(Note: do not read this as a serious love story. It
has time travel and stupid jokes in it.)
Anne Hathaway was an angry
woman. To the outside world, it would seem like she was doing quite well. After
she had graduated from medical school she had set up her own practice in the
small town in the north of England where she grew up, and from then on her life
had just happened to her. Anne was angry about her job, she hates every single
one of her patients. She also hated the fact that she had the same name as that
famous actress and Shakespeare’s wife. People don’t realise how hard it is to
have the same name as a celebrity. Anne knew a man called Bill Murray once. He
killed himself.
She lived in the house she was born in, and
where she had lived with her parents until she went to university. She had
intended to move back for just a few months until she would find her own place
to live, but then her parents tragically died in a car accident and she could
just not find the energy to sell the house and find something else. Her chronic
lack of time and inspiration had also prevented her from changing anything
about the interior. She slept in her parents’ old bed, ate at her parents’ old
dining table, and sat in the garden on her parents’ old wooden garden
furniture.
On a moderately sunny day in
April, Anne sat in the garden, attempting to read a book that used to belong to
her father, when her neighbour Isis climbed on a chair to be able to see over
the hedge.
“Hello Anne! Nice day innit?”
“Hi Isis. Yes, it is indeed a
rather nice day.”
“Now my dear, do tell me off if
I am being intrusive, but I’ve noticed that you don’t get company very often.”
Anne tensed up, this was not
exactly a conversation she felt like having. “That’s true, I suppose…”
“Just tell me if I should mind
me own business, but you know the post office up the road right?”
“Yes…?”
“The other day I went there to
post some letters to me grandson, and I had the nicest little chat with the
chap who runs it. He’s just moved to town to take the office over from the
previous owner, and he said he didn’t really know anyone in town yet. Now just
tell me if you’re not interested, but I thought maybe it’d be nice if the two
of you went for a coffee sometime! You could use some company, he could use
some new friends, who knows what might happen! He’s a real looker too.”
Anne sighed. “That’s really
very thoughtful of you Isis, but I don’t really have time to go and have coffee
with this… man. “
“Alright fair enough I suppose.
If you change your mind let me know though!”
“I definitely will.”
Later that day, when Anne was
getting ready for bed, she opened the cupboard to find a top to wear to bed.
Next to her pile of bedclothes was a neatly stacked collection of pyjama
bottoms her dad used to wear.
“I need to get rid of their
stuff,” she said aloud. “I NEED to get rid of their stuff.”
But at this moment, she felt
too tired to even remove her make-up.
As she lay in bed, unsatisfied
with being unable to throw out her dad’s pyjama bottoms, she thought that
maybe, just maybe, if she met a bloke she fancied she might be arsed to clean
up the house. If he came over for dinner, and some wine would be involved, and
he’d be unable to drive home so he’d have to stay over…
The next day, Anne put a note
in Isis’ letter box. It said ‘I’ve changed my mind.”
Ten days later, Anne sat down
at a small table in the corner of the café next to the library. It was a
quarter past two. Owen, as the post office man was called, was not supposed to
be here until half past, but Anna just happened to be the kind of person who
was always early. For the next fifteen
minutes, she decided, she’d just listed to the conversation the couple next to
her was having.
“You what’s fascinating?
Elephants remember everything, forever,” said the woman, while petting the baby
she had on her lap on the head.
“Ah yeah,” said her friend,
“Once I heard this story, there was this man and he grew up in India. He always
used to play with this elephant, he’d feed him cookies and stuff, and…”
“I don’t think elephants eat
cookies,” interrupted the woman with the baby.
“Then maybe it was something
else. Anyway, he played with that elephant for years, until his family moved to
another country. Then years later he went travelling around the world. At one
point he was in Thailand, and he wanted to go and rent an elephant to ride on.
So he goes to this place where you can rent elephants, and there’s this one
elephant who goes bananas as soon as he arrives! It tried to touch him with his
trunk an everything.”
“So it was the same elephant?”
“No… no it was a completely
different elephant. It was just really enthusiastic. But he THOUGHT at first
that it was the elephant from India.”
Anna stared out the window,
wondering what Owen would look like. Isis had described him as ‘quite tall but
not abnormally so and with hair that is kind of brown’. She looked at her
watch. 2.23.
The door opened, and seconds
later there was a loud bang. Before Anne realised what had happened the woman
with the baby fell to the ground, a trail of blood trickling from her head. It
wasn’t until everyone started to panic that the reality hit her; someone shot
the woman in the head.
Three hours later Anne sat on a
bench in the park. Being a doctor, she had attempted to help the woman, but the
bullet had gone straight through her brain, killing her instantly. The police
had arrives swiftly, everyone in the café had made confusing statements about
what the killer looked like. He had been wearing a black motorcycle helmet so
no one had recognised him.
Anne felt a slight feeling of
guilt when she realised she was disproportionately pissed off about the fact
that because of the drama, the date with Owen had not happened. She didn’t even
know if he’d shown up, he might as well have stood her up and she’d never know.
She stood up from the bench and
started walking in the direction of her house, when suddenly an overwhelming
white light appeared, blinding her completely. She had a sensation of falling,
or perhaps jumping, only for a second, before suddenly the light disappeared.
For a moment Anne wondered if she had died, but then she realised she was aware
of it, and being aware of being dead seemed like a very improbable situation to
her. She shrugged and decided it was probably some kind of after effect from
the shock from before, and continued her way home. Her heart sank when she saw
Isis coming around the corner.
“Anne dear!”
“Isis, hello. I… the date…”
“You better be on your way soon
hon.”
“… we were supposed to meet at
2.30.”
“That’s what I’m saying, it’s
ten past two, and I know you like to get to places early.”
Anne turned around to check if
she could see the time on the church clock. Ten past two…
“But… the murder.”
“What are you talking about you
silly, have you been watching your dreadful CSI shows again all night? Rightie
I’m off home, have fun with Owen!”
Anne watched Isis walk away.
“Time travel,” she said out loud. “I travelled in time. It’s ten past two. I can go to the café and
meet Owen.”
Then it dawned on her. “I can
stop the killer.
She entered the café and sat
down at a table next to the door, looking around anxiously. Everything looked
exactly the same as it had done a few hours ago, except that wasn’t a few hours
ago. An older gentleman with a newspaper sat at the table next to her, a group
of teenage girls sat in the back, and the woman with the baby and her friend
sat at the table where they had sat before, except not before, talking to her
friend. Anne could still catch their conversation from the other side of the
room.
“So it was the same elephant?”
“No… no it was a completely
different elephant. It was just really enthusiastic. But he THOUGHT at first
that it was the elephant from India.”
Anne froze when she felt a cold wind coming from the opening door. The
killer. A tall man in a black motorcycle helmet came in, and before she could
fully realise what was going on, Anne kicked the chair next to her in front of
him, making him trip and fall over.
“Oi watch out you idiot!” he
said, trying to get back on his feet.
Anne stood up and kicked him in
the groin. “HE HAS A GUN! GUN!!! WATCH OUT!”
All the café guests stood up to
watch as she kicked him again and the gun fell out of his hand, sliding away
outside of his reach towards the door.
Just as the older gentleman
with the newspaper got up to help, the door opened again, and in came another
tall man, wearing a denim jacket, luckily without a motorcycle helmet this
time.
“What’s going on?” he asked,
looking slightly panicked as he took in the scene of the man of the floor, Anne
standing on his hand to keep him from moving.
“Grab the gun!” she called out,
and he did, just before the man pulled his hand free and tried to get up again.
As he tried to get away, Anne grabbed hold of his motorcycle and pulled it off
his head.
“YOU!” The woman with the baby stood
up, looking furiously. “What on EARTH are you doing here with a fucking GUN?!”
“Shut up you whore, how dare
you walking around the town with that filthy bastard child of yours!”
The woman turned white as a
sheet. “You came here to shoot me. You wanted to kill me.”
“You deserve it you disgusting
bitch!” Just as the would-be-killer tried to lash out to her, the man in the
doorway grabbed him from behind and pressed the gun against his head.
“Not so quick… let’s just wait
here for a few minutes until the police arrives.”
After the police had arrested
the man and taken him away, the woman with the baby came up to Anne.
“I can’t thank you enough! It’s
my ex-husband, he never forgave me for leaving him. I never thought he would
actually try to kill me!”
Anne smiled. “I guess I just…
sensed that he was up to no good.”
“And you, thank you so much as
well!” she said to the man in the denim jacket. “What is your name?”
“Owen. Owen Wilson. Yes, like
the actor, I know…”
Anne woke up and was greeted by
the smell of fresh coffee. She yawned and turned around, but then decided to
get up and made her way downstairs.
Owen grinned as he saw her
coming down the stairs. “Good morning my love.”
She sat down on their bright
new floral patterned sofa, feeling very content with the beautiful pale lilac
she had painted the walls when Owen had moved in.
He gave her a kiss on the cheek
as he sat down next to her and pressed a steaming cup of coffee into her hands.
THE END
(The moral of this story is:
time travel is essential for preventing murders and finding love)
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