In Five Minutes' Time

“Your watch is wrong again.”

She’s got my wrist turned over in her hand, and the clock says 7:40. I’m way behind.

I set it right and loop my arm around her, running a hand along the length of her hair. Canned laughter buzzes on the television. She’s laughing, too, head shaking on my shoulder, and her hair has fallen in her face again. She blows at it dramatically, so I sweep the hair back behind her ear.

“Got a hairband?” she asks.

“No,” I say, “they’re all upstairs on the bedpost. You know, if you didn’t keep dropping them, I wouldn’t have to keep putting them there.”

“You should keep one on your wrist. That’d be handy.”

I feel her smile against my shoulder. “Is that right?” I say.

She nods smugly, and I squeeze her once more when the credits roll. “Anyway, I should probably get to work. Won’t be easy to get away once your old man is here.”

“Jordan. It better not be that thing with the freezer again.”

“Oh, that thing? No, no. I finished with that thing months ago. This is something else. Way safer.”

She watches me for a moment. “Hmm.” She gets up from the couch and crosses into the kitchen. “Better be. And how long you think you’ll be in there?”

“Not long. Thirty minutes or so.”

Anna starts with the dishes, and I make my way down the hall. At the garage door, I turn and look back at her. “We’ll still have time to catch your show. Promise.”

“Alright,” she calls out, “but it’s on at nine, and I’ll be starting it with or without you. I mean it this time.”

I go into the garage and flip the switch, filling the room with flickering light. The walls are covered with shelves, floor to ceiling. Tools, boxes, contraptions. Anna always tells me to leave my work at work, but it’s not so easy. The university doesn’t pay much, but I know that more is possible. It’s the knowing that hurts. Knowing that I could change Anna’s life and mine. One of my former colleagues secured the patent for what is now a popular brand of autonomous vacuum cleaner. Yeah, that one. I haven’t seen him since.

But I’m onto something big now, too. I’ve been playing around with an old freezer. One of the box ones, with the door on the top. A conventional freezer only slows the transfer of heat, but mine can do so much more. There have been some… worrying signs. The watch, for one. It must have slipped off when I was working on the internal piping. By the time I found it, twenty minutes later, it was five minutes behind. Electrical interference. I’ll look into it.

I start thinking about Smithson, in the office. I told him about it. Electromagnetic coils, the cooled gaseous nitrogen, all of it. He kept saying that it sounded dangerous and that nobody would want something like that in their home. The thing that really annoyed me was when he said: ‘What if a child fell in?’ It would be more dangerous for a child to fall into a conventional freezer, I told him, but he just shrugged it off. Hell, I could sit in there myself and I’d be okay. I laugh at the idea. Imagine really sitting inside the thing. For a moment I consider that it could be dangerous. But it's Smithson, getting into my head again. It’s not dangerous. It’s safer than a conventional freezer. Without thinking much about it, I find myself climbing into the thing.

But it’s making me laugh. What would Anna say if she could see me now? A grown man sitting in a freezer, as if it were a bathtub. If I hadn’t told her about the nitrogen, I bet she’d laugh about it. I slide into it and close the door over my head. I sure hope this thing opens from the inside. The coils that sit beneath me begin to hum with life, and the nitrogen hisses into the chamber. It’s noisier in here than I expected, and colder. I can feel the heat going out of me. And then there’s a clunk and the internal lighting switches off. I don’t remember ever having heard that sound before.

I push at the door and to my relief, it opens easily enough. I step out, covered with goosebumps and embarrassed. My watch reads 8 pm, but the clock on my desk reads 7:55. More electrical interference. Since the machine didn’t switch off properly, the nitrogen could still be running. I cap it and slide open the garage doors to ventilate. Stepping outside, I turn to look back into the garage and imagine myself climbing out of that thing, shivering, and the thought of it makes me laugh again.

“Jordan,” a voice calls out from behind me. It’s Mrs Kerry.

“Evening.”

“I heard a terrible racket in there. What’s going on?” she asks, peering at me from over her cataract lenses.

The garage door slams shut behind me, and I sigh.

“Nothing, Mrs Kerry. Just doing some vacuuming. Spring cleaning.”

“Hmm,” she says. “It isn’t one of those automatic vacuum cleaners, is it?”

“No, ma’am, just a regular old-fashioned one. Anyway, I better be going. You have a good evening, Mrs Kerry.”

I pull at the garage door a few times, but I know that it’s locked. Fucking door. I installed the auto-lock myself. Anna worries about these things, even in a place like this. I walk around the side of the house and through the garden gate. But when I come through it, I see Anna sitting there watching television. What time was her show on again? And there’s someone else there. She’s curled up against him, and her dad wasn’t supposed to be here until tomorrow. Who is she watching television with? I round the large bush by the gate and see him more clearly. It’s a man, early forties, and he’s wearing… wait. I stand for a moment, frozen. It’s ridiculous. I’m almost ready to laugh again. It’s me. She’s sitting next to me.

I duck behind the hedge before I know what I’m doing, or why I’m hiding. Is it a nightmare? It’s far too real for that. But… ah! It hits me. The nitrogen. Somehow, I must have poisoned myself. My research said it was safe, but perhaps my research was wrong. I’ve induced a state of psychosis by sitting inside my homemade freezer. It’s really that simple. Anna is standing up now, and he – or, I – am walking towards the door to the garage.

I hear a car in front of the house. Why would my psychosis have made me think of a car? No, no. Psychosis? Really? I would know if I had gone mad. Mrs Kerry doesn’t have a car, and the house beside hers is empty. I saw my own keys in the locked garage. I leave the garden and look down the street, but as I’m turning onto the road, something catches at the edge of my vision. A dark shape crossing the garden. I go back and see a man clambering across the conservatory. In a flash, I’m after him. He’s already inside the window, but moments later I’m running along the conservatory roof. As I reach the window, it starts to close, but I bash against it, and before I know it, I’m inside, and I’m right up against him.

He shoves a hand in my face and then turns to try and get away, but I grab his arm and hold on tight. My heart is racing so fast that I fear it might run out of heartbeats and stop entirely. His fingers are digging into my eyes, so I start swinging my free hand wildly, striking him in the face repeatedly. “Get off me!” I shout, and I keep hitting him. He spits out the words, “Stop hitting me.”

“Jordan?” Anna calls out from downstairs. I wriggle free and shout the words “Stay downstairs!” but now the man has me in a headlock, and I can hear her steps thundering up the stairs. I wriggle free once more, just in time to see Anna appear near the top of the stairs. She looks at me, and then my attacker, and then back at me. Startled, she turns away and takes a step back but falls, crashing down the stairs. And then there is a loud crack, and then there is silence. I launch myself after her, down the stairs. She’s folded horribly at the bottom, and breathlessly I repeat her name, over and over. I cup her face in my hands and brush the hair from her eyes. Anna, wake up. Anna, Anna. She’s completely still. I check for a pulse, for breathing, but there’s nothing. Total silence. I turn and look back up the stairs, but the man isn’t there. I place her head gently back down, and find that my hands are red to the wrist. There is more of it than I would have thought, and it knocks the breath out of me. I go to the garage to find my phone. The other me, the one that I had seen, he’s gone now. And then it hits me. I slam the door shut behind me. I can barely breathe, barely move fast enough, but I find myself stepping back into the box. My watch, the strange noise from the machine, the other me. Psychosis? No. I close the lid, and it clicks shut. It’s not psychosis. It’s not. The machine whirs into life once more, and I scrunch my eyes shut. The nitrogen is hissing back in. The tears on my cheeks are close to freezing point. Again, that noise, and again, the lights are out. I step out of the box. Opening the door to the house slowly, and only slightly, I see nothing at the bottom of the stairs. Down the hall, plates clatter onto the drying rack.

I close the door quietly and take a big, shaking breath. My watch reads 8:12, but the clock reads 8:02. I go to the garage door, but just as I reach it, someone outside is shaking it, and I freeze. The room is filled with the noise of the rattling garage door. Fucking door, I hear from outside. When I’m sure that he’s gone, I breathe again. As silently as I can, I lift open the garage door and slink out into the driveway, remaining crouched behind my car. Mrs Kerry is still there, arms crossed, looking towards the garden gate.

As soon as she turns, I come off the driveway, turning right instead of left this time. I go down the brambled alleyway that runs along the other side of the garden. I wait here for a moment. I go through it once more, as if to make sure. The watch. The me. The bottom of the stairs. Anna. My train of thought is broken when I hear a car start behind me. They’re here. They’re going to get into the house. But I can get there first. Lock the window, delay all of this, and we might even catch the show tonight. I leap over the fence and zip across the empty garden. There’s a half-wall of bricks beside the back door, and I leap from it and clamber onto the sloped conservatory roof and finally get inside the window. As I turn to lock it, to make sure nobody makes it in here, a man has already come flying through the window. How did he get in so quickly? I don’t have time to think. I shove my hand down onto his face. If I can get to the door, I can close it. That would be enough. If Anna walks in, it doesn’t happen. If she never hears us, it never happens. But when I try to move away, the man is pulling at me. I hold his face harder, hoping he’ll let go of me. He starts swinging his other arm now, and most of his punches are landing. I feel a hot pain burst into life above my right eye, and then he shouts, “Get off me!” and before I know what I’m doing, the words “stop hitting me” leave my mouth.

And then it all comes falling apart. My eyes lose focus. Anna is calling my name from downstairs. I need to keep him away from the door, even if he is me. Even if I am me. Who is in the car? He slips free for a moment, but this gives me the chance to grab him again, and this time I’ve got his neck gripped under my arm. The words stop hitting me ring through my head, interrupted only when he shouts for Anna not to come up. The idiot! Doesn’t he know what he’s doing? This is futile. I let go of him, and when I look up I see Anna. For a brief moment, it’s a relief to see her. How I’d wished to see her face again, only a few minutes ago. And then she turns and goes tumbling backwards again, and it’s almost as if it happens slower this time. She rolls backwards over herself twice, her head cracking against the radiator at the bottom of the stairs as she arrives. The other me goes rushing down the stairs, but my limbs are too weak. Perhaps it’s all the fighting. I slump back onto the edge of the bed, lowering myself by the bedpost. All up it are little hairbands. I put my head against it and sob. Downstairs, I hear the door to the garage slam shut. With red fingers, I take a hairband and place it over my wrist. On the way down the stairs, I try my best not to look at her this time.

It all makes sense now. All the points have joined together in my mind. I think again about the nitrogen, about none of it being real, but it’s no consolation. That is one crutch that has already broken. The last thing in my mind, the one nagging at me, is the car. I go outside, and the car is gone. It should be a surprise, but it isn’t. I am beyond reasoning. Mrs Kerry is in her front window, dialling on her phone. I look down at myself, bloodied, the sleeve of my shirt torn. I turn back, and Anna is lying there in plain view. I can read the words ‘come quickly’ on Mrs Kerry’s mouth. I go back inside, back into the garage. Anna’s show is on at 9. My watch reads 8:19; the clock says 8:09. I think I know where the car went.

I climb into the box, shut the lid, and close my eyes tightly. I go through it all again. I pull myself out of the box, but it feels as if I am becoming heavier. Could this be taking a toll on my body? I’m out of the box, and I’m shivering again. Or is it my mind? I consider whether any man has ever seen his wife die twice. There’s a thud from upstairs. Get off me!

It all runs through my mind again. No matter what I do, it always seems to happen anyway. Anna is about to walk past, and I am pacing up and down the garage. What I am doing is unnatural, yes. But am I making it worse? Or is it only as bad as it has ever been? She calls my name from the hallway, and I’m rocking back and forth on my heels. My hand is on the handle before I know that I’ve reached for it. The door creaks as I open it, and she’s already on the stairs, looking into the bedroom. She turns, sees me, and takes a step back. I close the door and fall to my knees at the moment she crashes into the radiator. My voice calls out from the top of the stairs as I step back into the box.

I wish it could kill me. The hum of cold energy passing through the coils rumbles up through me. The nitrogen hisses. My fingers are numb, and I wish it could kill me. The lights switch off, and I get out of the box, pick up my keys from the desk, and head straight for the garage door. I slam it all the way to the top; I don’t care who sees me. If I see myself out there, I’ll kill him. The garage door slides shut behind me. Fucking door. I get in the car and drive. I can see now, hand on the wheel, that I’ve gotten blood onto her hairband.

In all likelihood, the police are coming. I can’t imagine that they’ll believe me, and the possibility of saving her has now passed. I’m a mile down the road and my five minutes are gone. But the number sticks in my head. Five minutes. Why must it be five minutes? Unless it doesn’t.

I’ve felt this before, and the idea has taken hold of my mind again. If only I could create another device, one that could go back further. Hours, months, years. I could stop it all from happening, undo all of it. But that thought rhymes with the thoughts I’ve already had about preventing this. If that were possible, then what is this hairband doing on my wrist? The time on the dashboard is 8:06. At the junction, I indicate right. By the time I reach the police station, her show will already be on.