The Dream Factory

The Man Who Had Seen It All

The Man Who Had Seen It All

Donyard Dew had seen it all, no really he had. According to Donyard anyway. There was nothing you could show Donyard that would shock him. He would just smile, his lips creasing over his worn teeth and say wistfully, 'I've seen worse.'

And he had.

Not that Mrs Phillner minded. Donyard was new to the home and one of her better residents. He kept his room neat, he had no relatives to visit and cause upset, he was always on time for meals and most importantly as far as the other residents were concerned he could spin a good yarn. Donyard the dreamer was what they called him.

Donyard was sitting on the balcony in his favourite rocking chair, blanket wrapped around his legs his little red handwritten book resting on his lap.

'It's your hundredth birthday party Mr Dew. The whole town's is waiting for us up on the Ridge, the spot you chose. Remember.' She patted his hand reassuringly. 'Come on. Let's go up and join them shall we?'

'I'm fine Mrs P. Let's just wait a few moments.' He rocked gently and gazed out over the towns whitewashed houses, the painted boats at their moorings riding the glittering waters, sun faded pennants fluttering in the late afternoon breeze.

Mrs Phillner pulled up a chair, settled on her cushions and pulled her shawl round her shoulders. They sat looking over the town together.

From the pocket of his frayed tweed jacket Donyard drew out a copper bracelet and placed it on his book. 'Do you believe in time travel Mrs P?'

Mrs Phillner sat up. 'I can't say I do. It sort of goes against the grain.'

'How so?'

'Well surely if you could go back in time you could change things for the better and someone would have done that already if they'd discovered time travel.'

'But if you changed history how do you know you'd change it for the better, you might remove a dictator just to find he'd been replaced by an eviler one. Worse still you might inadvertently change something in history that changed the time you came from. The Butterfly Effect.'

'The what? Mr Donyard'

'The theory that the flapping of a butterfly's wings in Brazil could set off a tornado week's later in Texas.'

'I'm not sure I understand.'

'The theory applies to time travel. It suggests that should you go back in time, the smallest change there may affect your own time. Therefore best leave well alone. Time travel would only be acceptable to the future occupants of this planet if they remained spectators and did not interfere in what they saw.'

'So you think Mr Donyard, after all it's just a theory.'

'So I know. You see Mrs P I was bought up at Killaugh. Do you remember Killaugh?'

'I wasn't born then but I know. Who doesn't?' Mrs P sat up. 'You were there?'

'No of course you weren't born then. I hope you don't think me rude Mrs P. A silly slip of an old man. Forgive me. My family had a farm up in the hills at Killaugh. We grew grapes for a local co-op. There were three families, the Fortunes, the Beaskaks and us. Our families had farmed there for three centuries.'

Mrs Phillner smiled to show she was not offended.

'That afternoon was like this one. I sat with my parents on the porch. We watched a party go by on the dirt track in front of the house. They we're young crowd, fooling around as they went. Laughing and telling jokes. They were carrying baskets for a picnic up in the meadows behind the farm. I could tell they were not local. They had accents we did not recognise and their clothes, they were new, modern, and expensive but oddly ill matched, thrown together in a sort of haphazard way as if they didn't know what went with what. They were dressed like foreigners trying to fit in.'