Fold
We thought he must be a time traveller when we were younger. Maeve — so certain of herself, even back then — declared his deep wrinkles and untamed hair proof enough. She reckoned he was at least two hundred, possibly more.
That first time we saw him, back in the summer of ’29, he was half asleep. We weren’t supposed to leave the house, but Maeve convinced me that a sound telling-off was better than death by boredom. He was sitting on the bench by the pond, his eyes drooping in the warmth of the afternoon sun. As we got nearer, he started and sat up, a smile flickering across his face as he saw us.
“Thought I were back in the fold, I dunst.”
We just stared at him, then giggled and ran away. Later, Maeve said this was okay. We’d never met a time traveller before.
The second time was in the spring, a year or so later. We were hurrying home from school, eager to slough off the daily trappings of education. As he ambled toward us, Maeve nudged me. “Our time traveller’s back.”
“If it in’t the young grints from the fold,” he said, as he pulled level with us. “Ah, but that takes me back.”
Maeve looked down, biting her lip, not trusting herself to speak. But in a rare flash of maturity, I nodded at the old man. Then, curious despite myself, I asked, “What’s the fold?”
“Ah, that’s a thing,” he replied. “I were born in Fairgully, a fair few mile from here. On the road ’tween Porchant and Dwendle. Lived most of my life there. But you’ll ne’er find it on your’n newfangled devices.”
There was a twinkle in his eyes — rheumy though they were. “In the fold we was. Hidden. And best for it.”
“Mind, though,” he added, “you reminds me of my girls back then.”
The third and final time was nearly twenty years later. We were both back visiting family. Maeve had her own by then.
I was outside with my nephew when I heard a cough at the gate.
“Knewst I’d find you here,” he said, leaning over and struggling to catch his breath. “I got unst for you before I head off.”
He handed me a tattered plastic bag. “It’s the fold, right enough,” he said, then winked and shuffled off. We heard later that he passed that night.
When the kids were settled, Maeve and I sat down and opened the bag, pulling out a dog-eared map; a flimsy sheet of age-worn paper concertinaed between fading, pink-tinged covers.
We opened it up, the paper threatening to tear with every frustrated attempt to unfold it. Finally, as Maeve smoothed the map out, she exclaimed, “Look — there’s Porchant!”
We followed the road out of Porchant, across a crease, to the town of Dwendle. But nowhere along the way could we find the village of Fairgully.
It was only later that I realised the crease hid yet another fold in the map. As I teased it open, the finely drawn landscape expanded, the road from Porchant now winding through a series of towns and villages before finally arriving at Dwendle.
And, halfway along it, Fairgully.
I kept the map, intending to visit the place where our time traveller had grown up. But I never managed to find it. For all the sophistication of our modern navigation systems, not one seemed capable of finding the village of Fairgully.
Instead, they showed the road travelling east from Porchant to Dwendle with little else on the way. Apart from a faint line running north to South, around halfway along it.
Author’s Note
With Fold, I set myself the challenge of seeing where I’d end up, starting with an old map (I have a 1978 UK pink-covered Ordnance Survey Landranger map in front of me as I type), a ~500-word limit, and just a few hours to work in. I also wanted to experiment with a sparser style than usual, trusting the reader to fill in details that are only hinted at. The resulting story is a little longer than the self-imposed limit and took a couple of hours more than I’d intended. But I’m pleased with what emerged. Plus, I got to exorcise some of my younger self’s frustrations trying — and failing — to grapple with unfolding and folding maps!