Dual Wielding (an acrostic poem)

Double the trouble was not what Marcus wanted

Usually, he tried to avoid fighting when time traveling

As it didn’t really prove anything in his world

Looking at the two thugs with their swords drawn he knew he didn’t have a choice

 

Watching his foes split apart, he hesitated drawing his weapons

If he played his hand too quickly he would lose his only surprise

Everything would come down to timing

Lazily he took a small step back

Daring his attackers to press their perceived advantage

It must have been too good a temptation

Now they charged him.  He pulled out twin pistols from where they were hidden

Going to be tough to explain the bodies, but better them than him

 

Image: i.pinimg.com/originals/c4/fa/be/c4fabeaaa443e3f499f5676dc0044950.png

A Bad Time for a Phone Call

The phone rang on Dr. Michelle Funchess’s desk.  She looked up from the paper she was writing on quantum entanglement theory and picked up the receiver.

“Hello, Dr. Funchess speaking.”

“Yeah, I know.  Look you have to listen to me.”  The voice on the other end sounded exactly like Michelle’s own when she had a cold.

“Okay, is this Jenna?” Michelle asked.  “The voice is pretty good.”

“No.  I am you from twenty-five years in the future.”  Michelle thought about hanging up the phone.  “Listen, I know this sounds crazy, but hear me out.  I know about that time you were with Bobby back in the stacks.”

That took Michelle aback.  Yeah, that happened and she hadn’t told anyone about it, or did she?  There were a couple times she had gotten stupid with her girlfriends, so maybe it had come out?

The voice continued.  “And what about the time you felt guilty swiping that pack of gum from Albert’s Drug Store in fourth grade?  Remember that?”

Michelle smiled at how bad she had felt for weeks until she had “accidently” left like seventy-five cents in the need a penny take a penny tray at the counter.  “You need to do better than that.  If you are me you know I tell lots of stories.  I’m not sure I have a deep dark secret that would prove you are who, or when you claim you are.”

“Damn!” the voice on the other side of the line said.  Michelle could hear a ton of typing on a keyboard.

“Look, there is nothing you can say that will make this hoax work.  If you really know me you know I too much physics to fall for this.”

“One second,” the voice said.  “Ah, there.  Okay, I’ll give you a prediction for your future to make you believe.”

“You’re going to give me the lottery numbers?”

“That would take too long.  What time is it where you are?”

“It’s 2018.”

“Not the year, what time of day?  It’s like 12:30, right?”

“Close.  It’s like 12:46.  What time of crappy time travel do you have there twenty-five years in the future?”

“There are uncertainties, just like the ones you are writing in that paper.”

That stopped Michelle in her tracks.  No one really knew about that.  Well no one around here.  She might have hinted it at the last American Physics Society national conference, but still.  This was quite the scam.

The voice continued.  “It’s going to start raining in exactly three minutes.”

That made Michelle laugh.  They finally overplayed their hand.  She looked outside her large office windows.  “It is perfectly sunny here,” Michelle said.  “There is barely a cloud in the sky.”

“It will rain in the next two minutes and forty seconds.  This will prove I am who I say I am.  I need to hang up now and call back in four minutes.  The energy cost to keep the line is too much to just wait.”  With that the voice on the other side hung up.

Michelle hung up her phone and went back to her computer, but her curiosity wouldn’t stop her from checking the scene outside her window.  As she stared, wondering why someone was trying so hard to get into her head a sun shower began.  Big wet rain drops splattered against her window and her vision to the outside world, and her world in general, became blurry.

The ringing of the phone soon thereafter made her jump in her chair.  She stared at the phone, but didn’t try to pick it up.  She still wasn’t sure what was going on, but she knew she didn’t want to know.  Her future self should have known that.  Time must be able to change a person.

Time for Hope? (a 100 word story)

The scientists looked at each other, dumbfounded.  Their plan had actually worked.

The world’s problems in 3024 were almost impossible to get your hands around.  That’s why the invented a game.  Actually it was more of a simulation of what the world was going through now.  They then took that simulation and sent it back in time.

They kept watching the archived ancient website reddit for changes.  They finally found a post that someone had won the game.  They looked for more posts, but nothing else appeared.

There was a solution, so there was hope, but did that really help?

 

Image: 1000logos.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Reddit-logo.png

You Get What You Pay For

Harvey looked at the amount of glassware in the room.  This was a laboratory that defined the word, at least that’s how Harvey saw it.  The blinking lights and the buzz of a lot of electricity flowing into the machines arrayed before him made Harvey want to squeal like a teenager at her first boy band concert.  Harvey reached out to twist a knob on the nearest piece of equipment.

“Don’t touch that,” boomed a man’s voice coming from behind Harvey.  The accent was extremely German, probably from the Black Forest region.  At least Harvey was pretty sure about it.  That region of Germany put out the best engineers, as evidenced by this amazing room.

“Did you have to import all this from Germany?” Harvey asked.  He still wanted to turn a knob so bad.  Any knob would do.

“Germany?” asked the voice.  “Why do you say that?”

Harvey finally put his knob desire on hold and turned to the voice.  The man was completely bald and had bushy white eyebrows that looked like they were trying to burrow into his face.  He wore a pristine white lab coat with a pair of dark rimmed glasses that really screamed scientist.  Harvey shrugged.  “I assume since you were from Germany, then the equipment came over here with you,” Harvey said.

“I’m not German,” the man said.  “I am Swedish by nationality, but born and raised in Brooklyn.”

Harvey laughed and turned back to the equipment.  He reached for the knob and gave it a slight twist.  The man’s hand slapped Harvey’s away from the instrument.  “Please sir,” the man said, “Do not touch the machines.  They are calibrated precisely.  If you fiddle with them they will not work.”

Harvey kissed his hand to make it feel better.  He looked at the knob, satisfied he had turned it at least a little.  “Well Dr. Bjorkman, I just want to make sure these work the way you said they do.  If I’m going to invest all that money, then I need to see something that will knock my socks off,” Harvey said.

“That should be pretty easy,” Dr. Bjorkman said as he pointed at Harvey’s flip-flop adorned feet.

“What do my feet have to do with time travel?” asked Harvey, suddenly becoming suspicious.

Dr. Bjorkman smiled.  “Not time travel, but socks being blown off,” Dr. Bjorkman said.

Harvey looked at his flip-flops again.  “I don’t get it,” Harvey said.

Dr. Bjorkman gestured at Harvey’s feet.  “You are not wearing socks,” Dr. Bjorkman said.

“Of course not,” Harvey said.  “I’m wearing flip-flops.  Duh.  You are not filling me with confidence in your ability to travel in time.”

Dr. Bjorkman smiled and gestured at the room.  “You are a clever man,” Dr. Bjorkman said.  “We shall see if we can instill that confidence.  Look around, see for yourself.  Just don’t touch.  Time travel is a tricky and costly business.”

Harvey walked around the room.  He leaned in close to a few of the more impressive instruments, but nothing was labeled in anything remotely understandable.  “So this will let me go anywhere in time?” Harvey asked.  “I always wanted to visit my grandfather when he was my age.  He would tell me about his drinking buddies from then, and I think one of them sounded like it was me from now.  I figure that is the first place I want to go back to.  I want to make sure that I get born you know.  I want to avoid the pair of ducks if I can help it.”

“That is paradox,” Dr. Bjorkman said.  Harvey looked even more confused, so Dr. Bjorkman decided to drop the matter and moved on.  “This machine can’t go into the past,” He could see Harvey about to interject, but Dr. Bjorkman quickly continued.  “That’s not to say it won’t soon.  I wanted to work out the kinks doing the easier part, traveling to the future, first.”  Dr. Bjorkman adjusted the knob Harvey had touched back to its original setting.  “So I suggest going into the future.  Then in the future maybe I have the machine ready to go into the past.”

Harvey sat in a chair, and then spun himself around.  “So I go into the future first, and then I go into the past?” Harvey said.  “Sort of backwards then the way Dr. Brown did, don’t you think?”

“Dr. Brown?” asked Dr. Bjorkman.

“You know.  Dr. Brown from the Back to the Future documentaries,” said Harvey.  “They really were captivating.  I was always trying to figure out how they got the camera crew back in time.”

“Of course, Dr. Brown.  I can’t believe I’ve met someone who remembers the good doctor’s work,” Dr. Bjorkman said.  “We have been trying to get his energy requirement much smaller.  That many gigawatts are unsafe.”

That made Harvey sit up and take notice.  “Really?” asked Harvey, “You’ve managed to get the number down below 1.21 gigawatts?”

“Much lower,” said Dr. Bjorkman.  “We are now in the terawatt range.”

Harvey shook his head in disbelief.  “That is amazing.  You are doing some amazing work here,” Harvey said.  “So you said in your ad that for ten large you will allow me the honor of being the first to use your device to go into the future?”

Dr. Bjorkman nodded.  “That’s all it takes.  And don’t worry about anything.  I have tested it on mice and a chimp.  The only side effect seemed to be a bit of dry mouth and a headache,” Dr. Bjorkman said.

Harvey reached into his pocket and took out a wad of bills.  “It’s all here,” Harvey said.  “You can count it if you want.”

Dr. Bjorkman hastily stuffed the money into his pocket.  “No need.  I trust you implicitly,” he said.  “So when do you want to leave?”

Harvey took out the phone and checked for messages.  Luckily six pm on a Friday was pretty dead for him. Harvey was so ready to put 2015 away for good.  He put away the phone into his pocket.   “Why not right now?” he asked.

Dr. Bjorkman clapped his hands together once.  “Very good,” he said.  He pulled out a blue pill from a drawer.  “Here, take this.  It will make you sleepy.”

Harvey looked at the pill.  “Shouldn’t it be a red pill?”

“I am out of the red ones,” Dr. Bjorkman said.  “Take it or leave it.”

Harvey took the pill and swallowed it right down.  “What’s it going to do?” Harvey asked.

“It will make you sleepy,” Dr. Bjorkman said.  “I have found it a lot harder to make things go into the future if they are aware of what is happening.”

“That makes perfect sense,” Said Harvey.  His eyes began to droop.  “How will I find you in the future?” he asked in between yawns.

“Don’t look for me.  I’ll find you,” Dr. Bjorkman said.  “Just remember to reads the note when you wake up.”

“What did you say?” asked Harvey.  Or at least that’s what Harvey tried to say, but the drug made it sound more like, “Wajusy?”

“Read the note,” Dr. Bjorkman yelled as Harvey passed out.

 

---

 

 

Harvey emerged from sleep slowly.  His head felt like he had head butted a jackhammer.  He tried to whimper, but there wasn’t enough saliva in his mouth to do much of anything.  Gently he opened his eyes to find himself lying on the ground.  In front of him on the floor was a water bottle and a note.  Harvey grabbed the water bottle and guzzled it down.  He managed to maneuver himself into a sitting position.

Harvey was amazed at how much had changed in the future.  The room was completely empty.  Even the chair he had been sitting in was gone.  Harvey wondered how far into the future he had gone for the lab to be completely dismantled.  Harvey picked up the note and opened it.  The only thing said was, “Welcome to the future.”  Harvey smiled, enjoying his moment.  “I wonder what amazing things I’m going to see.”  Harvey said to the empty room.

Harvey gingerly stood up and felt his thigh almost cramp.  He went to massage away the pain when he realized he had been lying on his cell phone.  He took it out, and by some miracle it still had power.  “The future is amazing,” he said to himself as he unlocked it.  Harvey looked closer at the date.   According to his phone it was now Sunday.  Harvey got excited until he realized it was still 2015.  He had only traveled two days into the future!

Harvey went from being pissed to laughing.  You get what you paid for.  The doctor must have counted what Harvey had given him before sending him into the future.  “I knew I shouldn’t have tried to trick him.  He created time travel for goodness sakes.  I was just trying to save a couple of thousand for the interest,” he said as he shuffled to the door.

Harvey let himself out the door and into his cheaper future.

Time Travel Can Be Hard Time

The prison gate swung open and Ferris walked out of the walls that had held him closed in for over half a century.

“How does it feel?” asked Marvin.  Marvin had been a guard at the prison for over six years.  Ferris liked the kid, but he could be too much a hard ass.

Ferris gestured back at the prison.  “When I came through these gates, I was a demon.  I killed a family for some drinking money.”  Ferris looked at the bus waiting to take him to a half way house.  “Now I realize I wasn’t a demon, but a time traveler.  I get to see how everything has changed.”

“Just watch out.  Some things haven’t changed,” said Marvin.

“Like what?” asked Ferris.

“There are still demons who kill for drinking money.  Don’t reconvert,” said Marvin as he shook Ferris’ hand.  “Take care and I better not see you on this side of the walls again.”

Ferris tipped his hat, exposing his grey wispy hair.  “No more demons for me,” said Ferris.  “and no offense, you can keep your walls.  I’m sick of living in a castle. ”

And with that Ferris walked onto the bus.  “Take me to the future,” he said as the doors closed.

Quantum Leap of Faith

Thomas worked down the checklist one more time.  All the equipment checked out.  It was finally time to give this a try.  “It looks like it’s time for me to pack my bags.”

A mop of red hair poked out from the other room.  “Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked.

“Elsa, this is going to go down in history.  I want to be the first real time traveler,” Thomas said.

Elsa popped her head back out of the room.  “It’s your funeral,” she said.

Thomas left the equipment room and went into the control room.  Elsa was still doing a few diagnostics while watching some anime on at least half of the other seven monitors in the room.  “Really?  That’s what I get for doing something for humanity?”

Elsa closed one of the diagnostic windows.  “What do you want from me, a medal?” Elsa asked.  “I still say do some more testing with Pinky.”  She pointed to the skinny white mouse twitching in his cage.  “Better him than you.”

“Elsa, Pinky has done his part,” Thomas countered.  “Besides, he still hasn’t fully come back to himself this last time.”  Thomas hurried into the small office, closing the door.  He began stripping down.  “Now remember,” Thomas shouted through the door, “ send Raul to the GPS coordinates after I leave, not before.  I don’t want any problems with causality.  I’ve worked out a system to get close enough using technology of the day to bury my time capsule at that spot.”  Elsa mumbled something from the other room.  “Elsa, you need to promise me.”  On went garb fitting the time period.  He groomed his beard as he looked in the mirror.  Definitely could be an extra in a movie from the period.

Thomas threw open the door and struck a pose in front of Elsa.  “Ta-da!  So what do you think?  Does it look sheik?”  he asked.

“Makes me want to shriek, and not in a good way,” Elsa replied.  “Look, we both know this is a one way trip, so why go back then?”

“I want to prove my faith.  I want to go back and meet my savior face to face,” Thomas replied.

“You’re going to meet him all right, when you end up at the pearly gates,” Elsa said.

Thomas shoved what he was going to take on the trip into a camel hair sack.  “You heathen.  You don’t believe that,” he said.

She grinned and placed her hands over her heart.  “You really do listen to me,” she said.

“I don’t know why sometimes,” Thomas said.  He rushed over and gave Elsa a hug which she returned tepidly.  As he let go he gave her a kiss full on the lips.  “For luck of course,” he said.

Elsa slapped him across the face.  “For not asking,” she replied.

Thomas rubbed his cheek.  “Sorry.  Remember not to-“

“Send the GPS coordinates till after you leave,” Elsa said.  “Yeah, I know.”

Thomas clutched at his heart.  “You really do listen to me,” he said in a falsetto voice.

Elsa picked up a Sailor Moon plushy and chucked it at Thomas’ head, missing but hitting him where his hand was on his heart.

Thomas picked up the plushy and placed it on the table.  “Really, thanks for working with me on this,” he said.

“Thank you for letting me,” she replied softly.  “Now get going before I cry and fry this equipment.”

Thomas grinned and gave her a thumbs up.  He ducked back into the instrumentation room and moved onto the platform.  He thought back to Samuel Beckett and watching him leap through time.  “I wish I had an Al,” Thomas whispered.

“What did you say boss?” Elsa said over the loudspeakers.

“Just a quick prayer,” replied Thomas.  “Start up the sequence.  I don’t want to waste any more time.”

“Very funny boss,” Elsa said.

Suddenly there was a hum of the machine coming to life.  The room darkened as the equipment demanded all the power it could find.  It needed it to show time who’s boss.  Thomas began to feel light headed.  The feeling turned into feeling like he was two places at once, each part pulling on him.  It hurt so bad, mentally and physically.  Thomas could feel himself dissolving, losing himself to the ocean of pain.  “God help me,” he prayed.  “Give me strength.”  Thomas felt his whole body and mind shift, just as he passed out.

 

Elsa watched as one bank after another of the giant capacitors burst into flame, causing the sprinklers to kick in.  Since they had built this lab in a residential space, the sprinklers weren’t built for electronics so water rained down destroying more and more of the machine.  Elsa looked at Pinky as water rained down on her cheeks in solidarity with the sprinklers in the next room.  “Do you think he made it?” she asked the mouse.  Pinky didn’t reply.

 

Thomas opened his eyes and his vision was blurred.  It took blinking numerous times to get to the point of seeing more than blobs.  A hand touched him on the shoulder and Thomas could see his vision clear immediately.  Thomas turned and saw a man with the kindest eyes he had ever seen.  He bowed and said in Aramaic, “Teacher, I have come to find you.”

Jesus smiled.  “I know you have come a long way,” he said.  “From now on you will be known as Judas of Iscariot.”

Thomas blacked out again.

 

Raul found the GPS coordinates and began to dig.  It was twelve feet down. But he found the small capsule that Thomas had promised would be there.  Raul quickly called Elsa.  “The son of a bitch made it Elsa.  I have the capsule.”

“Open it,” said Elsa.  “What’s in it?”

Raul opened the capsule.  He pulled out a piece of clay tiled.  “He left a piece of tile.”

Elsa sounded excited.  “We can carbon date that puppy.  We will know when he went.  Anything else?”

Raul flipped the tile over. “There is something scratched on the tile.  It says ‘By having faith I betrayed my religion.’”

 

Thomas looked on the cross and wept.  He slipped out of the crowd and looked to give back the silver.  He wondered if the machine would recall him soon.  Thomas thought about what he would have to do soon and thought about the sacrifice he had just helped make.  He found his way down by the river and threw the capsule in.  Assuming he had the currents right, this was about the right spot.

Thomas watched the sun go black and knew his part was almost over.  Time to find someone who would let him borrow some rope.