PARA/DOX

Men of the Most Impossible

The night was dark, drained, when Sherlock stared out of his window. Dinner hadn't even been attempted, and his mother was off sleeping away her daily depression. She was lost, somewhere in the mess of emotions. Sherlock was lost, somewhere in the mess of time. His glasses stayed securely in his jacket pocket and today he wandered a wooden framework, cold and barren, the floors put haphazardly together by his ancestors and the walls still exposing the meager wiring of the single bulbs. He stared through the frosted glass, looking down into the valley to see if his brother might he lingering. Mycroft moved faster than most, his figure was easily spotted if the moon was shining unrestricted. Sometimes he wandered throughout the house, other times he had no choice but to wander outside. It was very rare that their paths cross, though with Mycroft's ever rapid shifting there was a chance he would grace this timeline with one or two footsteps until he was lost again, lost to another second in the passing moments. Sherlock had much more trouble conceptualizing the idea of time, which was both ironic and perfectly understandable. He was perhaps the only man on earth who could see the whole of it, and though that very gift erased the classical theory of a straight linear progression. Yes, time did slowly move forward for those who were forced in its wake, though it was not so easily gone. Time stretched like a series of photographs, snapped second by second, each capturing a breath, a footstep, a heartbeat of each and every object on the planet. Everything was trapped candidly; everything was remembered in its certain layer of memory. For a boy like Sherlock all one had to do was open their eyes, lost in the photos and trapped between the frames. For everyone else, the blessed ignorant, the memories of time were lost. They were subjected to it, like an unknown subject in an art project who would never see the final work. And yet Sherlock wished for a mindset so simple, so normal. He wished he would be able to stare through his own eyes and see his own time, his present time, without falling backwards through the eons until something stuck. Until some landscape materialized and he was lost. Tonight he could not determine Mycroft's form, the fields were desolate and the wagon path was empty of all travelers. That path would eventually get paved; the field would eventually be developed. Not a creature moved so far as he could tell. Sherlock sighed miserably, turning away from the window and observing his surroundings once more in a halfhearted attempt to understand the framework of his current home. Nothing was very interesting, none of the logs stood out to be especially exciting. The door was missing to his bedroom, perhaps to encourage more of the heat from the downstairs hearth to waft up into the bedrooms. It was a cold house, it always had been. Sherlock cared not for the woodwork, though tonight he noticed a particular irregularity. In fact he noticed something which, to his present knowledge, was entirely impossible. Sherlock loomed closer to the hallway, dropping to his hands and knees to investigate a footprint left upon the wood, fading and illuminated by the single bulb that hung in the nearby bathroom. It was a footprint like he had seen before, the outlined sole of a shoe, though it was not meant to be within this time period. The shoe had a complex sole, a rubber sole, stamped and molded for better grip. All the shoes of this time period were flat and worn, made of leather or an equally tough fabric. This shoe wasn't supposed to be here, and yet it had left a print upon the wood, multiple prints... Sherlock jumped back to his feet, seeing that the footprints had left a path from the bathroom, descending down the wooden stairs into the main living quarters. Sherlock followed anxiously, jumping two at a time with his hands trailing the wall as they searched for the missing railing, one which he grabbed as a force of habit even when it had not yet been installed. The footsteps were not spread wide, either the stranger had a very short stride or they were trying to walk quietly, secretly. A shoe print from the future, an outline of a shoe that neither Sherlock nor his brother would be caught dead wearing. An industrial shoe, some sort of work attire perhaps. Sherlock and Mycroft preferred flat soled shoes, leather loafers that would pair nicely with their insistently formal attire.
"Hello?" Sherlock called out, hoping that this phantom traveler would still be lingering throughout the main fame of the house. He knew his voice would not be heard in the past, he knew he would not wake the occupants who slept warmly upon the first floor. The prints wandered into the kitchen, around a corner, even deeper into shadow. And yet Sherlock followed, ducking around the jagged wooden stairs that hung suspended within the open living room, a staircase that would later be hidden within drywall in an attempt to add complexity to the inside. There was a fire crackling in the kitchen fire, shedding enough light to silhouette a figure crouched before the hearth. It was a figure Sherlock had never seen before, not in this time period at least. Sherlock hesitated, wondering if his original call had been heard or if it could be heard at all. Who knows what rules this person was following, especially when he seemed to have broken most of them already? The man was hunched like a goblin, a wiry creature hidden beneath layers of black clothes. Modern clothes, mass produced. He was preoccupied with something, something that he was prodding upon the ground. Sherlock couldn't see what it was, though he could see the man's arms working furiously, occasionally a grunt of dissatisfaction would pass his lips in an old, scratchy snarl. What was the most curious, however, was that he had a jacket trimmed with red. He had skin which was pale, pale but with a flush. A sort of tan. A sort of color. Color...standing out within this black and white world.
"You're impossible." Sherlock declared, perhaps prematurely. The man started, jumping to his feet and swiveling to defend what he was working on from the new intruder. It was a box of some sort, a metal box that was blinking green. He was older than Sherlock had first imagined, his hair shocked gray, his face lined and withered. The man was short, crouched down so that he hardly surpassed the mantle of the fireplace, though his eyes were hazel and alert. His eyes were staring, sparkling. There was an aggression with an underlying passion, an underlying amazement. For a moment both of them stared, neither able to understand how the other had appeared.
"Sherlock?" the man whispered in amazement. His eyes, those which had such complexly colored irises, were wide enough now to engulf the whole scene. His withered frame appeared to length, to straighten, and the man took a step forward. Sherlock lunged backwards, avoiding his outstretched hand.
"How do you know my name?" Sherlock yelped. The stranger smiled, softly, sadly. His old face relaxed, the wrinkles fading back into his skin as if his age was fading away into a more familiar youth. The box beeped, one shrill sound which drew Sherlock's attention away from the stare. It was long enough, a millisecond,  was all it took for the man to vanish. Sherlock had expected a light, perhaps a blink. One second his impossible companion was there and the next he was gone, either swallowed by time or transported by his mysterious contraption. Sherlock struggled for breath, still hearing his own name echoing through each layer of time, bouncing off the frames that trapped this narrow photograph together.