Out Of Time (edit pending)

CHAPTER 7

Michael awoke ashamed of himself. All the signs had been there from the very beginning. He was no longer sure he was much better than Phil and Lewis. They were content to ignore the “flaw” and remove it instead of investigating. In doing so they threw away what could have been the biggest breakthrough in scientific history. And here he was, once he was able to isolate and adjust the pulses, discovering it was time that was being predictably affecting and all but forgetting above the movement and speed changes that originally led him to believe it was teleportation he had stumbled upon.

Michael had of course tested the stunt with the basketball multiple times over before invading the board meeting. He knew there was no danger of it hitting Ryan. After that though, he all but forgot the variation in location. Well okay, that wasn’t quite right. He was intrigued by that aspect of the project as well, but he had decided that it could be set aside for now. Noting that so long as the subject was completely still when pulsed it would not move a hair when it returned, he chose to postpone investigating the possibility of movement until the rest had been perfected.

Now everything he had pushed aside came crashing back down on him. Sometimes the particles would return traveling in the other direction, or they would come back behind themselves. Their momentum had always decreased, and sometimes they had all but stopped. Now basketballs hung in midair, the sun failed in its attempt to produce light, as did the headlights of cars that were in gear but without operator and appearing to be quite parked. Then there was the grass. Seeing it suspending next to the mower chute like that had disturbed him greatly, but now he understood. It was shocking, and disappointing of course, but all made perfect sense.

He had read numerous books in his time (not to mention watching tv shows and movies) that dealt with time travel. Apparently he wasn’t the only one way off the mark on how time travel would work. The entire world seemed to think that if it ever became possible you could just go anywhere (or anywhen) you wanted. It should be just as easy as choosing a point in the river to jump into.

Turns out time itself was not a river after all. Apparently time was simply a boat traveling down the river. Well the good news is he wasn’t stranded in this limbo permanently. Each and every subject  (microscopic and otherwise) that had ever been subjected to the pulse had all returned. In the same location? No. But that made perfect sense now, they simply continued on with what they were doing while waiting for time to catch up. All he had to do now was wait for the boat to arrive!

Keeping that realization in mind he did eventually make it through those ten days but beyond a doubt they were the hardest and longest days of his life. There was no power for cooking and the baked beans and chef boyardee were particularly bland and nearly tasteless. Like the air, taste (and scent) had gone stale. He could not bear to sit and stare at the walls so he walked. He never had a destination and never walked the same path twice.

His route varied intentionally so as he could see the most of this frozen world and break the monotony of it as much as possible. On the third day he found himself a favorite view and almost every random route he took since then brought him by it at least once. Originally it was the lawnmower that requested the most of his attention. That, however, was before he had past the Fischer house. The Fischers have the largest front yard in town. Ten days after Michael had sent himself into the future they were apparently watering the grass. There were streams of water everywhere, and shooting out from all the streams were individual drops suspended in mid air. Not only that but one of the sprinklers only sent water out about 5 inches then the streams broke and went everywhere but forward. Apparently one of the Fischer kids was jumping through this sprinkler at this very moment, or would be once this very moment arrived. It appeared as though the air was full of slivers of diamonds, they did not appear to be liquid at all. Michael had stuck his arm in a few times and it did indeed come out wet, but without that contact it would have been hard to convince his eyes that it was really water.

Their yard calmed him almost as much as the mower had disturbed him. It was added to every walk he took because without it this world might just drive him crazy. And that was all he did, he ate, he slept, he walked. By the time he returned from a walk he was ready for more sleep. The air did him in every time. This is what made the ten day wait so unbearable. With no working time pieces and no change in the perpetual twilight he found himself in, the only thing he might have been able to judge the passing of the days with would have been how often he slept. The stale thick air stole that “time piece” from him as well.

Then came the day, as he was turning from the water and preparing to head home to get some more sleep, that the world caught up. At first he thought he was having a heart attack, or maybe a stroke. There was no pain, but the hair on the back of his neck stood on end and he felt as if all the air was sucked out of him. Clutching his chest Michael was about to drop to his knees when he discovered he could breathe again. He could really breathe again! Little Suzie squealed with joy as she came splashing through the sprinkler in the center of the lawn. It was already to late when her dad Timothy called out warning Michael that he was going to get sprayed coming so close to the sprinkler. It’s a good thing he was as close as he was. Without the water hitting him in the face he may not have come out of his daze.

Without a word in response he turned and ran for home.