Temporal Tantrums

Earlier that morning, when Holi and Elmo had returned to their house in London with some shopping for the holiday, something was happening in this line of time that hadn’t happened the first time. As Holi opened the front door, she heard an ugly 'supping' sound from inside followed by a great crash that made her stop abruptly. The door swung open and the scene confronting her was not to be comprehended lightly, yet her initial reaction seemed to suggest that she was taking it quite well.

In front of her, in her own home, sat on the splintered remains of what was once a fine dining table and a few well-crafted chairs, was an enormous figure wearing a yellow-checked woollen suit. He held, what appeared to be, an easter egg. He had an astonished look on his face.

“Oh! I say! You ring a bell!” the behemoth said and then, as if that was not to be considered bizarre enough, a small head popped out from behind the giant with an equally astonished look. It was a familiar face to Holi: it was Elmo! She spun quickly to check that Elmo was still behind her.

He was. She spun back again, mouth wide, eyes flitting between the huge, yellow giant in the wreckage and the person that looked just like Elmo.

"Er... Hi?" Future-Elmo asked, unsure if a friendly greeting was apt under the circumstances, but what else could he do? This wasn't what he had intended, they weren't supposed to see him and he had no idea why this shocking giant had suddenly exploded into the room from nowhere. Before Holi could work out why the yellow-giant seemed familiar, he went; disappeared before her very eyes! With an equally unpleasant loud "SUP!", he vanished, as if he had been sucked away up some huge unseen pipe. There was now nothing left but a pile of broken furniture, a sheepish-looking Elmo trying to look as cool as he could amongst all the confusion, and, for some strange reason, a blazoned phrase embedded into her mind's eye. "Purpler Than Is Healthy" it said.

From behind, came a high-pitched squeal of terror; Holi whirled as Elmo peered past her, The Elmo native to this timeline. He had finally followed Hol i up the path. She gaped at him as he stared beyond her into the room, then she turned back and gaped at the other Elmo still sitting among the wreckage. He just grinned at the pair, and gave a little, uncertain, almost apologetic wave. At that, a great surge of dizziness swept over Holi and She fainted. This was not going as imagined - when future-Elmo had gone back to the point before it had all begun, all he had wanted to do was to undo the mess he had made by meeting the Elmo in the woods.

Now he was looking at an Elmo that hadn’t yet done any of that, hadn’t yet gone to Yorkshire, hadn't met himself, hadn't been sent back ten minutes. This Elmo was trying to revive his Holi and quivering with disbelief, asking, “Who are you? What are you doing in my house? Why do you look like me? And what was that, that, thing? With the yellow suit and that beret? Look at my table! We only just bought it! Are you trying to rob us? What... what?”

This was not good - Future-Elmo had encountered more Elmos than was acceptable. This wasn't what he was sent here to do. This was not good at all.

“I can explain. I can explain it all,” Future-Elmo gasped. He couldn't. He backed up against the wall, panting heavily in a froth of indecision. How was he going to explain this to Elmo? To the other Elmos? To Number 2?

*****

Holi of timeline one was unconscious when a man hammered on the glass of the panowindow, bellowing, “Why are you idiots in there? Why’ve you got her in the isolation chamber?” The glass made him impossible to hear, but the gestures were clear.

“We’re draining some memory,” 679 explained sheepishly, his voice crackling through the speaker connecting the bright isolation room to the dimly lit hangar-like viewing area outside. “We’re updating her drugs and tagging her.”

“Not that bit!” yelled the man, now into a microphone, a look of incredulity on his face, “The other bit! You know the bit!”

“Well, we’ve put her into a goo-tube until we get further instructions. We don’t know what we’re supposed to do with her.”

“And how do you imagine we’re going to access her with you syphoning her off and bottling her up in all that green goo?”

The two men in white coats looked suitably chastised and peeved at the rebuke.

Meanwhile, in the shadows of an entry hatch to the containment area, two other men watched the goings on. They looked little different to the men shouting to one another within, except for their casual grey and black clothing.

“They really, very don’t know what they’re doing in there. It’s sad to watch,” one of the observers noted.

“They do what they’re told to do, but none of it is going to get us to where we want to be,” replied his companion.

“Holi shouldn't be subjected to this sort of mistreatment. Pulling her from her timeline is hardly helping things.”

*****

Rat-Elmo clung tightly to Past-Elmo's wobbling head as he ran inevitably toward the trees and bushes where he had first met Future-Elmo. It was a struggle, clinging to his host’s wobbliong head, each bounce jolting him with the absurdity of his situation. He hooked a claw on a lock of curly hair to to stabilise himself and it was at that point it dawned on Rat-Elmo that he had yet another problem on his hands or paws - quite literally! He realised that Past-Elmo was on a collision course with his future self. Whilst Rat-Elmo desperately needed to meet future-Elmo again, in order to somehow reunite himself with his Hol i; it occurred to the rodent that a chance meeting between this other pair could add to the disruptions of the space-time continuum resulting in goodness-only-knows what, maybe even irreparable damage. some butterfly, wing-flapping, weasel chewing at the hadron collider thing or something like that.

“What do I do?” he whispered to himself. “I need to separate myself from this Elmo in order for me to meet Future Me. I can’t allow this lunatic to meet Future Me. Come to that - is it the same Future Me or a different version? Oh - I’m going mad. That idiot from the future's messed everything up. Disrupted my future! How is all this happening?”

Suddenly, he heard a gasping outburst from Past-Elmo, “What is this? Hold on - this is what I’ve been looking for. I found it, I found it... I can't believe it! So this is what it looks like eh?” Past-Elmo had inadvertently stumbled upon the large oak tree he himself had found minutes earlier - but now a large, dark opening could be seen yawning in the front of the trunk. The portal? That hadn’t been there before! It was all happening too quickly now, and before Rat-Elmo knew it, Past-Elmo was inside the tree and descending a set of ancient, slippery steps.

Rat-Elmo had to think quickly. His rodent brain feared that any moment now their descent down the slippery passage would be interrupted by an echoing drain pipe warning from behind the bushes. But he was too late. Before he could react, that same voice rent the night air: “Go back!” it said, “Go back, there is great danger!” Future-Elmo was calling somewhere behind them.

Rat-Elmo revolved as the head beneath him looked around, as if to return back up the steps. He had to act! He knew that another calamitous encounter had to be prevented at any cost. Desperately, in a fit of wild rodent aggression, he scrambled onto the face of his startled host and scratched and gnawed, to cause whatever damage his unfamiliar body was capable of.

“Khrrrrrrrr! Khrrrrrrr!” he screeched, clawing as hard as he could.

Past-Elmo howled in utter disgust and toppled backwards into the darkness below. Rat-Elmo seized the moment and jumped off as his alter ego disappeared out of sight - tumbling awkwardly down the stairs. He scampered up quickly in the direction of the trees above just in time to hear the familiar voice again, “Go back!” it persisted, “Go back now while you still can.”

Rat-Elmo knew he had only a few minutes. It was very dark and he was desperate to meet his future self to untangle this mess. Future-Elmo was hiding behind a bush; before he could utter another warning through the plastic pipe he was using to disguise his voice, Rat-Elmo lunged right up the pipe.

“Khrrrrrrr khrrrrrrrr!” squeaked the wildly aggressive rat, flying out at his quarry’s throat. “Aarghhhhhh! Get off me, get off!” screamed a petrified Future-Elmo, tumbling backward into the wet undergrowth.

“You idiot!” snarled the mad rat, “You idiot! Look at me. Look what you’ve done! You don’t even know who I am do you?”

Future-Elmo sprawled on his back with the furry fury biting frenziedly at his throat, “Get off!” he pleaded.

Rat-Elmo eventually released his grip and glowered down at Future-Elmo. He was aware that this doppelganger was the same person that had sent him back in time and yet, he hadn’t done it in this timeline. Did that make him different? This shambles needed to be resolved. As Rat-Elmo explained the events behind his terrible transformation, the expression on the face of Future-Elmo went from horror and disgust, to stupefaction and then understanding. He listened, nursing his ravaged throat. Eventually, he sat up in the wet grass, nodding thoughtfully and said, “This is a bad situation. I feel kind of responsible. I’m sure we can sort it though, get you back to somehow. However, I think we need to avoid that lot over there.”

Future-Elmo was looking beyond Rat-Elmo at four figures walking toward them through the woods. It was Roan, Gum, Heather and Holi. They would surely see the large opening cut into the bottom of the oak tree. Rat Elmo hissed, “Quick, get out of sight!”

The four friends had eventually gone looking for Elmo. In the rain and the dark, Gum was still reluctant and moaning about the sad consequences of his Chicken-Scratch match, however, Past-Holi’s concern for Elmo was serious and she called out, “Elmo? Elly?”

Past-Elmo’s reply from within the yawning gouge in the tree drew everyone’s attention, “I’m down here; I think I’ve broken my elbow.”

The startled companions hurried to the cleft and looked inside. A far-off moan from Elmo outweighed the wisdom of caution; Heather was last through the opening, clearly unhappy about putting herself somewhere so confined. As she stepped down behind the others, she shuddered at the deeper darkness within. Everyone felt her concern and a moment of heaving panic shuddered through the group.

“What’s happening up there?” yelled Elmo from a good distance below them. One after another, the group lit lights on their mobile phones illuminating the walls of the curving, descending corridor. It was unbelievable. What was this dark passage? The bluish glow of the lights revealed steep steps, perhaps of an abandoned mine or a route to an underground cavern lurking deep within the heart of the Yorkshire hills.

Holi stood frowning in amazement at this new surprise, but her main concern was for Elmo who was still somewhere ahead unseen.

“What is going on Tum?” Heather called. Tum was her pet name for Gamaliel, she had never really liked the abbreviation ‘Gum’, thinking that it lacked a certain dignity. Gum, however, had no time to reply, as at that moment, he lost his footing and slid a good five or six steps downward, clawing at the walls before finally regaining something of his balance and then hopping and skipping a further half-dozen more.

“I’m alright!” he called back up, “In case anyone cares.”

A familiar moaning sound that was now much closer led him onward and the light from his phone revealed Elmo, sitting hunched up against one wall of the tunnel. “Should we ask or should we not bother?” Gum breathed.

It wasn’t long before Roan, Holi and Heather also descended the intervening steps and crowded around their fallen friend.

“Okay Elmo,” Holi began, “Let’s get you back out into the open and get off home. Has that hideous rat gone?”

“Home?” came Elmo’s incredulous response. “This is what we came for! We can’t go home now!”

********

Meanwhile, above, Rat-Elmo looked at his paws. Can you get used to being a rat? Would you want to? Here he was, out of his body. Out of his mind? Maybe. Out of his time, certainly. In the wrong time. Only ten minutes difference, but out of time. A different time from Holi, his Holi anyway.

This time already had its own Elmo with its own Holi. He looked at the hole in the tree. He was in there: Past-Elmo with his friends from this timeline. They seemed foreign to him, doing what he had wanted to do only ten minutes earlier.

He needed to get back before it all got inextricably tangled. But, it already was! How do you get back, get your body back?

"This has all got too messy already! STOP!" he squeaked at the top of his voice. “STOOOOOPPPPPPPP!”

As the long, desperate squeak came to its end, Future-Elmo-Two stared at the frantic rodent with fresh thoughtfulness.

“We really are in trouble aren’t we? Hmmm... avoid meeting myself - that’s what you said caused it all, so that’s got to be avoided.” Rat-Elmo looked up hopefully. “Yet, here we are meeting up again. You were supposed to just go back where you'd come from. How do we stop it happening again and again? I know!” beamed Future-Elmo-Two, “I’ll send you back in time just a bit, just ten minutes or so, and you can make sure you stop yourself from coming here and meeting me! That should sort everything out.”

"No!" squeaked Rat-Elmo, wondering just what was it about his future self that was so stupid. "That's exactly what you did before and look what happened! Look at me! Look at me!" He held his two paws out and waved them imploringly and then did it again just to emphasise the point. It seemed to have the desired effect. He moaned softly, “You did it! You disrupted my future! My very existence! You sent me back in time and it isn't the same - it's making up stuff - changing my story. I have to get back. Undo all this mess, please!”

"Okay, okay. I know then, I'll go back! But I'll go back a bit earlier. I'll go back to just before I set off for Yorkshire and I'll phone Roan and intrigue him, entice him; tell him whatever I have to tell him to get him to make his way to Yorkshire. His arrival should create enough of a diversion to prevent me from going on to the confrontation with… myself..." Future-Elmo looked excited until he saw Rat-Elmo's stormy expression, paws on hips, foot tapping irritably. He did the paw waving gesture again scoldingly.

"You obviously already did that - or at least a different stupid future version of you did. Who do you think that lot are down there?" He gestured his flailing little limbs toward the opening in the large oak off to one side. Future-Elmo frowned, trying to keep up with the increasing number of Elmos around him and further Elmo possibilities.

"How am I supposed to know what I did?" he pleaded, "I wasn't there! He frowned, but then looked triumphant. “Got it!" he squawked excitedly, snatching up the four-legged egg-like device that lay in the grass beside him. "I'll go back even earlier to the day you first found this thing and I'll stop myself finding it! I bet I didn't do that!" Rat-Elmo's rodent reflexes told him that this was going to lead to yet another calamity, but Future-Elmo was already looking to point the egg thing at himself. Rat-Elmo sighed as he contemplated just how many versions of himself he had recently bitten.

Flinging himself forward, he managed to scrabble onto the device just as Future-Elmo's finger pressed the appropriate place. Rat-Elmo bit the finger, it flicked upward in pain, it flicked Rat-Elmo - the device spiraled into the air, the startled rat spiraled across its path trying to grab it before…

The device fired. "Wouldn't you just expect it to do that?" Thought Rat-Elmo. "It couldn't simply drop to the ground, could it?" As the device fired, Rat- Elmo laid a paw on it and both he and it were transported together. Everything went dark and still and quiet… and a bit smelly.

In the dark, Rat-Elmo caught his breath and gagged; bad, bad odour, sticky metal floor, curved metal wall - where was he? Moving at a restrained scurry he found that he was in a small, circular space, couple of feet across, no way out. The device was here too. Little spots of light revealed a corroded patch - better get gnawing. Soon, his two pointy, little, yellow teeth broke the metal surface and light poured in. Pressing a beady eye to the hole Rat-Elmo recognised his own garden.

"I'm in my bin! My own dustbin!"

Without warning,the lid opened and an all-too-familiar face peered in. Yet another Elmo of the past - from a little earlier than the others, a day or two earlier.

"Ugh - a rat! Get out of my bin you filthy... what's that thing?" The third past Elmo's eye fell on the egg device. "Surely it can’t be... It’s the thing in my dreams!" he gasped, "What I’ve been drawing on the walls. Why? How... How on earth did it get into my own bin?"

Trying to avoid the rat, he reached in gingerly. Rat-Elmo flung himself onto the device trying to hold on to it. "Get off, you beastly thing!" scolded what Rat-Elmo assumed must be Past-Elmo-Three or, counting future Elmos too, and Rat-Elmo himself, Elmo number six was it?

"This can’t be happening," thought Rat-Elmo as he looked up at himself looking unwittingly back down at himself in rodent form. "This is how I got the wretched egg device in the first place! Wrestled it from a rat! From me!"

With a bit more desperate last-minute chewing, Rat-Elmo burst from the bin and dashed into the bushes.

Panting and peeping out from the security of the undergrowth Rat-Elmo fretfully contemplated the tangle of possibilities. “Maybe,” he thought, “just maybe, if I can follow myself back to Yorkshire, back through it all, I can have just one more chance to sort all of this out. Trouble is my other future self (which one was that now, number two was it?) already returned back somewhere a day or so from now to phone Roan and Mistletoe - I really, really hope he did so quietly, discreetly, didn't interfere with anything, didn't make any mess. If so, there's still just a ray of hope."