Möbius Strip

The old man’s eyes had seen too much; the young man knew this, because the skin around his eyes was deep, and dark. The old man’s hands had felt too much; he knew this, because his hands were leathery and pocked full of scars. The man had lived for too long; his crooked and broken posture betrayed this secret even from a distance.

The young man had met him at this bus stop every morning for the past three years, and with each year that passed, the old man appeared to have unnaturally aged by five. The young man pitied him, but there was also something about the man that intrigued him. On occasion the old man would dispense a small wisdom, but it was something more than that; an invisible gravity that forced into orbit all around it.

“Morning,” said the young man as he approached the bus stop. The old man nodded in response.

“So, are you going to tell me where you’re headed to today?”

“No,” said the old man, smiling defiantly.

“Three years we’ve been getting this bus together, and three years you’ve never told me where it is you go every morning. You’ll tell me one day, friend, and your little secret had better be worth the wait.”

The 8:05am to central Yerevan arrived precisely on time, and the two men shuffled onto the empty bus. The old man scraped his shoes on the tarmac before climbing the step, the young man mirroring his mannerism perfectly.

“It’s good of you to sit with me, keep an old man company. How are things at work?”

“I like you, old man, you’re a good listener. And work is fine, dull.”

“Listening is a skill - truly. I’ve had many years to practice and many, many people to listen to.”

The young man inspected his smile, warm and proud.

“You seem a little different today. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, thank you. Today is just an important day for me. An anniversary, of sorts.”

“Well, what is it?”

“In truth, it’s the anniversary of the beginning of my addiction. I hate that word, but it’s true. It’s haunted me my whole life. And I have to do something today that a long time ago, I promised myself I wouldn’t.”

“Addiction? You…”

The young man paused. His eyes traced along the canyon lines of the old man’s face which was now buried in thought, reminiscence, caught on an old memory like a jacket on a thorn bush.

“In truth, I can’t really say when it began. But what I do know is that soon, my withdrawals will consume me entirely. The obsession in your mind fades, you see, but the physical dependency - that will stay with you forever.”

“Listen, I wish we had longer to talk, our short bus rides never seem enough,” said the young man, ringing the bell and standing from his seat. “You’ve spent three years hardly saying a word about yourself, and now you’re telling me all this just as we arrive at my stop.”

“Stay on the bus, then,” the old man smiled warmly.

“I wish that I could, really.”

“Do you enjoy your work? Does it fulfil you?”

The young man hesitated and flicker of discontent crossed his face, if only for a moment. “Fulfil me? No. I don’t think filing government papers fulfils anyone, but it pays my bills.”

“Then stay on the bus with me, just a little while longer.”

The young man paused, analysing the old man.

“Do a kindness to a old man,” he pleaded.

The young man detected something strange in the way that he had asked. Hearing the doors of the bus hiss open behind him, a familiar feeling returned to him: there is something strange about the old man.

“I’ve never been to the other side of the city. Where are we going?” asked the young man, sitting down anxiously.

“We’re visiting a grave. The grave of someone I miss very dearly.”

“Oh… I’m sorry. When did she pass?”

The old man let out a small laugh. “A very long time ago. But when you reach my age, you’ll have lost everything that you’ve ever had. Everything you’ve touched will be dust, and you’ll feel lucky for it.”

The young man’s foot tapped rapidly against the floor, his fingers drumming on his thigh as he thought about his email inbox filling up. He swallowed, look back at the old man.“I hope you don’t mind me asking - but what were you addicted to? I can’t get my head around it.”

“I don’t mind talking about it.” The old man relaxed into his seat. “It all began in Turkey, decades ago. I must have been around your age. A man came to me and told me about a job in Eastern Anatolia, up in the mountains: ‘the most valuable gemstone in the world,’ he said.”

“What do you mean, a gemstone?”

“An actual gemstone. One of a kind - the size of a penny. If you saw it, believe me, you’d know that there is nothing else like it. Not anywhere. It was flawless.”

“And did you find it?”

“Oh yes, I found it.” The old man’s lips curved into a smile. “It cost me everything, but it gave me so, so much. I travelled to a small town in Turkey. When I arrived, they called it ‘Adilcevaz’, but it was once called Artske.

Sixteen hours it took me to reach that town. I can’t tell you the joy when I climbed out of the van that smuggled me across the border and I saw it, snuggled into the shadow of Mount Süphan. I marched into that town with all my life’s savings and hired some of the local men to follow me into the mountains.”

“And what happened next, how did you find it?”

“It wasn’t quick. We were in those mountains for weeks. When we found it, I knew that it was all true…. that I wasn’t crazy. In the third week, the miners broke into a small opening inside of the mountain’s western edge, and the space - no bigger than the space inside of this bus - was illuminated by a dim, blue glow. That’s when I knew that it was all true.”

The young man’s voice trembled with excitement: “and what did you do with it? Do you still have it? Did you sell it? It must have been worth a fortune!”

“More than any fortune. The most valuable gemstone in the world.”

“So, how much did it go for?”

“I crushed it into a powder.”

“Huh?”

“And then I dissolved it into a bottle of water, and drank it.”

The young man was stunned. It was true that he had sensed a strangeness about the man, but it was clear to him now that there was something else. Perhaps the old man was a liar, or falling into senility. “You drank… the gemstone?”

“I did,” he said softly, his fingers searching for something just out of reach. “And that’s where it began, the addiction. It felt as if it had grasped every cell in my body in an instant. I gasped, the feeling faded somewhat, and from that point on I no longer felt the cold of the mountains, nor the heat of the sun. Until the withdrawals, I was the best version of myself that I had ever been.”

“I’m confused. What’s this gemstone called?”

“You know, I don’t think anyone ever got around to naming it. You and I are the only ones who know that it exists. I told the workers that it was a sapphire, paid them their fees, and they went on their way.”

“But didn’t someone tell you where to find it?”

The old man laughed. “Oh yes, only the two of us and him.”

The young man glanced outside the window. “Where are we now? I don’t think I’ve ever been to this part of the city.” He looked at his watch, fidgeting. He began to question the old man’s sanity, and what he was doing here with him.

“We’re almost there, young man, don’t fret. I know you’re worried about your boss.”

The man wiped away a bead of sweat from below his hairline.“So you drank this gemstone and what, got high?”

“In a way. But then the withdrawals set in. It takes years, but they come. Weakness, confusion, things begin to…. move at different speeds. And eventually it kills you. It’s killing me as we sit here now.”

“And you’re sure this isn’t something you can buy in the city?”

“I’m sure,” said the old man, sitting upright in his chair now. “I told you already, this gem was one of a kind. But one of its side effects is the key; once you’ve taken it, and it’s gotten into every last cell, you become unstuck from time.”

After the bus driver had called the final stop, the two men found themselves on the western edge of Yerevan, facing a steep hill. At the summit of the road, the hill fell off sharply into a dense forest.

“Did you say… unstuck from time? What does that mean?”

“Yes, unstuck from time. Now follow me.”

The two men slipped through a gap in the fencing at the end of the road, and began on a steep path leading down into the forest.

“We’re not far now, just a ten minute walk. Although you may have to excuse my age, I’m not as quick on my feet as I used to be.”

“Of course.”

“Now, where was … Ah - unstuck from time, yes. This is a difficult one to explain. Imagine time as a river, flowing only in one direction. No person or object can travel backwards against its current, but this little gemstone allows you to become a rock on the bottom of the riverbed. Time moves over and around you, and when you reach the surface again you will find yourself in a time that previously was behind you; be it a moment, a year, or an eon.

“You’re talking about time travel?” the young man laughed.

“Yes. I have seen it all,” said the old man, gesturing towards a tree.

“Once, this forest was but a shrubland. I saw these trees as mere saplings, and now look at them.”

“So… you’re a time traveller. Great. You know I took a day off of work to listen to you, to hear your story. I came with you to visit a grave, not to listen to fantasies.”

“We are visiting a grave, but I am not the insane man that you think I am. Someone came to me once and told me the things that I am telling you, and I thought of that man precisely what you think of me in this moment. But you will come to see the truth, just as I did.

Now, not so long after returning to that town, I ventured out into the hills. That’s when I did it for the first time. I closed my eyes and when I opened them again and looked upon the mountain, the marks we had left on it had vanished. But it wasn’t until years later than I began to really consider it… the implications of what I had done, that is.”

“The implications?” the young man sighed. He felt a pang of frustration set in as the minutes past his 9am start at work rolled by, and he could already imagine the trouble he was going to be in at work tomorrow.

“Determinism. It doesn’t exist. I was touring the casinos of Istanbul, watching the results and then jumping back a few moments to win every game of roulette, blackjack, baccarat - anything where my disposition benefited me. And then one day, it dawned on me. If I went back and ingested the gemstone again, I would either cease to exist, or I would have proved that determinism was wrong. I would be robbing my future-self of it, and therefore stop myself from travel back to my present moment. It took some courage but eventually the withdrawals forced me to put it to the test and… here I am.”

“Wait, wait… your story doesn’t make any sense. If you went back in time and took the gemstone before you’d taken it for the first time…”

“Yes, determinism. I know you don’t know what that means yet, but you will. My taking the gemstone the second time proved all of today’s scientists wrong. My actions in the historical past did not effect my personal past. The past did not effect the future. I crushed that rock and I ingested it a second time and I didn’t disappear. I wasn’t sent back to the future. The universe didn’t collapse. Nothing happened, nothing at all.”

“Fine, I’ll bite. How far back did you go?”

“A long way back.”

“How long?”

“All the way.”

“All the way… the birth of Christ?”

“No, not the birth of Christ, I said all the way back.” The old man’s tone had become sharper.

“Okay… all the way back. I get it,” he said abruptly. Now you’re going to tell me where we’re going or I’m heading back right now. Turning up late to work is better than not showing at all.”

“You won’t go to work today.”

“You won’t tell me what to do, old man. I’m growing tired of entertaining your delusions.”

“We’re here.”

“What?” The young man looked around.

“We’re here, I said. This is where she’s buried.” He pointed at the ground before approaching a tree and resting a hand upon it. “She’s buried here, and I planted this forest in her memory.”

“You planted all of these trees?”

“No, heavens no. The trees that I planted died long before these ones sprouted. But I birthed this forest. Her name was Gilukhepa, she lived in Adilcevaz, even before it was called Artske. As soon as I arrived in her time - some point in the Bronze Ages, it’s hard to tell - I fell deathly sick. I didn’t think I would make it but Gili, she saved my life. I had come into contact with some long dead disease that I had no immunity for, and she and her father looked after me as if I was one of their own. From that moment on, I loved her. I never stopped loving her.”

“Can I ask - do you have any children?”

“No,” said the old man. “She couldn’t. But we were married six long years before she passed. I stayed for as long as I could but she died before I left. Pneumonia.”

The old man crouched over a spot in the dirt, brushed his hands through the dry soil.

“I don’t regret the time I spent with her, even if it was short. Not for a second. If I’d known her for a week it would have been the most defining week of my life. If I’d known her for an hour, it would be the only hour that I’d have taken to my death bed. You won’t understand what I’m saying, but you will.”

The young man frowned, his voice rising. “How can you claim to know what I’ll think or feel? You don’t know me.”

“Except I do know you.”

“Except you don’t. I’m sorry about whatever happened to you wife, and your… situation, but I’m going back to work now.”

“No you’re not.”

“And what do you know!” he shouted, voice echoing through the trees.

I know that you’ll go straight home tonight and put your life savings on Ararat to beat Pyunik 3-0 in the league. I know that you’ll take the winnings to a people smuggler at the dive bar on Alexander Street. I know - for a fact - that you’ll arrive in Adilcevas two weeks from now.”

“You want me to go off on your little fantasy trip, is that it?”

“What I want doesn’t matter. What matters is that you will see empires come and go in reverse order, before finding yourself in the Bronze Age. Here, you will be loved more than you ever thought possible, more than ma, or pa, or anyone else ever did. I know that you will bury the love of your life here, right where I’m standing. The saplings will take you weeks to plant.”

The young man was stunned into silence. The various pieces of the man’s strangeness had all converged together into the familiar image before him, as if looking into a warped mirror. Understanding had arrived. Clarity. Prescience. Divination. To see yourself outside of a reflection is not a natural sensation, and the young man could feel his mind struggling.

“Our path is a good one. You will not suffer, you will not toil, and most importantly you will know love. That is more than many can say. In a few moments time it will start raining. Time is something that I, we, have been blessed with. But I have used all of mine. I will stay in these woods, but I have one more thing to say to you:

When the sickness takes her, you must continue backwards. You won’t want to, but dying there is not what she would have wanted. Keep going back. Eventually you will have outrun all of humanity, and you will not be able to retrieve the gemstone alone. Believe me, I’ve tried,” he said, looking down at his scarred hands. “Keep going back. All the way back, beyond all of it. The river of time does not run dry; it runs around and around in circles. Let it pass over you.”

Raindrops began to fall, and the young man swallowed before asking: “You want me to just leave you here?”

“Yes. Leave me here. It’s been years now and I’m tired.” He lowered himself gently onto a rock. “My eyes have seen too much. My skin… has felt too much. Go home.”