Writing for Fun
August 2019
The Loser - Jeff Kebbell
‘Loser, loser, loser.’ Peter Miller, or Dusty as I knew him, was a loner and encouraged in this way by his school mates who saw things differently to him. I sometimes walked home with him after school and it is not pleasant with the echoes of one’s school fellows ringing in your ears. What made Peter different was his lifestyle. He was interested in survival and slept in the garden in a tent throughout the year. He could find his breakfast on his way to school, picking fat-hen from between the cracks in the pavement and other nameless weeds and the occasional insect. Peter always seemed to be eating. His parents did not seem to take a lot of notice of him. His sister told me he was barmy but he always went to school clean and tidy.
In the late 1900s survival and outward bound courses became popular and Peter and I went on one. The instructor was ex-army and weighed everyone carefully when they started.
‘Anyone who puts on weight at the end of the three weeks gets a fiver,’ he said.
Dusty tucked in and collected his fiver after weighing out 5lb heavier than when he started. He offered to split it with me but I wouldn’t take it.
As I mentioned at a previous meeting I became Professor Joseph Livings, Professor of Palaeontology at Oxford University and had the good fortune to inherit Professor Baldock’s time machine. A small group I headed had begun research into Homo Neanderthalensis and their social life and what better than to actually go back in time and live with them. I went to the factory where Peter worked in the stores. He hadn’t looked after himself since leaving home and the man I asked said, ‘Look for a scruffy, hairy man with a face looking like a rat peering out of a bear’s arse.’ Low and behold if was a good description and Peter was immediately identified.
‘Hello Joe, what brought you away from your lofty towers and dreaming spires?’
‘Would you like to come for a drink?’ I said.
He replied, ‘As long as I don’t have to pay.’
An evening down the pub with Peter and explaining the situation and he was ready to meet his ancestors.
I gave Peter the cash and directions to get to Masters College where I resided and waited for his arrival. Two days later he turned up with a .22 air rifle, 1000 pellets, a sheath knife he had stolen from ‘Goings’ in Southend and his sea rod, a reel of strong nylon and several size 20 sea hooks – he was not going to starve.
The machine turned out atoms and those of the equipment into tachyons and there we were, 25,000 years ago just outside the camp of the Neanderthals we were studying.
‘Hi, folks,’ said Peter, walking up to the group. I stayed back, hands on the controls in case Peter came running back lickety spit with spears flying round him. Peter’s scruffy (very scruffy) clothes and whiskers did not seem to frighten them and when he produced a bag of humbugs for the children and they had reluctantly tried them, all was well. The children fought over the sweets and the dead rabbit Peter brought was accepted and I returned to the cellar, sure that Peter was safe and among people he could associate with.
Peter had a buzzer that would signal he was in trouble but I heard nothing and when I went with the student to the camp he was fishing with half the tribe watching. He was pulling out cod as fast as he could bait the hook and cast it from the shore and there was a sort of cheer every time he dragged a fish out and with his priest administered the last rites. A queue lined up by Peter and one by one the men rushed off with the fish to cook and feed their family. They all looked like they could use the meal they were going to prepare.
Over the next month Peter gave myself and the student a lot of information about the tribe. With their spears they had killed a wolf and he had saved her pup and was taming it for his own use. He didn’t want to come back to real time as he was accepted by them as a sort of minor chief and had found a girl from a tribe of Homo Sapiens that had passed through and had left her. She was quite pretty in her own way and obviously thought Peter was a god and followed him everywhere.
One day Peter told me that he had seen ships passing that had sails like those of the 17th and 18th century galleons we had seen pictures of at school. They came from the direction of the Atlantic Ocean. Perhaps Homer’s story of Atlantis was true. Peter said that the tribes became very frightened and all ran into the woods. An old man explained that his tribe had been captured by the people on the ships who came ashore and captured the people. They appeared to be of a Mongolian type and the tribe ended up being used for sport and all were killed except his father who escaped and hid on a boat which brought him back to these shores on another raid. There are maps dating back hundreds of years called the Piri Reis maps which showed the original land beneath Antarctica which has been covered by ice for thousands of years. Also an island in mid Atlantic which doesn’t exist. I would need to explore this with Peter and the old man later.
Peter and his eventual bride, Iota, lived well and I eventually retired with my famous book ‘Life and times of the Neanderthal’ made me and my student famous and I retired leaving him as Professor in my place. One day he rang and asked me to come to the college where once again I got into the machine to arrive 25 years after Peter. The student and I went back in time. The tribe had gone but the student took me to a cave where a large carved box had the words carved in English ‘Chalky and Iota’ and underneath ‘There is a plot for us next to my parent’s grave in Stock Rod Cemetery. Please put our remains there. Thanks.’
I did this, but that’s another story. Perhaps I’ll tell you about it one day.