Chapter Text
“Can’t repeat the past?” He cried incredulously "Why of course you can!”
There was a brief moment of silence in which our eyes met, and it seemed that Gatsby was, in the same way I so often do, waiting for me to speak. It was when I opened my mouth dumbly, without an idea of what I was going to say that Gatsby spoke.
“Old sport,” something seemed to flicker in his eyes. A sort of uncertainty, an internal debate that lasted only a second. “I want to show you something.”
With that Gatsby started walking. I followed him through the halls of his house endless as they were. Gatsby was swift, as though he wanted to run but some unknown force would reprimand him if he did. As we went, the halls faded in their glory, they became darker, the large floor to ceiling windows which previously would have had the curtains open to let the light of the sun in had been drawn shut, leaving just the faint artificial glow of the electric lights, and the gold accents faded to a dull brown under layers of dust. Gatsby's house, in all its grandeur was unlived in this was more than that, this was abandoned. It seemed not even the endless guests of Gatsby’s parties so eager to invade his privacy have ventured this far into the house. After we walked what must have been at least half a mile, Gatsby stopped in front of a door and turned to me.
“I’m going to show you something amazing.” His hand lingered on the handle for just long enough to be noticeable, then with empty presentation he swung the door open and some hollow form of celebratory exclamation dripped from his lips with nervous adrenaline.
The room looked to be some form of study, or at least used to be, the bookshelves were almost entirely empty, and most other furniture had stained cloth draped over them with the exception of a few tables with various tools on them. The thing that demanded my attention, however, was in the center of the room it was some machine, some strange upright coffin set in a grand stand of metal and gears. Pipes twisted in then out then in again. Atop the coffin there was a clock. I drifted back to Gatsby, my eyes meeting his.
“This is how I’ll fix everything, old sport.” Gatsby placed a hand on the machine, he looked at it like it held the answer to all the problems in the world.
“What…Is it?” The words fell from my lips with hesitance. You see, Gatsby has this remarkable ability to make anything seem natural, to commit any form of mania and leave any man who may find anything off about it questioning himself. And in that moment I found myself, not for the first time under this charm of his. I felt as if I should know what this strange machine was. As if I were the only man alive who did not possess some innate knowledge and was some great fool for asking.
“What is it?” Gatsby repeated, he placed his hands on my shoulders. “It’s my grand invention! With this, I can traverse time itself!”
I pulled away from him, “That’s madness!” All of a sudden Gatsby’s charm shattered around me like a broken mirror. I saw him for the first time again. I saw Jay Gatsby a genuine performance. A man who had molded himself to the imagined wants of others. Who needed more than anything, for what he was saying to be real to be real. His smile, grand in its falsity, didn’t waver.
And yet some shard had lodged itself in my heart, and against all my will and logic I believed him.
“But it isn’t! It’ll work. I swear to you old sport it will work.” He paused and I could see an idea forming in his head, “Come with me.”
“What?”
“Come with me,” He repeated, “to the past. I’ll show you old sport” He held his hand out to me.
Without my consent, that small part of me that believed in Gatsby above all else acted, “Okay.”
Gatsby pulled and all but shoved me into that strange coffin. There was hardly enough space for one man let alone two. We stood nose to neck, Gatsby’s chin rested on my head, He pressed some buttons and pulled some lever but what he did exactly I am not entirely sure. Then with little warning the machine started to shake. It reminded me quite heavily of a dug out under the blast of artillery and, in that moment, I wasn't entirely convinced that it wasn’t.
Then it stopped. The door swung open with a creak and I tumbled out onto soft grass.