Three Minutes - Chapter 1

    The day life really began to go wrong for Jed Hanafy started much like any other.  Emotionally and physically fatigued, his already fragile existence was unravelling faster than he could re-tie the knots in his sanity.  Thunderous clouds of worry scurried around the periphery of his tired mind as he navigated the windswept desolation of the lower east side. 

    An internal auto pilot guided his plodding feet home through the drizzly deserted streets from the night shift as a security guard.  It was a long walk home through the otherwise rough section of the city; a similar journey on foot at another time of day would invite numerous muggers out of their lairs, but it should be safe enough at this ungodly hour of the morning.  Jed’s warm basement flat on the west side of the city by the shipyards was far from a palace, to be honest the place was a dump, but it was his dump: Jed’s Castle. 

    Jed knew that the root of his problems was that his rock, his beacon in the night, his mother, Jenny, was further adrift than he was.  It broke his heart to see the husk of a once vibrant woman strangling in Alzheimer’s unrelenting grip.  For all of Jed’s life she had fortified him with the unbreakable armour of unconditional love. 

    Her illness was exposing threadbare patches on his armour that threatened to leave him defenceless when she was gone.  Jed could feel the burning tears of loss on his cheeks dilute the rain, but the choking pain in his throat threatened far worse.  His daily visits to the Golden Pines Nursing Home were becoming increasingly painful.  She didn’t recognise him yesterday, and that hurt all the more.  Jed couldn’t remember the last time he smiled, a real smile, not the one painted on for public consumption. 

    In whatever land her illness and medication transported her she seemed to be enjoying herself though as she smiled all the time; the same whimsical smile she used when she read stories to him as a child.  Maybe that’s where she is now, in a land of ice cream castles and popcorn clouds, sugar butterflies and liquorice dragons.

    Her seeming ambivalence to the real world cast Jed purposeless and desolate.

    I’m all she has, she’s all I have.  It’s so unfair; for God’s sake she’s only fifty five. Why her?  Why me? 

    Why have we both been so cruelly dealt this hand?  I don’t have Alzheimer’s, but sometimes I wish I had, it would be easier to handle than watching her decline.  At least then I could forget.

    He knew the black Landrover was about to pass him again from behind, he had already seen it pass, that would be the third time since leaving work for his soggy march home; he had lost count how many times in the last week he had seen it. 

    Way to upmarket for round here, guess they have to keep moving or their wheels and stereo would be gone, thought Jed.

    Imagine you could see into the future, just three minutes, no more, no less.  Would those three minutes change your life?  Placing a bet, playing the stock market, catching a criminal, raiding a bank or simply catching the last train home, the possibilities are seemingly endless.  Or you would have thought so wouldn’t you, but for Jed it’s a curse he’s had to deal with all his life and would do anything to be rid of it. 

    Rain, tears and the stinging wind assault his eyes bringing with them fresh challenges to the journey home.  Intermittent gaps in his vision recall appears and is memory playback expands and contracts the interruptions forming a continuous but confusing and flawed movie in his mind. 

    You see, Jed lives these three minutes ahead of the rest us mere mortals; oh, his body is here right enough, he just sees what is going to happen not what is happening.  Crossing the road is an expedition, requiring planning to rival a crossing of the Sahara.  He sees cars rush by, or rather the cars that will be rushing by in three minutes time.  But as to what is happening now and whether we are going to mow him down as he crosses, he has to trust his memory and what his eyes recorded three minutes ago.  He can’t trust us; would you?

    On impulse he stops. Turns, and with unpractised bravado waves at the two dark clad figures scowling at him from behind the steamy windows of the approaching Landrover.  The rear of the big car dips and the engine roars as the accelerator is floored.  Slick tyres rumble over broken tarmac and the car hurtles toward him.  Jed struggles to remain calm.  A nervous tick tugs violently at his right eye as he processes what his eyes are recording and what his internal projectionist is playing.

    Seconds and fragmentary frames of his memory collide and merge; he hadn’t paused or thought this one through.  The car ploughs through a Mediterranean sized puddle and soaks him from head to foot, not that he could get much wetter.  He should have seen that too, but spur of the moment decisions can be a little like that as his projectionist fumbles another roll of film.

    The scowling occupants now have that stupid grin that says, “Ha, got ya!”  The driver, who Jed now see’s is a fat, bald man, guns the engine.  His piggy, red rimmed tired eyes betray the humour of his savage grin.  The Landrover veers away at the last second and roars off down the deserted road in an apocalyptic plume of spray, un-burnt gasoline to the accompaniment of a fading chorus of laughter.

    “Assholes!”  The effort went unheeded by the men in the Landrover, but at least it released the tension in Jed’s belly.

    Acidic cold sweat adds to the rain and tears on Jed’s brow and he berates his foolishness, his stomach roils and slowly settles as his playback tells him that in a few minutes he will be greeting Sue in the elegantly, but mis-named Coffee Emporium.

    In his twenty five years of living with this curse, Jed has experienced the worst and best of human nature, mostly the worst.  Greed, the hatred of the different, greed, suspicion, did I mention greed - and occasionally, just occasionally enough for him not to give up on humanity totally, compassion.  Kids at school, guys at work, anyone who has an inkling of his curse wants him to tell them winner of this race or that match.  This is his life – wanna swap?  Yeah right; you’re just like all the others.  A after what I have to tell you I bet you change your mind.

    Jed pulls the thick collar of his old surplus store navy duffel jacket higher and tighter over the ill-fitting uniform of the Quantum Security and Night Watch Service.  Squinting through the increasingly heavy rain he sees that the road is deserted once more, expectant of the early morning onslaught of delivery trucks and shipyard commuters.

    His three minutes isn’t a playback of what might happen, but what will happen; he can’t change those three minutes, they have already happened.  If he were to see himself getting run over by a bus, he wouldn’t be able to stop it.  Still want to swap?  I know you’ll change your mind, everyone does.

    The rain begins to ease and strident shafts of broken sunlight only serve to highlight the desolation of urban decay and abandoned slum housing around him.  He pats the pocket where he reassuringly carries his father’s medal; it gives him courage just as it symbolises the courage of this father, William.

    From the day he could crawl Jed was always bumping into things.  Mom and Dad were forever taking him to specialists at hospitals and research institutes for this that or the other.  His ability to inwardly count to one hundred and eighty was well developed before he even knew what one hundred and eighty meant.  He didn’t even have to think about it now; it was just something he did.

    Eventually the specialists decided he wasn’t blind, just stupid; slow they called him, but he knew what they meant.  As he learned to speak and began to describe what, as he saw it, was just what everybody else had to contend with as they grew up they decided he wasn’t stupid, just crazy.  He wondered how many psychiatrists’ careers were established as they tried to substantiate their diagnoses that a four year old was crazy?

    His father died that year.  Marine Sergeant William J Hanafy, his Dad: missing in action, presumed dead, in the first Gulf War.  Posthumously awarded the George Cross, but that medal didn’t bring him back.  His Dad was gone and Mom’s torturous descent into hell began.  Dragging him along for the ride.

    By the time Jed was nine he had this one hundred and eighty thing pretty much down pat and was starting to have fun with the doctors, psychologists, opticians, psychiatrists and many other ‘ists that persisted on prodding and poking him, sampling blood and scanning his brain.

    The real entertainment, at least for him, was when the sandal wearing freaks produced the Zener-ESP cards and tested him for ESP ability.  A count of anything less than the requisite one hundred and eighty seconds produced some interesting reactions, especially when he predicted cards before they even touched them.  Fearful of becoming little more than a lab rat for the rest of his life he began to deliberately predict false outcomes and interest in him eventually waned.

    Jed can see the misnamed Coffee Emporium tucked under the railway arches ahead, its windows steamed up from the welcoming heat; he decides that his need for caffeine is greater than his need for sleep.  He has too much to do today; it was the first of the month and he was expecting a most unwelcome visitor.