The Time Reckoner's Log
- Jasper Woods
- Sep 28
- 12 min read
A Theatrical Tale of Time and Terror
I have heard
That guilty creatures sitting at a play
Have by the very cunning of the scene
Been struck so to the soul that presently
They have proclaim'd their malefactions …
- W.S.
Archivist Note: During the Quantum Restoration, a wing of the Restoration Team—the Time Reckoners, traveled time’s rippling mosaic to shift the trajectory of our past, present, and future. These journal entries serve as remembrance of their contributions to heal our home and ourselves so we might return to the best of who we are and realize our true purpose.
Entry 37
A sea cave—broad, deep, shadowed—where we laid our scene, a matinee.
TBH, not a fan of matinees. Me, more of a night owl. Prefer evening’s dark to unveil our creations. Under cover of night, far easier to imbue an atmosphere of mystery, danger. But the cave helped. Why we picked it. Full of bluster, the wind rousted the engorged sea into heaves, smashing against the cliff face. A gray sky mirrored the vast and wide waters, dimming the light down to super-creepy.
My co-star, Bruce, stood upstage left, hidden by the cave’s dense shadows. Now Bruce, can outlast all of us night owls, wake at the crack of, and throw down a storm, a performance par excellence, one for the angels. Bruce!
So, shrouded in shadow, Bruce extended his arm into the faint gray light. His show blacks blended with the cavern’s darkness so completely it gave the impression a disembodied arm protruded from thin air. His gloved hand gripped a preposterously large gun (a prop, of course), aimed at the young woman’s head, accoutered in her finely filigreed bridal dress. We’d pre-empted her nuptials so she might play a pivotal role in our performance.
As I lifted the curtain (or, in this instance, blindfold) from the officiant’s eyes—our audience of one, this first image established tone and stakes.
Of course, the stakes on the officiant’s end differed from ours. We were a tinge nervous about this, or at least I was. A calamitous mix of groggy and over-caffeinated, as I was. Twitchy, we wouldn’t achieve our aim—the officiant experiencing guilt. A high hurdle. The officiant’s actions landed at the red end on the heinous-o-meter. No guilt = no shift in Time’s ribboning webs = bad bad bad. And bad bad bad, well, y’know, isn’t the desired outcome.
We’d positioned the officiant’s only daughter, the bride-yet-to be, upstage center of the cavern, spotlit her face, intending to give the officiant the surreal sense dear daughter was being swallowed by the omnivorous and starving dark. An apt metaphor, of which we were most proud. Aided, of course, by the preposterously large gun pointed at her noggin.
His daughter too was a prop, a set piece, meant to soften the officiant. Ungird his loins. Test the officiant’s capacity to care for someone other than himself. All seemed to be working. But still, my jitters jangled. We were so close to re-piecing our past. Making the world new. Erasing decades of horrors at the hands of the officiant and his cadre of malefactors.
Slumped in a lawn chair, the young woman’s head had flopped to one side. A rivulet of drool spilled from the corner of her mouth, like a thin waterfall, pooling on her wedding gown. We’d drugged her. Didn’t want her flopping about and hurting herself. Didn’t want her to experience terror at the sight of my demonic mask.
Good Cosmos, did I look frightful. My clawed gloves, hard rubber. Helmet of horns, hot-glued on. Pulsing green glow of my goggles. Our gear is so righteous. Shout out to the costume crew!
No, we didn’t want dear daughter to live a life burdened by painful memories, the gaping, raw wounds of invisible hurts, putting her on constant alert, making her mistrust even the most trust-able. Sweeping nightmares. Cold sweats upon waking. A life devoid of joy, love. The life our ancestors did suffer, sacrifice, and trudge through, in this time and times before and times beyond. Thanks to the officiant and his “brothers” and their torturous acts.
Even so, we weren’t going to petrify the officiant’s daughter. Aside from her complicity, she was an innocent. We aren’t monsters, after all. We just pretend to be.
But of course, the officiant didn’t know that.
I stood center of the cavern’s mouth, offstage, behind the officiant, out of his line of sight. The sea sprayed its salty smells and roared at my back. Inhaling the scene, I smiled. Artistic satisfaction achieved! The tableau before me was something Henry Fuseli might’ve dreamt up. Or rather, nightmared up. We are artists of the macabre. But not terrorists, after all.
Lit by thin gray circles of light spiraling through the craggy mouth of the cave, the officiant sat, rigid, attired in his blue suit, bound to an iron chair, staring helplessly at his daughter.
It was a real bear to load that chair into the cave. But worth it. The chair was so heavy, it wouldn’t budge as the sea thrummed in and filled the cavern. But drowning the officiant wasn’t our plan. After all, we aren’t murderers, nor assassins.
Of course, in our time, this cave is 100 meters under the sea. Yet another reason to achieve our aim. The officiant and the other enablers were as torturous to Mother Nature as they were to her people. We all paid the price. But times would be brighter these past decades straight through to the officiant’s time and beyond to our time, if our schema of change rang true.
Aware, mouth agape, the officiant snotted over himself about 20 meters from dear daughter. His whimpers filled the hollow silence of the cave. Fear bounced his chest with each catching breath. This was good news. He did in fact care for his daughter. Guilt might be possible despite his sociopathic bent.
I felt a wee twinge of empathy. An itch of compassion. Shook it off. Needed to stay in scene, in character.
Time for my entrance. I strode onto the stage, dragging my metal folding chair, each scrape screeching over the uneven rock of the cave’s floor.
The officiant started and strained against his bonds. I grinned underneath my skull mask, gleeful. Glorious when you feel the audience fall under the spell of your machinations.
I hit my mark before the officiant and to his left, a handful of strides away. Close enough to be imposing and yet far enough to avoid seeming an immediate threat. I sat. Important he could simultaneously see his daughter and me, my death mask.
The officiant pressed back in the iron chair, horror filling his face. Our reputation preceded us. We’d visited a few of his brothers on prior missions—all fails, sadly. Their empathy tank empty as empty gets. But, it seemed, from the look on the officiant’s face, his brothers had told him tales of their harrowing encounters with masked demons (aka, our merry troupe). And so, while he didn’t know from when we were, he knew what we were, who we were (or thought he did), and most important, what we wanted—his confession.
The officiant’s familiarity with our roving band of players would make the scene move skippingly apace, for all involved. I hoped he would appreciate this because time was not on his side. But to a degree, it was on ours. We had all the time in time. We could run this show again and again and again. But we needed his confession in one go, end the suffering of our ancestors, save our dying home, our dear Little Blue.
Plus, we didn’t want him to suffer. Physically. Drowned by the sea. We aren’t, after all, torturers of the body. Just the soul.
The voice modulator in my mask transformed my otherwise well-trained, dulcet tones into a gargly baritone, a voice echoing from beyond the grave through a tunnel of crackling fire. And so, with my demon voice, I said, “Everything’s going to be all right.”
The officiant shook, prolifically, as though I’d zapped him with a charger.
Ah! How I enjoy just the right hit of juxtaposition on an audience. Especially, this audience.
It can be hard to imagine the oppressors as fragile, given their power. But I admit it’s at once satisfying and disturbing to watch them snap like a dry stick, and quick.
A wave crested and a slim piece of the sea sloshed over my boots and the officiant's polished-to-a-shine wingtips, likely his silk black socks, cold seeping into his alabaster feet, tipped with toenails coiffed by one of his indentured servants, no doubt.
About this time, if all had not gone to plan, the officiant would be waltzing the father-daughter dance to some three-hanky, saccharine song. But now, he and the bride-yet-to-be were captive, interred in a humid cave, walled in gray splotches of rock, tight with the smell of eons of mildew. Tide on the rise, the great clock of the sea ticked. The officiant knew it ticked for him. Could see by the jitter of his beady blue eyes, spread so so wide. Promising.
“Proclaim your malefactions,” I gargled, not unkindly nor demanding but temperately as though I was grunting, hey, to a passing stranger. I held onto the sssss, malefactions, to match the sibilance of the sea. May my voice teacher be proud.
The officiant turned his wide eyes to his daughter. Drops of tears puddled on his plump cheeks.
Another slight pinch of empathy. We don’t hate, after all. Gets in the way of objectivity. Production planning. Design. Rehearsal. Loads upon loads and still more loads of rehearsals go into these performances. But what must be done, must be done to heal our way back. And if it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly—to realize our ultimate purpose—returning our people to our collective, authentic self, explorers of Cosmos’ endless mysteries.
I turned and nodded to Bruce. His arm, gloved hand, and preposterously large gun retracted, vanishing into the shadows. The slim scuffs of his boots faded to the back of the cave and went quiet.
I let silence breathe through the cavern. Silence can be so powerful in a moment such as this.
Another greater wave pounced against the rock wall forming the aperture of the cave. A thick slice of the sea sailed in, up to our ankles, and flowed further into the cavern, but not quite to his daughter’s white silk slippers. So dainty. I want a pair.
“Confess, and we will all go our own way,” I said, plainly, as before.
“I—I—I,” the officiant said, his voice weak and dry. His throat quite raw, I imagined. He’d been in the trunk a long time on our journey here. Screaming through his gag. No water. Blindfolded. The smell of his piss and offal surrounding him. Nothing to be done. Bodily functions were outside our zone of control.
When I opened the trunk and caught a whiff myself, an unbidden image—the wire mesh cages where the officiant and his gang of oppressors imprisoned our ancestors — distracted me. The smell there. I went to my quiet place, dug deep, and returned to the scene.
“You’re scared,” I said. “Terrified.” The most human expression of the officiant’s entire life, I knew. I’d read his file. Watched the viddys. Listened to every one of his hateful pontifications. Performance is preparation.
“Reasonable to feel what you’re feeling,” I said. “But, in this most critical of moments, your brain isn’t working as well as either of us would like. Yes?” I nodded my head in demonstration.
He nodded his head.
“Let’s proceed in this fashion,” I said. “I will announce your crimes, one at a time, and you will nod if you accept responsibility.” For after all, what is confession but the admonition of guilt?
An unscripted silence fell between us, so long you could drive a truck through it. He needed prompting. Shrug. It happens.
“Nod if you agree,” I said.
He nodded.
“Good.” I sighed true relief. Felt very method.
Another slosh of sea protruded into the cave to our calves. I turned to his daughter. The raw edge of the wave juuuuust tickled the tippy-toe of her slippers. The sea is so playful and erratic. The one quantum chronon we couldn’t account for down to the nanosecond.
I turned back to the officiant. “We’ll want to be quick. This water’s freezing. The cave will fill, but your daughter will wake before then and want to free you. Something we all want. But she can’t do that without the key to your bindings.” I patted the pocket of my thick dark vest, bedecked with skeletal bones, pulsing with a soft glow.
I looked deep into his beady blues. He was ready, I discerned. I pressed my gloved thumb and forefinger together, starting the viddy recorder. A clever gadget embedded in the lenses of my ghoulishly green goggles. Gratitude props peeps!
I reached into my vest and unfurled a parchment scroll. Another prop with nonsensical scribbles. I’d memorized all my lines, of course.
“I’ll recite your crimes one at a time. Remember, nod if you claim responsibility.” I shifted in my seat. “Oh, and it’s important you know, that I know everything about you, straight down to why you picked that adorable yellow paisley tie. A favorite of your deceased wife’s. She had good taste, in ties. You wanted to honor her on this special day. You wrote it into the speech you’d be giving just about now.” Got that off his socials thanks to our internet archive. Research—so important to develop a solid script.
The officiant stilled and seemed to stop breathing. I didn’t think his eyes could stretch any wider, but sure they did.
How could you know? The officiant’s face said.
I pretended to read from the scroll in my demon voice. “Purple is your favorite color.”
This was a key moment. His response would reveal whether our hypothesis might ring true. Stand a snowball’s chance.
He squinted in confusion. My heart pittered.
“Only the truth will set you free,” I said, plainly, managing my jitters, swelling, like the sea. “Purple is your favorite color.”
After a brief searching moment, he shook his head, thank Cosmos.
“Good.” My jitters eased. We were on track. I glanced at the scroll. “Did you enable those in power to cede to their sociopathy?”
His eyes crinkled in another round of confusion.
“You’re learnèd,” I said. “You know what every word writ here means.” I flicked the scroll with a finger, not with violence but for the percussive sound. “I pause for your nod or shake.”
A wave gushed in and receded.
He nodded, profusely.
“The officiant confesses!” From the darkness, a roar of voices echoed through the cave—Bruce, projecting into an amplified speakalator, mimicking a sizable throng. All part of the show. And so scrumptious. Into a thousand parts divide one man and make imaginary puissance! (= use the power of your imagination vs. brute force. An ancient word. But so satisfying to us thespians.)
And so the scene unfolded with nods from the officiant, raucous clamor of the special effects crowd—the officiant confesses!
“Did you enable those in power to:
Make the seas to rise?
Blister the woodlands?
Inject toxins into rivers?
Kill the life in the seas?”
(Which by this time was wafting about our knees.)
“Murder innocents?
Place in pens, children, and parents?
Deny the masses healthcare for the very illnesses originated by those you enabled?
Starve, beat, and otherwise terrorize your own people into submission?
Infuse them with fear, to silence them?
Burn books to confound them?
Make them to be illiterate?”
And so on and so forth. Throughout—officiant nods, ginned-up crowd roars from Bruce. Consummate!
And most important, weeping shudders from the officiant. We’d achieved the intended impact. Guilt. Internalized guilt.
The recording would do little good if merely blasted to the masses. Fodder for more conspiracy theories piled on the rest. In the officiant’s time, nobody believed anything anymore anyway. Besides, even if they did believe, they were powerless to do anything about it. They were well past the point of choice. Freedom.
But the officiant’s guilt—that was what our mirrors showed would be the key to altering his past and, we projected, our collective past. Presented back to his younger self (our next stop), guilt born from seeing his own guilt, would shift his former choices. He would see a man he did not want to become—we hypothesized. We’ll see. Proof is in the pudding.
Our mirrors showed, the officiant, while but a poor player strutting upon the grand golden stage of corruption, was a significant target. We learned it didn’t do any good to take down the principle raconteur—dear leader. It was the supporting cast, the enablers, that made all the difference in shifting the trajectory of time’s rippling mosaic, for all.
The bride-to-be squirmed, as though waking from a surgery, which in a way she was, just not hers. For, of course, ’twas her father’s surgery of the soul we were about.
The gray sea now swam around her ankles and our hips. The officiant shivered through his teeth. The water was indeed cold, but I had my wetsuit on underneath my regalia, so.
We entered the final act. I leaned forward, for effect. Not to threaten, but to mark the import of this moment. My voice rose grand and eloquent, albeit demonic and gargly.
“And did you, officiant, commit these crimes to oppress the beings
populating this precious stone, set in the infinite vastness,
so you and those you enabled could live long, plush lives,
and in so doing, deny your own kind
their true and ultimate purpose of being learnèd, space faring people,
to explore, study, and unmask the secrets of the infinite Cosmos?”
A snot-filled, guilt-ridden officiant nod. Gut wrenching sob. So on.
“Good.” I sat back, slid the scroll back into my jacket, placed my hands on my thighs, rolled my shoulders, and sighed as though finishing the most satisfying of meals. “I feel we are well met. Thank you for your contribution.” I meant it. He’d done well.
I stopped the recording, stood, and crossed upstage to his daughter. From my vest pocket I pulled the key, laced on a thin chain, gently lowered it over her head, and laid it against the white silk of her bridal dress.
I turned to address the officiant. “When she fully wakes momentarily and releases you, do not go out the mouth of the cave. You will drown or be broken against the cliff face. Follow us into the dark. Climb your way toward a slim light. There, you will discover your exit. Clamber through and you’ll find yourself atop the headland. You’ll find your way thence. Nod if you understand.”
The officiant nodded and blubbered.
I realized how grateful I was he hadn’t spoken during the performance. It muddles the scene’s flow when targets extemporize. Plus, the word count for these logs can get unwieldy.
I strode upstage into the dark, climbed the natural staircase to the slim light and onto the headland, where Bruce was waiting for me. I unmasked. Gave my curly black locks a shake. Bruce and I clapped hands and hugged in celebration for a pristine performance.
Bruce pressed the locator button. Our ride chirped. We walked to it. Scanned. No one about. We vanished into the invisibility of our ship.
And now, we’re off to visit the officiant, thirty years in his past. Play the recording and study how time’s mosaic shifts. Fingers crossed!
Praise be to Cosmos.
End of log.
Comments