Life on Mars

Chapter Eight

Vic picked up the dining chair and hoisting it above his head, stumbling towards the balcony. As he swung it over the barrier, the momentum was almost enough to pivot him upwards and send him spinning earthwards with it. His bare feet squeaked on the marble floor as his outstretched toes kicked out to find purchase. Rocking backwards, he stabilised himself, a mischievous smile spreading across his face as he surveyed the shifting mass of exposed heads and shoulders below. A typical London morning as throngs of commuters hurried to desks, jumped in cabs or sat in a trance on buses as they crawled along the teeming streets. He wasn't sure how much longer he could hold on. If he didn't let go soon, he'd surely go down with it.

"Nova!" said Bluu in her scolding tone, marching purposefully across the room towards him. The tone she reserved for all his little signs of rebellion, like putting his head in the oven and switching it on or pushing metal into the electrical sockets. The name 'Nova' was growing on him, and he hadn't had an opportunity to determine why they thought it was his. There was little point in rocking the boat just yet; after all, if they found out he wasn't Nova, who knows how they'd react? 

They might be so pissed they'd just throw him back in the freezer, like his first wife Angela might when she discovered she'd taken steak out of the freezer instead of chicken. No, he thought it best to play along for now and get the measure of them first. Vic Jones had died just over three weeks ago, in his mind at least, and had found himself 500 years in the future. He felt relatively fit and healthy, with no sign of the cancer that had been eating him alive. In the process, he'd acquired a sparkly new 22-year-old version of his own body. It was unnerving at first, climbing out of the shower and catching a reflection in the full-length mirror of someone who wasn't you. 

He was visibly gaining weight and strength by the day. Standing naked in front of the mirror, he'd run his palms across his chest and down to his hips. The skin felt soft and firm; even the goods between his legs looked more attentive and plumper. He was well cared for if a hamster in a cage can be counted as well cared for, that is. The environment was comfortable enough, but this didn't represent the world as it really was out there in 2515. In here, everything had been put in place to avoid unnerving him, in a way people from the future might interpret 2015 if they'd never really seen it.

Growing up, his mum loved to tell of when she'd taken him to the 'Roman London' exhibition. Inside was a mock-up of a Roman Emperor's throne room. As a very young child, he'd been duped by the reality of it, and why wouldn't he? Through the opening, he could see the roman square, albeit a frieze, but with additional background sounds of a roman market, the illusion was complete to a boy his age. He gaped at the spoils of war scattered across the floor, chests that overflowed with gold chains and coins, goblets and ornaments. The memory was all the more vivid because his young mind had spotted an opportunity to solve all the problems his father talked about.

"Angela, we just can't afford it."

"That boy is growing out of shoes again?"

"Angela, switch the big lights off. We ain't made of money."

He'd slipped under the rope barrier with a single, and at the time common sense objective; to pertain a single gold coin from the enormous stash he saw before him. He knew from his mother's bedtime stories how much a single gold coin was worth. Enough to keep them in new shoes and electricity forever, and the Emperor would hardly miss just one. By the time he'd made his move and realised it was made of plaster and welded to the floor, his mother was dragging him backwards by the hood of his coat. As his feet left the ground, he realised his crime had been rumbled and the booty he almost had in his grasp was just a decoy. The three weeks he'd been here had taught him a similar lesson; things are not always what they seem. The furniture was inconsistent with any particular period in time, not particularly unusual in itself, but most of it was completely non-functional. It was like living in a doll's house where everything was purely cosmetic.