Draft
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Kaleidoscope
Chapter One
Harold Latimer was a grey man. His hair was grey, his coat was grey and his pallor pretty much matched that. He worked in the Book Institute which he approached each morning up some ten wide stone steps. Each day he would push open the same heavy wooden door in exactly the same place on its frame. In fact the wood was a different color in that spot such were the number of years he had gone through that routine.
Today was no different. As soon as he was inside he walked in a measured way across the floor of black and white tiles and then . Having ascended to gain entry to the institute, he slowly descended a flight of stairs into the bowels of the building to his place of work. Harold was employed cataloguing and repairing books, either purchased or bequeathed to the institute. These weren't cheap novels. The only fiction held were older editions by classic authors. Pretty much all of the remainder were non-fiction, ranging through the sciences into the arts.
There were however a few other tomes that covered the occult and erotica. Harold rarely read any of the books in the institute, his skills lay in sorting, cataloguing and repairing Hence each day was pretty much the same as others. He would finish listing certain books then deliver them upstairs to the appropriate section, returning to his labors quite swiftly as though he preferred the depths of the building to the more airy and light filled upper floors. Similarly, repaired books would be delivered to the appropriate area. Disposals of volumes no longer required were handled by Mr Jenkins on the third floor.
Time seemed to pass quite quickly for Harold Latimer, engrossed as he always was, in his labors. A book spine to repair here pages to be reattached there, alternating with cataloguing his charges. He always thought of them as his babies, his charges, to be nurtured in his hands and then, when listed or repaired, delivered upstairs, which he regarded as the 'wide world', where each book would bring pleasure to its reader.
On this particular day Harold decided to delve into a shelf of books that had lacked attention for some considerable time. In fact before Harold's time. Located toward the back of his small empire and in a dusty an dimly lit corner. The institute had only just started installing electric light in place of gas. That installation had yet to reach Harold Latimer and his 'charges'.
Taking a very old book from the shelf, they were all old, but this one really was very old, dating from the sixteenth century. The book was located in a dimly lit corner. Harold was surprised to find it was slightly warm to the touch, even through his cotton working gloves. He loved books in all forms and loved his work, rescuing and repairing the many held at the institute. He moved the book to his work bench to examine it more closely and to assess whether any work was necessary.
At that point the door to his little kingdom opened and his day was interrupted. It was the director of the Book Institute, Mr Carr-Wilkinson, a rather pompous individual full of his own self importance in Harold Latimer's opinion. Visits from on high, as Harold thought of them, were rare. He was therefore a little taken aback at this unannounced call to his almost forgotten corner of the realm. He required Harold's attendance in his office 10.00 pm sharp the following morning, the reason for which he didn't impart.
Harold watched as Mr Carr-Wilkinson's rotund figure clothed in a suit and waistcoat made his way to the door, checking his fob watch and tutting to himself. Harold sighed and returned to the book. Rarely interrupted, he found the director's intrusion an ill considered and unannounced distraction It was necessary to inspect the cover and spine of the book.Then, on the inside, whether the pages were securely fixed to the spine.
He first examined the cover which still emanated a soft warmth. He couldn't deduce exactly why, but identified the material used for the cover as calfskin. It was only when he finally opened the book that everything started to change. The first thing he noted was that the script was far older than the book and what little information there was, indicated. Puzzled Harold turned the page from the frontispiece to the first page proper of the book.
The words, if you could call them that, started to move on the page. Characters would be a better description. That was not all. Figures of people moved across the page, the script parting before them. They were moving left to right and right to left. Harold was mesmerised. then in the middle of the page a scene appeared and another and another. These too seemed 'alive'.
At first Harold was transfixed by what he saw. It was the street outside the Institute but not as he knew it at least not in two of the scenes. The three scenes repeated themselves. Again and again. He peered closer at each of them. The first seemed to hark back in time. Here he was at the turn of the century with the aged Queen Victoria still on the throne, yet what he saw of the street and the people moving about seemed to hark back to a medieval time, judging by their dress. Horses everywhere and old rickety carts abounded. Beggars on the street too.
Grabbing his coat Harold left the book open and decided he had to get away if only temporarily to clear his head. The time coincided with his appointed lunch hour. He would spend it contemplating what he had seen.
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Harold thought he was dreaming. He shook his head and as he did, he realised he had long unkempt hair. That caused him to snap out of his mesmerised state and turn toward the book institute from which he had just emerged. Already shocked by the sights and sounds of his surroundings he turned to find not the Institute, but a tavern in its place.
No one gave him a second look as he made his way to the tavern entrance, which was when he saw that he was no longer clothed in his suit, but fairly rough material in the form of some kind of smock along with leggings. A tavern Harold thought. He needed a drink. He walked to the entrance and entered.
Pushing on the rustic door he stepped inside ...of the Book Institute. Where was the tavern? Where was the rowdy noise he had heard emanating from within? Harold was confronted by his place of work, a hushed atmosphere as was becoming of the Institute and the sight of one of the spinster lady library assistants coming toward him. ' Good lunch Mr Latimer?' she asked.
Harold was dumbstruck and, unlike his normal self, he failed to reply and scurried back down to his work area. The book was still there, but now t was closed - he had left it open. Not only that, he had locked the door when he left and unlocked it on his return. What was happening, he asked himself. Did I have an attack of the vapours and dreamed the whole scene outside?
Bu no, he had felt the rough cloth against his skin and on examining his legs beneath his trousers, there were the impression of the leather straps that had held the leggings in place. Yet, how could he have been cast back several hundred years to what he had observed and experienced outside. He approached the book again cautiously, for he was certain that therein lay the answer. It did, but it wasn't an answer he was prepared for.
He opened the book again. This time a little further on from where had opened it previously. He was barely prepared for what he saw. Again it was the road and area outside the Institute, but this time he was aghast at what he saw. Before he understood that he was caught in some medieval scene but now looking at the book again he was both drawn and equally completely frozen to the spot. He stared at the page he had opened. People were moving to and fro across the page, Again, left to right and right to left. He peered hard at the people. There were men, women and children.
The first thing he noticed was that many of the women were wearing what could only be termed as trousers, some were in a blue color. In cat more than half of what he saw. They also clung tightly to the women's shape. What fashion was this - quite lacking in femininity, he thought to himself. It was the moving scene that caused him biggest surprise though.
There were motor vehicles, but not the sort he saw occasionally on the streets mingled in with the horses and oft times spooking them. These were sleek, completely covered in smooth metal and they all had a roof. He took his eyes off the book and rubbed his temples with both hands. What is this, what have I stumbled upon. He sat down and tried to relax and think.
It occurred to him that the book may cover time. He turned to a page near the beginning of the book. At first Harold thought he might be wrong about time and he paused, but when he finally opened that page there was a cohort of Roman soldiers marching from left to right and disappearing off the edge of the page. The street, if you could call it that which they had marched over bore no resemblance to the present day.
Fearful of what he might find, he turned to the end of the book and opened the last page. No moving figures. He was relieved. The page had a heading and beneath was a single unmoving figure. He couldn't read the script. The language and indeed the characters were completely unknown to him. He put his hand on the book. Suddenly, almost as though it recognised him the words or more precisely the characters rearranged themselves, changed shape and he was reading the heading.
'The End of Time' he read, even saying the words out loud to himself. Then Harold turned his attention to the figure that appeared below. It bore a resemblance an angelic figure, even an angel, but there were no wings that he could discern. Suddenly, as he peered closer, the pages turned back slowly of their own accord. Back through time it seemed. He watched both amazed and at the same time fascinated by what he saw. It seemed it was going back in time. There were many pages and many images he found hard to relate to or even understand. Flying machines, cities in the skies of whatever world he was looking at. Wars, people dressed unlike anything he knew of.
The pages slowed to a pace that allowed him more time to study and some things appeared to seem more familiar. Finally, the page turning stopped. The image on the page was the street outside as he knew it. Harold stood up, scratching the bald patch on top of his when when,without warning, the book slammed shut.
A kaleidoscope of time he told himself, but where had the book come from? Where had it been? It was undoubtedly very, very, old and written, where words or characters appeared, in a language and script he didn't recognise.
It was then that he felt he was being watched. Turning he briefly caught sight of a tall figure at the end of the bookshelves - then it was gone. He called out - no response. The fleeting image he had in his mind bore a close resemblance to the figure in the book. Harold gave that some though and felt overall his mind was paying tricks on him.
He returned to the book.
He decided to check the likeness of the figure and opened the book again at the last page. There, in English, were the words 'The End of Time', now in the middle of the page. His biggest surprise and indeed shock was that the figure had disappeared.
