story: Just in Time

Just in Time

by Rod Drake - mrdrake (at) cox.net

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“Time is not linear. It’s circular. Actually, it’s more like a loop, endlessly spinning.”

“So everything runs over and over again?”

“Right. That’s makes time travel possible, although you’re not really traveling through time. Imagine time like a carousel; you merely need to wait until the animal you want to ride comes around and then step aboard. The animal is a moment in time; the carousel is the time loop. If you miss it the first time, it doesn’t matter; it will be around again soon.”

“So, how did you get here from the future? If you’re from the future?”

“Now that would be telling. But you don’t need a time machine or any such elaborate science fiction device. Just an understanding of how time flows. And knowing where the holes in the flow are.”

“Holes?”

“Anomalies. Singularities. Essentially gauze-like areas that let time curve and retain its loop shape. Also to allow for branching time.”

“And branching time is?”

“Time that proceeds from an event, a decision. Each event has limitless outcomes; if you go to work, one timeline develops; if you don’t, a different timeline is created.”

“How do all of these multitudes of timelines fit together?”

“They don’t. The correct timeline becomes dominant, and the others spin off into pocket time universes. However, pocket time universes sometimes create real problems, aligning themselves with the dominant timeline and influencing it, sometimes changing it. But to answer your original question, I just slip through one of the holes in the “gauze” at the moment in time that I want to visit.”

“Why did you choose here? Or rather, now?”

“Good question. Normally I would say it’s better that you don’t know. By knowing, you might influence or change things. But this time I guess it won’t hurt anything.”

“Why not? Or can’t you tell me that either?”

“Because you won’t live long enough to affect anything.” Then the time traveler pulled out a cell phone-looking device, aimed it at his companion and clicked it. His companion disappeared like a television set being turned off.

The time traveler clicked a different button on the same device and held it up to his face. “The subject who created the branching timeline earlier today has been neutralized. The end of the world has been postponed. Time is running,” he smiled wryly to himself, “back on time again.”

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bio: Rod Drake lives and writes in Las Vegas. He is not a Desolation Angel, a Dharma Bum, a Subterranean nor is he On the Road. Read Rod’s other stories posted in Flashing in the Gutters, Flashes of Speculation, Fictional Musings, Flash Flooding and AcmeShorts.