Changing All Those Changes

2:

Time is a funny thing. It can be so strange – slowing down sometimes and going too fast others.

Paul's teenage years seemed like just a blink of an eye to him now. He liked the way things were now, but part of him still longed for those more innocent days, when he was just a boy with a guitar and nobody stopped to take a second look when he walked down the street. He wished he could go back.

Go back.

Go... back...

—

The sun drags Paul out of his sleep. He opens his eyes, a decision that he immediately regrets. He groans.

"Too bright," he mumbles bitterly, evidence of sleep showing in his slurring. He turns over in his bed and nestles his face into the pillow.

Wait... pillow? He opens his eyes again, this time too confused to be bothered by the sunlight.

Paul sits up abruptly and looks around. Pillow? Bed? What room is this? Where am I? He fumbles around. No guitar anywhere.

He sits there for a moment, bewildered. "Well," he murmurs to himself. "This can't be right, now, can it?"

In the pit of his stomach is a feeling of dread. He recognizes it: this is the feeling he gets when he's late for something. But it's Monday morning, and there aren't any rehearsals scheduled for today. Right?

Paul takes in his surroundings. It's an apartment, and a brand new one from the looks of it. Nothing too special. A little outdated, actually. By the way the furniture is arranged – almost gingerly – he figures that whoever lives here must have just moved in recently. And they must be the first owners.

Slowly, he removes a leg from under the covers and places his foot down on the cool hardwoods. He climbs out of bed. Instinctively, he turns to the left, where there is a door to the bathroom, almost like he knew it would be there.

Nothing is different about him, he finds as he looks in the spotless mirror. Hair outgrown, bushy beard. Something inside him says he should trim it. His hand, with a mind of its own, reaches down to a drawer and finds a small pair of scissors.

He turns them over in his hand for a moment, wondering. He couldn't use somebody's scissors, could he? He looks back up at himself in the mirror. The Paul he sees there looks every bit as confused as he feels.

Just then, a phone rings, shattering the silence. Paul leaves the scissors beside the sink and goes to answer it. His feet guide him there. He almost doesn't want to pick it up. After all, he has no idea whose phone it is.

He reaches for it anyway. Reluctantly placing the receiver to his face, he greets, "Hello?"

"Paul, man, where are you?" The voice sounds desperate, and somewhat annoyed. Paul doesn't recognize it.

He pauses for a second, at a loss. "At... home, I guess."

"You guess?" says the voice exasperatedly. "Look, if you're with some girl again, you've gotta wrap it up right now. We need you down here, you know how important this gig is."

All Paul can find to say is, "I'm not with a girl."

Am I? Paul cautiously scans the room and finds, to his relief, no sign of a female presence.

"Well, then, you better get your butt over here if you wanna save your hide. Jape's getting impatient. I'll do what I can to stall him. See you."

Jape? "Hey, wait!"

"What?"

"I..." Paul thinks. "What's the address, again?"

A mirthless groan answers him on the other end. "Come on, Paul, it's the Houghton. We've been waiting to play here for years. Now, stop kidding around and vamoose." A click on the other end signals the end of the conversation.

He holds the phone in his hand, puzzled. Jape? The Houghton? Well, whatever this is, he thinks. I'm involved somehow. He called me by my first name. But that voice, he'd never heard it before. And this apartment...

This whole apartment, actually, is familiar, now that he's thinking about it. He knows exactly where the dresser is, and where all the clothes and supplies are. As he wanders around the room, he tries to make sense of it all, but no explanation comes to mind.

The Houghton Club. He remembers that name. It was an old club in... Nashville. But he's in London, isn't he? Anyway, the Houghton closed years ago. Yes, he remembers hearing about it. Way back in the '50s, Buddy Holly and his contemporaries used to play here. He had a poster in his room, that he'd gotten from a man on the barge, advertising an Everly Brothers show there, at the Houghton.

Maybe he's mistaken. For all he knows, there could be a club in London by that name, too.

He makes himself presentable, not knowing what else to do, and within ten minutes he's out the door. The morning outside is bright, and the moment he steps out and feels the intense heat, he decides he can safely rule out London. He stands in the doorway for a moment, looking around. People are milling around the sidewalks and cars - old cars! He watches bewilderedly as a powder blue Thunderbird cruises by him.

Paul has to will himself to descend the stairs down the sidewalk. He stops a passerby and asks him, "Excuse me, sir, could you point me to the Houghton Club?"

The man looks at him like he's lost his mind. "It's on Music Row," he says slowly, "'round the bend."

"Thank you."

As the man walks away, he turns around to peek at him one more over his shoulder. Evidently, this Houghton Club is common knowledge, Paul figures. He slowly treads in the direction the man pointed towards, his legs feeling an awful lot like rubber.

Now that he's noticing, everyone's clothing is strange, too. The kind of outfits he thought had gone out of style. His overgrown beard draws a couple of stares, he feels as he passes by. It's as if the whole world has just suddenly turned back about ten years. Everywhere he looks, he sees boys with pompadours and girls with hoop skirts that swish with their every step.

He continues down the street. As he walks by an open shop door, a soft melody stops him dead in his tracks. It's the song. The hiccuping voice... Paul turns his head. It's coming from an old radio, but it's unmistakable even through the static. He would know that voice anywhere. The man behind the register looks up.

"Ah, another fan," he says through a slight chuckle. Paul notices his warm Southern drawl. "This one just came in. Hitting real big."

"Buddy Holly," Paul says plainly, as if that explains everything.

"That's his name, that's right. Kid from Texas."

"Yeah." After a pause, Paul turns to walk away. "Have a good'un."

But, before he gets very far, a sight in the corner of his eye halts him. A calendar is hanging on the wall behind the man. But... it can't be right. Paul whirls around to get a better look, and the year is clearly printed across the page. He can't believe his eyes when he sees it. In big, bold letters: 1958.

-

Small side note: The Houghton Club is entirely fictional, which explains the very bland name lol.