Key to the Portal

Rod Hamon

Fred, gray haired and frail, gazed slowly around his small dreary room. An old clock on a dresser ticked loudly, a constant reminder for Fred that time was nearing its end.

He tried to think back to the previous day but couldn't. “Was it yesterday the grandchildren came round?” With excitement in their voices, Melanie and Mickey, six and seven, had shown him their new hand-held computer games: gadgets that meant nothing to Fred.

Though he couldn't recall recent events, he still had vivid memories of things from years ago. Sometimes, for no apparent reason, memories would pop up: crystal clear, as if they'd just happened.

Fred returned to his chair and cautiously sat down. Something was forming in his memory: something from years ago. “How odd! I'd completely forgotten about that.”

***

He was in his early twenties. Someone was knocking on his door, loudly, urgently. Before he could reach it, the knock came again. “All right, all right, I'm coming!” Fred shouted.

Panic showed on the face of the lanky young man standing on the doorstep; a strange face, unlike any face he had ever seen.

Breathing so deeply, the man pleaded: “Can I come in?”

Fred was confused. “What do you want?”

With terror in his eyes, the man pleaded: “You've got to let me in! He's after me!”

"I'm just going out,” Fred responded.

With despair, the stranger thrust a small cylindrical object into Fred's hand. “Keep this safe. At least, it'll stop him tracking me.”

“What is it?” Fred asked.

“It's the key to the…” Without finishing his sentence, the man ran off.

Fred looked at the object in his hand. “But a key to what?”

***

Fred thought back to that day, so many years ago, and wondered what had become of the object. He ' d never had a chance to examine it properly because, just a few minutes later, a telegram arrived telling him that he'd received an overseas commission and was to leave within the next few days. After only two years of his commission, Fred contracted malaria and was sent home, where he spent months recuperating in hospital. His belongings were dispatched to his house.

***

“I wonder what I did with that key,” Fred sighed. “So long ago now.” He thought for a moment. “I must've packed it with all my other stuff. If it's up there in the attic, it's going to have to stay, I'm afraid. I can't get up those stairs any more. Probably wasn't anything important.”

Nevertheless, the events of that day so many years ago had lodged firmly in his mind and he was puzzled. “Why did he give the thing to me?” he thought. “Would those chasing him have known that he'd given the object to someone else? If so, why didn't they come chasing me?”

Fred kept going over these questions, but without answers.

“Wish I could remember where I put it.”

Tears filled his eyes as he recalled the house as it was when he was a child with his dear mother and father were now long gone. He pictured each room, as it was then: the old grandfather clock next to the well-polished mahogany table near the front door.

It was then that the image of the stranger – that odd-looking man – came to mind again, “I remember now where I put it!” he shouted."The brass box on the mahogany table; I put it in there!”

Relieved that he'd solved the puzzle, Fred sat back preparing to doze as he did every afternoon.

However, five minutes later, he woke with a start. “I've seen that brass box recently,” he said. “ But where?” These days, Fred's constant inability to recall even the simplest things had become an irritation.

After ten minutes of fruitless rummaging for a memory just beyond his grasp, he cussed. “Damn it! Old age is such a curse.”

He was about to give up when a vague recollection surfaced. Fred thought for a moment. "That's it!” He recalled seeing the grandchildren playing with the brass box a few days ago. “They must've found it in a cupboard. Hope they didn't open it. It may be dangerous.”

Without hesitation, he raised himself from his chair and, hobbling around, he began searching low-level shelves and cupboards in each room. After a fruitless fifteen minutes, he decided to search higher shelves.

With his spectacles delicately balanced on the end of his nose, he peered into a dark shelf above the refrigerator. “There it is!” he cried.

As he lifted it down, he heard the clunk of something rolling around inside and smiled.

The small cylindrical object was about the size of a lipstick case. However, as he rolled it around in the palm of his hand, his examination revealed very little.

“What is it about this object that makes it so special?” he wondered.

Putting his reading glasses on again, he held the object closer. “Am I imagining it but what's that at the end? I can't quite make out what it is.”

Fred fumbled around in the drawer of the desk next to his chair and eventually found what he was looking for: a small flashlight. He focused the light on the object and looked closer. Near the end and on each side a raised area compressed when squeezed between his fingers. After doing this a few times, he noticed what looked like a faint blue light coming from the end – or was he imagining it?

Fred felt dismayed that the object was such a disappointment and he was about to toss it into his open desk drawer, when he hesitated. He looked more closely at the blue light. “Heavens! What's that?”

***

Peace had reigned uninterrupted for over a thousand generations in the far-off Capella star system. That was, until the birth of Kaizan, a bully from infancy: a genetic flaw of nature.

As he grew older, he became strong and menacing, and, by the time Kaisan had reached adolescents, all feared him as a man determined to promote himself at the expense of the people; people who had no desire for aggression and were therefore easily repressed.

Kaisan had just reached nineteen when whispered reports of his heavy handedness filtered through the community. He claimed there was a villain in the neighborhood out to cause trouble. At first, people ignored Kaisan's claims and demands for protection money. Nevertheless, just days later there were rumors of unexplained damage to houses, of houses destroyed by fires, and of sheep ravaged by wild dogs.

When Kaisan called at the home of a youth called Ruben, his parents explained that they simply could not afford his demands. They asked who it was they needed protection from, anyway.

Two days later, Ruben's youngest brother, aged only seven, disappeared. Relatives, friends, and neighbors rallied to search for the boy but without success.

While searching among tall reeds in nearby swampland, Ruben discovered what looked like signs of a struggle in the undergrowth. As he bent down to look more closely, he heard a noise and looked up. Kaisan was standing just a short distance away, his strong muscular arms folded, and a smirk on his face.

Ruben demanded, “What have you done with my brother?”

“Me?” Kaisan replied and added with a snarl, “Your parents should have paid me to protect them. I warned them of the evil out there.”

“Evil! There's only one evil and that's you. If you've harmed my brother –”

Clenching his fist and with murder in his eyes, Kaisan lunged forward and grabbing Ruben by the neck and threw him to the ground.

“Get out of my face and stay out, or you're dead!” he bellowed.

Ruben struggled to his feet and ran off knowing that only Kaisan's death would appease him now.

The discovery next day of his young brother's body face down in a nearby creek enforced Ruben's resolve to destroy Kaisan. Although some believed it an accidental drowning, Ruben knew differently.

Ruben's success over the next few weeks in disrupting Kaisan's plans further angered the bully and, as a result, he began pursuing Ruben relentlessly. When there was no place of safety anymore, Ruben knew he must go beyond his own home planet.

The device that enabled such intra-galactic travel was a small cylindrical key made from a rare metal. It was therefore available only to the few who could afford it. The people knew that Ruben, their liberator, was in danger of capture so they pooled their resources and provided him the means of escape.

However, his pursuer was not satisfied to see Ruben gone. He wanted him dead and so, armed with his own key, Kaisan began a chase across the galaxy in pursuit of his enemy.

Kaisan easily tracked Ruben ' s movements by the key in his pocket. After being pursued from one star system to another, Ruben arrived on planet Earth and it was then that he realised he must do something.

With Kaisan not far behind, Ruben chose a house at random and knocked on the door. After leaving the cylindrical key with the house owner (Fred), Ruben was confident Kaisan that could no longer track him and, after a week, he was confident that his plan had been successful. However, a day later Kaisan spotted him from a distance and awaited his opportunity.

It was raining hard as Ruben headed towards a narrow lane with his jacket pulled up over his head. Kaisan quickly skirted around a side street and entered the lane from the far end, then concealed himself behind packing crates ready to pounce.

“At last,” he thought as he quietly watched his enemy approaching.

Ruben, battling his way through the rain, was just a few yards from Kaisan when he heard a noise. Kaisan looked down at the cylindrical object that had fallen from his pocket and was tempted to reach down and pick it up but his enemy was too close now.

As Kaisan looked down, the torrent of rainwater swept the object away and down a large open drain.

“Damn it. My only way to get back!”

Ruben, having heard the clink of the metal object hitting the ground, hesitated.

“Come on, come on!” Kaisan thought.

Ruben looked from side to side and, deciding there was no danger, continued on. With his jacket still pulled up over his head, he passed Kaisan without seeing him.

In an instant, Kaisan was upon him his strong arms holding Ruben around the throat like a vice.

Ruben struggled to breathe but the life force was draining from him. He was losing consciousness.

In a final desperate effort, he focused his remaining strength and lunged back with his elbow into Kaisan's stomach. For an instant, the attacker loosened his grip. Knowing this was Ruben's one chance of escape; he took advantage and ran off into the labyrinth of small lanes.

After running for ten minutes, he stopped and breathing heavily looked back. He had escaped.

Ruben moved far away from the area for some months before returning to Fred's house one night, hoping to retrieve his key.

The elderly woman who answered the door explained that she was renting the house and that Fred had gone overseas.

“Did he leave anything here?” Ruben asked.

“Nothing.”

“I left something of value with him and need it back. Do you have any way of contacting him?” Ruben asked hopefully.

“Sorry.”

“Maybe the rental agency may have his contact details.”

But the rental agent was of no help and explained that the rent money went into an investment account awaiting Fred ' s return.

***

With a shaky hand, Fred examined the object more closely. Suddenly the blue light brightened and within a few seconds filled his vision entirely.

At first, Fred thought he was having, what he called, another dizzy spell but this was quite unlike anything he ' d ever experienced before. Determined to regain his balance he gripped the arms of his chair but realized it was futile. He felt himself plunging into a vortex that seemed to go on and on forever.

***

Fred ' s daughter and the grandchildren were puzzled when they called around next day.

“Strange, I wonder where grandpa's gone. He never ever goes out. I hope he ' s all right?”

“I wanna see grandpa, Mommy. Where's he gone?” Melanie asked.

“I think we better phone the hospital.”

***

Fred looked at the glow from the object taking on vague shapes that very slowly crystallized into a mountain scene bathed in the blue of the sun. With difficulty, Fred tried to comprehend what he was seeing and stared in disbelief. “Why's the sun that color?”

The people of this Capella star system welcomed Fred without question as a visitor from some distant land. No one asked where he ' d come from or how he ' d got there and he quickly fitted into the community.

As time went on, Fred noticed the first signs of his memory improving, then a reduction in the wrinkles that lined his face. His gray hair was also gradually returning to its original color and his body began to regain some of the vigor he'd possessed in youth.

As his thinking improved, Fred acquired a better understanding of the people of his new community. He noticed that, although they lived uncomplicated lives, they were more advanced in their knowledge of science than the people of Earth.

***

Three months had passed and, while it had been a shock at first, Fred was now contented with his new environment.

The sounds of birds awoke him. He opened his eyes just as the deep blue rays of the rising sun shone through his window, the start of a new day in paradise. After basking for a few moments in the warmth, he sprang out of bed and glanced in the mirror at a face that was youthful.

Fred's memory no longer failed him as it used to and, although he was happy, he wished he'd been able to say goodbye to his daughter and the grandchildren before he was so suddenly spirited away to this place somewhere on the other side of the universe.

When he had asked why it was that no one aged, the response was always just a shrug of the shoulders as if to say, “What sort of question's that? Why would we grow old?”

The people often talked of the tyrant warrior Kaisan and Ruben, the young man who had saved them. Fred was intrigued by the story they told of Ruben ' s departure and Kaisan's murderous pursuit.

One night as they sat around the campfire, looking up at the stars, someone said, “I wonder where Ruben is now.”

Another frowned and replied, “Probably dead.”

“But if that's so, why hasn ' t Kaisan returned?” someone else asked.

Fred nodded in agreement. “It's a mystery. We'll probably never know the answer.”

After a few moments contemplation, Fred added, “Just hope he didn't go to my world. Horrible place. I I'm so thankful someone gave me the key to come here.”

Others round the campfire smiled in agreement.

Fred spoke again, “I'll never understand how it happened: it was so strange.”

One of the men got up to stretch his legs and said: “There are probably many things we'll never understand.”

“Yup,” Fred replied, deep in thought.

The fire was burning low now and those gathered round were preparing to leave. One by one, they got up and left until only one person remained, a man named Sarius.

Fred continued: “I still have that key: the one that brought me here?”

Sarius kicked a half-burnt log into the fire and said, “We're all glad you came to our world, Fred.”

“I am too. I'd never part with that key. I'll get it out and show you tomorrow, if you like.”

“OK,” Sarius replied, gazing vacantly at the last of the burning embers in the fire.

Next morning Fred took his key to show Sarius who examined it casually at first but then looked up. “Did you say you ' d been given this key by someone in your world?”

“That's right. It was strange it. A young man called at my door, shoved the key in my hand and left.”

Sarius was examining the key carefully now.

“Is there a problem?” Fred asked.

“Maybe I'm wrong but … do you mind if I borrow this key for a day or so? I just want to check something.”

Sarius returned early next morning with three other men. He sat down and holding the key between his fingers said, “Fred, we've made an extraordinary discovery and need your help.”

Sitting on the edge of his chair, Fred replied, “What's this all about?”

“It's about this key: we've tested it and discovered that it's the same one Ruben used to flee from Kaisan all those years ago.”

One of the other men added: “This may give us a clue to what happened to him.”

Cradling his chin in his hand, Fred attempted to recall all he knew about the key. He stood up and scratched the back of his head. “It all happened such a long time ago.”

“Tell us what you remember,” Sarius asked.

“There's not much to tell. A young man came to my door saying someone was chasing him and asked to come in. He was a complete stranger. I had no idea who he was. When I refused him, he thrust the key into my hand and said that this would stop the other man from finding him. The young man then ran off and that's the last I saw of him. I only spoke to him for a few seconds.”

“Sounds like Kaisan must have been closing in on him,” said one of the men. “What else can you remember?”

“That's about it. The only thing I can add is that if that was Ruben, and he's still alive, he'd be an old man by now.”

Sarius stood up, “There's a few things I don't understand, Fred. One: why didn't Kaisan track the key to you?” And, two: why didn't Ruben return to your home Fred, and retrieve the key?”

“I've thought a lot about this lately and think I can answer both of your questions, Sarius. Firstly, after he gave me the key, I placed it in the nearest convenient place: a brass box on the mahogany table next to the front door. I believe the metal box provided some kind of shield around it that stopped Kaisan from detecting the key. And, in answer to your second question: why didn't Ruben return for the key – probably because I moved overseas within about a week and rented out my house. No one knew where I was or the key.”

Sarius nodded. “I see. So where does that leave us? What chance is there that we can locate Ruben, assuming he's still alive?”

Fred scanned the faces of each man before speaking. “As I see it, we have just one option: I must go back to my world and find Ruben and bring him back. There is no other way.”

***

After receiving an additional key for Ruben's return, Fred prepared himself mentally for his journey back.

Within an instant, Fred was back in his depressing little room again. All that had changed were the sheets of cloth placed over each item of furniture.

Checks of cupboards and drawers revealed that little had been touched. Even the money he'd hidden in a jar at the back of a kitchen shelf was still there. “That makes things easier,” he thought.

Fred immediately visited the local office of a national newspaper and placed an advertisement in the Personal Column that simply said, “Ruben, I have your key,” and a reply address.

Two days later, there was a loud knock on his door. Standing there was a frail man in his seventies.

“I've come for my key,” he said with a shaky voice.

“It's good to meet you at last, Ruben,” Fred replied, inviting him in. “Don't suppose you remember me, do you?”

“No, I don't,” he replied.

“We must make preparations to return to your home planet without delay.”

Ruben looked surprised. “We?” he said.

“Yes, I'm returning with you.”

“So you have two keys?" Ruben asked.

Fred nodded, and then smiled. “I expect you're wondering where I found your key,”

Just for an instant, a look of puzzlement appeared on the other man's face.

“I'll go get your key, Ruben,” he said heading for another room. However, as he did so, there was another knock at the front door.

The man standing there was also elderly. He smiled, shook Fred's hand heartily, and said, “I'm Ruben, come for my key.”

Fred turned and looked over his shoulder at the other man standing there.

***

Fred's return to paradise received much applause and much merry making. How glad they were to have Fred and Ruben back.

Fred explained his predicament when both men claimed to be Ruben.

“How did you know which man was Kaisan?” they asked.

“I knew that Kaisan may also respond to my advertisement and so I planned to test whoever came, by saying that I had found the key. The first man, the real Ruben, looked surprised when I said this but the second man responded quite differently. While still standing at the door, I said, 'I expect you're wondering where I found your key.' He smiled widely and replied, ''You're right, I've been trying to remember where I lost it!' I then reached into my pocket and took out a metal object about the size of a woman's lipstick case and help it up before him and said: 'The trouble is: you're not Ruben, so I can't give it to you, can I, Kaisan?'' Anger appeared on his face and without hesitation he reached out and snatched the object from my hand and ran off.”

Fred laughed loudly.

“I hope the color suits him! You see, it really was just a lipstic.”