Foston Slacks - Time's Flies

22

Foston was almost running, stopping every now and then to wait impatiently for Clara to catch up as she tried, in confused desperation, to catch up. She held up a finger, dragging her feet as her brain tried to work out exactly what Foston meant. She began to speak, stopped, thought a little bit longer, then tried to speak again. She still didn't get it.

"Wait. So, I 'insulted' him, by having a completely understandable laugh at something universally funny, and now he's thrown his teddy out of the cot and is messing about with the Breaches in some kind of pathetic revenge thing?" She ignored Foston's fevered, two-handed, sweeping ushering of her to get a bloody move on. "But, we've been having problems since long before we met him! How the hell does that work?"

"I've already told you!" Foston looked closely at every door they passed. "He exists in every single point in time. He is time! You insulted him (and don't think I didn't notice those invisible air quotes you added to that word) here and now, but here and now, for him, is every here and now."

She thought about that for a long time, walking along the corridor as if it were just another day and she was strolling to the local park to laugh at people pretending to exercise. And get drunk. Obviously. She had no idea why Foston thought they needed to hurry.

"I don't get it." A statement so blindingly obvious, it could be heard through the entirety of the infinity of The Corridor.

"Of course you don't. You're only human." Foston finally stopped hurrying and checked his watch,  tap, tap, tapping the screen. "Let's just say that he's always known you were going to insult him and he was always going to get his revenge. However petty that may be."

"Yeah, I get that ..." She didn't. Evidenced by her next question. "But, how did he know?"

Foston stopped looking at his watch, stared at her and then tried to pull his fur out of his own head in great clumps. He raised his hands, opened his mouth to yell in frustration, then, purposefully, deliberately and more calm than anyone had any right to be in the situation, closed his hands into tight fists, turning away. He turned back again.

"A time phone." He threw his hand up towards her, as if to say 'See!'. "That's it. A time phone. He phoned himself to tell himself that he had been mortally insulted and he should pre-revenge you. Get you back before you insulted him. What a bastard, eh?"

"See! Now that makes sense!" She felt much happier now Foston had stopped talking gobbledegook and said something rational. "I can't fault him. If I had a time phone, I'd call myself and pre-revenge Donna for spiking my drinks."

Intellectually, she knew Donna hadn't spiked her drinks after all. Emotionally, she still wanted to get even with the bitch. Even though Donna hadn't done anything wrong. She decided to just roll with that piece of irrationality, seeing as sod all else was even remotely rational right now.

"Of course you would." Foston returned to tapping at his watch. "Now, if only I could isolate that one, tiny, infinitesimal Breach signal."

"There's a Breach? Here, in The Corridor? Where?"

"Hey, Babe, look who we've found." The voice sounded familiar. So familiar, yet Clara just couldn't place it.

"Hey! That's great, Babe. Let's kill 'em." Clara looked at Foston. It didn't seem like that was the kind of thing he'd say

"Clara! Duck!" That was the kind of thing he'd say!

Foston dropped low, his lanky, tall frame bending almost double as he grabbed her, pulling her down with him. He dragged her behind a car that looked like a tractor and a missile had engaged in marital relations and had an ugly child. At least the car was well made. Something she felt extremely grateful for as bullets began pinging off the thick metal.