The tiny flat smells like death. A recent death, not too much decay. But still, there is a miasma of bodily fluids and bad meat. Pen tells himself he’s used to it. He tells other people it doesn’t bother him. He’s lying.
He uses the strongest smelling laundry detergent he can find to try to scrub the smell from his clothes. His bodywash and deodorant are the most pungent he can find. He wishes he could carry a 13th century nosegay, something to mask the stench. He hates the smell of death. Which is a shame, in his line of work.
“Detective Dulum?”
Pen looks around the door frame. “Yes?”
“Over here.” Cathy is standing in the kitchen next to the body, the reason they’re here. It is a small body, old and sunken, a woman past the golden years of her life. She looks old, like the sort of old who has lived a lot, seen a lot. Been there, done that sort of old. She is wearing a sleeveless nightdress and not much more. Her arms and legs are covered in tattoos. She looks almost peaceful. Except, even from the doorway, Pen can see that her face is missing.
Pen tries not to wrinkle his nose. The smell is worse in here.
He looks around. The kitchen is a mess.
“What do we know?”
“Neighbors heard some banging, then a, like, bigger bang. One of them freaked out, called the cops. This was,” she checks her notes. “Four hours ago.”
“It took four hours to get to the scene of a gunshot?”
“No, we did. Boys were on the scene real fast, but she was DOA and at first it didn’t seem like, mysterious or whatever.”
Pen nods. He gets that. The shelves in the kitchen – more shelves than any other sort of furniture – have all been overturned, but the only other room, the bedroom-living room, is almost untouched. The old woman is sitting in her chair almost peacefully, hands laid on her lap. There is no sign of a struggle. There is almost no blood on the wall behind her. Someone has done a good job here.
Cathy keeps talking about what they’ve found. No sign of a break in. No video of anyone coming into the building in the night. Hostile neighbors, not really a cop-friendly community. Pen nudges a few of the items on the floor, making space. One of them pings as he taps it, and he stares down at it, then squats down to look closer at the items scattered across the floor.
“Are these all clocks?”
“Yeah, seems like she was a real collector. Most of them don’t work, though. Can you imagine how loud it’d be if they were all going, like, tick tick all the time?”
“Mmm. Strange thing to keep around, though, hey? Like a massive reminder that you’re running out of time.”
He pulls on a pair of latex gloves, then pretends to sneeze into his elbow so he can breathe in the fresh laundry scent of his jumper. He takes a deep breath, then steps towards the body, breathing through his mouth as inconspicuously as he can.
“What do we know about her?”
“Not a lot. We’ve got almost nothing on who she was.”
“Name?”
“Ferg. Or maybe Fergie? Found some old bills in the bin, that’s who they were addressed to. But didn’t have much else here, otherwise. We’ll run dentals and things, if there’s anything left to run. Surname, uhm, Angenhyte.”
Pen nods. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d had a bit of a run-around trying to track down details for pensioners.
The old woman, Ferg or Fergie, is slumped in the chair. He lifts her chin, then carefully but quickly lowers it again. He’ll be surprised if they can get any dental records from the wreckage. He looks at the back of the head. It is a mess, but there is nothing on the wall to show it. He checks her hands, her fingernails. No signs of a struggle.
A small patch of gold under one of her thighs catches his eye. He squats in front of her, moving the body as little as possible to pull it out. On the other side of the chair, someone trips and bumps into the body, which falls sideways against him, her dead arm smacking his neck. He gags against the sudden ballooning smell, and feels a surprising sting where he was hit.
“Shit. You OK, Pen?” Cathy has been inspecting the cupboards, which are mostly empty of food. She turns back to him, and helps push the old woman back upright.
“Yeah, yeah, fine.” He gags again and stands, holding one hand against his neck, the gold paper in his other. “Who the hell bumped into her?”
He and Cathy look accusingly around the small kitchen, but the only PCs are in the other room, talking to forensics, who have just appeared.
“Oh, fuck it. I need a minute, I’m just gonna go check this out,” he says, waving the envelope. “Suicide note, probably. Or a last will and testament, leaving all the clocks to some unfortunate sod. Will you check in with them?” Pen gestures towards the forensic team coming towards them.
She nods, and waves them over. Pen lets them past, then gratefully moves into the second room, which smells marginally better. He wishes he could open a window. He looks for a place to sit, but there isn’t one. This room is also crammed with shelves, all covered in clocks – large and small, ornate and simple – none of which work.
He sighs and leans against a more-or-less stable looking shelf, and looks down at the gold envelope. It seems overkill for a suicide note, somehow. Also, bulky. He turns over the envelope and opens it. He unfolds papers, and starts to read the typewritten page.
Dear Pen,
Dear… PEN? He freezes. Pen isn’t the most common name, and also, what the hell?
He shoves his nose back into his elbow and pretends to sneeze again, takes a few deep breaths of the fake flower scented fabric. Then he starts reading again.
Dear Pen,
This is obviously gonna be a shock. Sorry.
No shit.
I’ll cut to the chase. This is me. I mean, you. You’re writing this for yourself. You wrote it tomorrow, then came back yesterday and put it here. You also set up all the other things. It was planned.
The woman in the chair is Ferg Angenhyte. She’s your mother. I know this is a lot. You don’t need to process it all now. Just keep reading.
You drew the short straw when you were little. Had a time-travelling ma, got born, got named, got adopted out, all that. She was all over the place, all over time and space. She had her own shit to do.
She’s gonna reach out to you in a couple of days, though. A young her, younger than the woman you’re trying not to inhale right now. It’ll help if you’re prepared to talk. She’ll be able to explain more than I can right now, but she won’t give you too much of her time. She’s just like that.
Anyway, here’s the deal, my dude. I can time travel. You can time travel. She could time travel and she’s passed on the gift. I don’t know where it came from. Neither did she. She got it from her Ma, who got it from her Pa, who… you get it. It’s marked on you, now, forever. The second piece of paper is instructions on how to travel. Ferg wrote them for you. Me. Us. Keep that paper safe, it’s really important.
Pen flicks to the second page, and there is a handwritten page with scrawled writing. He stares for a moment, recognizing the shape of the ‘g’ and ‘y’, so similar to his own. He goes back to the first page.
The third page is a suicide note. You should leave that one behind. Obvs. Then you can wrap this whole investigation up. It was a natural death. She just ran out of time.
Pen doubts anyone will believe it, with her face blown off.
Also, probably you don’t want to think too hard about how the timelines work. It’s all just, like, timey wimey. It gets real confusing.
Ya don’t say.
Sorry about the mess in the kitchen. Also, sorry, but you’re going be the one who makes it. You have to do it yesterday. She’ll already be dead, though, so don’t stress. It was just the best way to get you here right now.
What next? Oh, right. Clocks. You don’t need to hang on to any of the shit here. She’s already burned through all these clocks. You are gonna have to start your own collection though. It’s the biggest thing you gotta know, really. You’re gonna be eating time, and a lot of it. It’s the clocks that keep you going. If you look down at your watch, you’ll see it’s already dead.
Pen looks down at his watch. This is complete and total bullshit. The side of his neck itches.
Get a new watch. Get a lot of them. And start collecting. Bigger is better, but anything in a storm, right? You want your time, you gotta stockpile.
Alright, my dude, I think that’s it.
That wasn’t it. Pen has about a million questions and also he hates this. It makes no sense. He stares daggers at the signature, which is definitely his, and at the handwritten post-scripts under it.
PS – sorry about knocking her into you. What a smell, right? But time cures all.
PPS – sorry about the tattoo. Crap location. Hers was on her arm. You might wanna cover up. Wear a scarf or something.
“Detective Dulum? Pen?” Cathy comes into the room, and he folds up the third note, slipping it back into the envelope. The other two, he stuffs up his sleeve, hoping it won’t be obvious. “You nearly ready to head back to the station? Oh, hey, I never noticed you had a tattoo before.” She moves close to him, peers at his neck. “Weird. It looks like a compass or a watch or something. What’s it mean?”
He touches his neck, where his dead mother’s arm collided with him, changing his future history.
“Just. Use the time you got, I guess.” Pen feels vaguely hungry. He looks down at his watch, which has stopped. “Speaking of, you got the time? My watch broke.”
“Yours and every other one here,” she waves at the shelves, then holds out her wrist. Pen touches the watch, inhales slightly. There is a flood of smell, like dried herbs, and he instantly feels better.
The second hand on the watch stops ticking.
This story previously appeared in Elegant Literature, 2023.
Edited by Marie Ginga
Emma Burnett is a researcher and writer. She has had stories in Nature:Futures, Mythaxis, Northern Gravy, Radon, Flash Fiction Online, Apex, Utopia, MetaStellar, Milk Candy Review, Roi Fainéant, JAKE, and more. Her favorite story this month is The Year the Sheep God Shattered by Marissa Lingen in Diabolical Plots. You can find Emma at Emma Burnett and on Bluesky.