at my mother, his finger ready to pull the trigger at any moment.

I had to do it now. This was my chance. 

I lunged forward and intercepted the bullet right when he pulled the trigger, letting my body separate him from my mother. A burning hot pain sliced through my throat when the bullet hit me squarely, and I crumbled to the ground, pain shooting around my entire body now.

Everything had began to blur, and my breathing was starting to slow. My head was dizzy, and my mouth was dry. I couldn’t hear anything, except for a buzzing, ringing sound at my ear. Everything started to spin, and all I could see was white. Very bright white. Was this what death was like? 

Memories began to flash before my eyes, and suddenly I could remember every single detail of my childhood, and my life. I finally had them. The answers to the questions I had been asking a lifetime. 

His face clouded my vision at the last moment, his lips twisted up into a triumphant smirk. “You had your chance,” he whispered, “And you did me a favour.”

THE END