No Nearer Than Nigh

1. Thyme And Thyme Again

Justin Thyme was born just in time and christened Justin Thyme. Or so his guard said and Justin had no clear recollection of those few years he had spent with his parents. Every night, when the curtains drew back to reveal the rustling and murmurring of the unseen audience, the guard would regale the story of Justin's birth, relishing the tale in all its detail. Indeed, the telling had become ever more theatrical over the years, had become increasingly apocryphal with time. The guard's performance was spectacular and the audience came day after day to hear again the events of that fateful night, and to see Justin himself, locked forever in the cage behind the stage.

Justin Thyme was born just in time. His mother, Rosemary, was not too happy with the choice of name, but felt somewhat resigned after marrying Basil, Justin's father. Had he arrived one minute later, Justin Thyme would have died at birth. One minute later birth became illegal - a radical legislature that was to last for thirty years in a harsh strategy to reduce the population of the world. Now, much later than the end of that dark legislature, there were no more births. Procreation had been reduced to a theoretical impossibility with the development of immortality.

Every year the population diminished. Some died in accidents, some became victims of political intrigue and some just faded into the background and turned to dust and ashes. Those who survived did so by tenaciously hanging onto their increasingly dissatisfying lives, supported by ages of bitterness and hatred, sheer spiteful determination to outlive their fellows. If Justin could have seen them, he would have perceived no differences between them. Time had turned their skin to brittle leather and warped their bodies into grotesque semblances of humanity. However, he could hear them and could hear nothing to distinguish them from each other. They all spoke with the same dry, lifeless voices which haunted his dreams and laughed mockingly in an ugly, whispering cackle, reminiscent of a dying witch cursing a hated world.

Except his guard. His guard was very much alive, dressed in gaudy colours which changed every day. He had an exuberant voice which loved to cascade through dizzying sequences of emotions accompanied by a vast range of facial expressions and a versatile vocabulary of body language. At times the guard was so vivacious and so seductive that he could almost coax a genuine laugh from his audience. While the guard was at least as old as Justin (for he was the very man who introduced that radical birth legislature) he alone in all the world had not appeared to age, remaining as youthful and handsome as an angel. His audience hated him, but needed him even more. Even Justin hated him. Justin Thyme wished fervently that he had not been born just in time.

Justin Thyme had aged visibly, but unlike those others of his generation, he was still recognisably human. He appeared to be about eighty years old and the extraordinary simplicity in his eyes and his aura of confused hurt would make you wonder if he had recently had a stroke. Like his guard, he was a constant reminder to the audience of what they had unwittingly given up and it was upon this jealousy that the guard enjoyed playing. His guard always seemed slightly unreal somehow, both less and more than human. Justin provided no such distracting duplicity which made him more accessible to the audience.

2. A Window On Thyme

The wall of Justin Thyme's cell opposite the stage curtain held a window with bars. During the day sunlight would stream in to light up the side walls and floor of the cell. Through the bars which ran along the front of the cell, the curtain could be made out to be a fading red. Long ago the curtain had been a magnificent, bright red but now its glory was lost but the guard wore all the colour that was necessary. When the guard appeared during the day, his clothes would gleam Turquoise, or Aquamarine, or whatever. His huge grin would be offset by the impenetrable blackness of his eyes which mocked everything they looked upon. It upset the guard that sunlight could reveal his soul so easily and he seldom appeared during daylight hours except to provide Justin with nourishing though unpalatable food.

The guard feared the window and the enigmas it presented. He loathed its necessity; all his remaining power had come to depend on that window. The window represented hope, and hope was all that kept Justin Thyme from descending into lunacy; and without Justin's sanity there would no longer be any target for the guard's performance. The guard's lust for power had led him into eternal damnation; with absolute power had come a personal hell of impotence and frustration only partly assuaged his control over the ever-dwindling, ghostly audience.

The window represented hope because it looked out upon the world of the past, a warm and friendly place in contrast with the present day ruin inhabited by cold spectators and chill spectres. Every day the window showed something new. In all the years of Justin's incarceration the window had rarely revealed a familiar sight, and on those few occasions when the window did return, it was always at a different time. Often the window was lost in a deep forest or out in remote countryside and Justin woke to breath the pure, fresh air of wilderness and freedom, to hear the beautiful song of birds about on their morning rituals or to taste the salt of the sea playing beneath the window. Often when the window did appear in inhabited areas, it was situated high above street level. Occasionly, the window did open out at street level and Justin was able to listen to passers by. Usually Justin was unable to understand them or they him but every so often he found he was able to converse with the strangers. Most people preferred to ignore his presense, not understanding or even wanting to understand how the window and cell could be where they were. Those who spoke to him believed he was mad and were eager to forget about him, and were relieved when he was gone the next day. Once or twice somebody believed him and their eyes and went on to lead troubled lives.

Only once had Justin encountered the same person twice. Although many years and much distance seperated the meetings, the man appeared unaged. The man did not have a name, and refused to be labelled with one. He listened closely to Justin's story, paying special attention to Justin's description of his guard, and voiced great concern. On the second encounter he gave Justin a diamond the size of peach stone. Justin used the diamond to work away at the bars of the window, but it would be years until he could escape. Besides, the guard enjoyed watching his attempts, mocke Justin's ineffectuality; reluctant actually to take the diamond in case he took Justin's sanity with it. The diamond made a deeper scar in the guard than on the window.

Justin wondered often at the similarity between the man who gave him the diamond and the guard. His guard had once laid claim to a name, but had long ago discarded it. Justin could never quite recall the name, but often he woke from nightmares with the memories of forbidden syllables tickling the tip of his tongue.

Once, the window showed Justin the future. Dust danced to a hideous, whispering tune that never ceased or changed; ashen clouds concealed the sun, transmuting the sunlight into a putrid purple colour. Justin had stared all day, entranced by the horror until just before darkness when, to his astonishment, a figure had appeared on the horizon walking erratically from corpse to corpse, skull to skull. Justin called out to the distant figure, guided it to him until he recognised the bright clothes, undimmed by the ashes and dust, of his guard. When the guard recognised Justin in turn, he slumped to his knees beside the window and with eyes gleaming with malice as they glared down at Justin he howled intense, bitter hatred at Justin. Just before the sun failed completely and the window closed, Justin Thyme saw the guard held a diamond the size of peach stone in his youthful hand.