the Story Shop

by Peter Ponzo

  She rotated the dial and the pointer slid left, midway along the horizontal bar. Then she pressed the large purple button which initiated the insertion.

  Chapter Two

  "Okay, if time travel were possible, then you could go back and kill your mother and you'd never be born…so how could you be here, in the present?"

  That was Neil. He was the bank manager at Unibank One, just down the street on Brant. He usually started sentences with '0kay' and his cheeks got quite pink when he was excited. They were pink now.

  "Suppose you went back a year or two and met yourself? Has that ever happened? Have you ever read anything about a twin suddenly appearing out of nowhere? No, of course not. That proves that time travel doesn't happen, doesn't it?"

  That was George. He looked like a wrestler but was really a sweetheart with a heart of gold–and he made the world's greatest sourdough buns at his bakery on Fairview Road. Unless you saw him in his kitchen it would be difficult to imagine his making dainty cupcakes. His hands were like ham hocks with digits.

  I finished the sandwiches in the kitchen: pastrami on rye with Swiss cheese and a touch of dijon and mayo. When I brought them to the poker table, Neil was getting pinker.

  "Okay, maybe when you go back in time you re-inhabit the same body. How about that?" he said. "Then there are never two of you."

  George pushed the cards to the side and I put the plate of sandwiches in the centre of the table.

  "I dunno," I said. "Would you carry back the memories you have of the present? Would yourself, a year ago, suddenly have knowledge of the future, just because you went back and entered your own body? I doubt that has ever happened."

  "Déjà vu."

  That was Samuel Blocker, physics teacher extraordinaire. He taught at Burlington Secondary School and has won several awards as outstanding teacher of the year. One might call him cerebral. He didn't speak much, except to a class full of students, and it was usually about physics or technology.

  "Déjà vu?" I said, pausing between bites. "What do you mean?"

  Sam rubbed his chin and explained. "You normally consider déjà vu as imagining you've seen or experienced something in the past. But maybe it's something from the future, a future image. Then–"

  "Okay!" Neil was quite pink now. "That's the memory you carry back with you when you re-enter your own body. Of course, you've seen it before, that déjà vu image, but you saw it in the future, not the past!'

  I finished my sandwich, wiped the mayo from my lips and held up my hand. "Hold on,' I said. " I think that the key, the proof–if there is proof–is whether it's actually happened. If somebody actually saw something from the future, then surely we'd have read about it. I mean, what kind of future images are we talking about?"

  There was a moment of silence while everybody chewed.

  "How about space ships?" George said. "Or maybe pictures of stars or galaxies…and like that?"

  "Does anyone here have déjà vu episodes–often?" Sam asked. "If so, he could tell us what he saw. Personally, I've never had such an episode."

  "Okay, I do." Neil seemed hesitant. "Not that often, but once a month, maybe."

  "How about we meet back here on the evening when Neil has a déjà vu event?"

  Everyone agreed. We finished the sandwiches and beer, put away the cards and said goodbye at the door. I would be very surprised if Neil's episodes provided any images of the future, but it was a good excuse to get together again.

  It was about two weeks later that Neil phoned.

  "Okay, I had one, a strange one. Maybe not the future, but strange nevertheless."

  "Great. I’ll call everyone to find a time when we can all make it. I'll ask George to bring along sourdough buns. He's always complaining about my wonder bread sandwiches."

  It was a Wednesday evening and everyone arrived at exactly 7 pm, George with a bag of buns, Neil with a case of cold beer and Sam with several packages of assorted salamis and cheeses. They all waited patiently while I made a plateful of sandwiches. I could tell by the irrelevant chatter in the dining room that no one wanted to begin the discussion until we were all prepared to hear Neil's story. I plunked the plate on the table and we all looked at Neil.

  "Okay, I had a hard time falling asleep, busy day at the office. My assistant manager wanted a vacation week in July, but that's the most popular month and several of my staff–"

  "Neil, please. What about the deja vu stuff," George said.

  "Ah, yes," Neil said. "Okay, it was a strange image–"

  "Are you going talk about a dream?" Sam said. "Déjà vu isn't about dreams."

  "No, no, I was lying in bed, trying to fall asleep, then decided that I might as well get up and go for a walk. That usually relaxed me, so I put on a housecoat and started walking down the street. It was dark except for the street lamps and the street was deserted. That was when I saw it. It looked like a column of smoke, rising from the middle of the road. I stopped and stared and the smoke sort of oscillated because there was a slight breeze. I remember seeing something like that before."

  Neil paused and looked about. We were staring.

  "Is that it?" George asked.

  "Yes, that's it. But it was quite familiar. I don’t know when, but I'm sure I saw it before…and that's déjà vu!"

  "Did it last long, the column of smoke?" Sam asked.

  "No, in fact, it faded almost at once," Neil said.

  "Is there a sewer grate on your road?" Sam asked.

  "Uh…let me think. Yes! There is!" Neil said.

  "Just where you saw the steam rising, right?" Sam asked.

  Neil looked kind of sad. "Okay," he said, "that must have been it. A mist rising from the sewer grate. Now I remember where I've seen it before. It was the last time I went for a midnight walk."

  We all stopped talking and concentrated on eating salami and cheese on sourdough buns. At least the night wasn't a total waste. The sourdough sandwiched were great.

  Chapter Three

  Llana slumped in her seat. "Failed…again," she said.

  Kkano chuckled. "I was sure it wouldn't work properly. They are too stupid. Their minds are too simple, too immature. How can you be sure of the image you insert? It's a stupid enterprise. I don't know why Clarions want to do it. Surely we have more important things to do, to amuse ourselves."

  "But Clarions have been doing this since the beginning of time," Llana responded. "I have been training for almost one circuit. It's an honour to be chosen. It's in our nature. "

  "In your nature, not mine. It's a game, amusement, invented–well, actually discovered–hundreds of circuits ago. I think the original discoverers were so shocked to find the key to image insertion in alien species that they almost gave away the machines for nothing…as a toy."

  Llana growled. Her antenna vibrated and her eye flickered open and closed several times. "I just need to adjust the temporal volatility," she said. "It's far too haphazard. It picks up a local image to insert but it's always a random image from the same locale as the animal…and usually from its past. How far in the past? I don't know, but if I move the pointer farther to the left, the image is farther in the past."

  Kkano closed his eye. He was still smiling as he spoke. "If you set the time into their future, then even if the image is random, maybe it'll insert something which is not from their present or their past. Try it!"

  "Something from their future? Is that possible? I don't think this machine is made for future images, is it?"

  "I don't know why you were put in charge of the imager if you don't know that," Kkano snorted.

  Llana rotated the time dial and pushed the pointer to the far right of the horizontal bar, where its width was reduced to zero…then beyond, into the purple area. "That's not allowed, you know," she said. "I don't think this is the way one uses the temporal imager."

  "So what does that purple area signify?"

  "I'm not sure. The farther to the left I move the pointer, the father back in time is
the image which is inserted. If I go beyond the right end…I don't know."

  "Try it! I suspect that's a future image, don't you think?" Kkano asked, opening his eye. "After all, it's to the right, opposite to the direction for the past.

  "I have no idea what'd happen. I've only used the region to the left, never beyond the red bar to the left and certainly not to the right. That's what the manual suggests. This is the first time I've set it to what might be future. In fact, I'm not sure the imager will even work at this setting."

  "Can you choose an image? What do you think they'll see?"

  "I don’t know that, either. I don't think I can choose an image."

  "Who will you select to view the future image?"

  Llana sat back on her haunches, pulled at her antenna and stared at the ceiling. "Good question. Maybe the same animal I tried last time."

  "You mean when you generated the image of a sewer?" Kkano couldn't help himself. He began to laugh. "Sorry," he said. "It was just so funny."

  Llana punched him in the head. "Pay attention," she said…and they both sat back to watch.

  The display flickered for a moment then cleared to show a room with four animals sitting about a table. They were playing some sort of game.

  "Which animal?" Kkano asked, his eye fixed to the imager screen.

  "I can't remember," Llana whispered. "I'll try that one." She pointed at George.

  Chapter Three

  "I've never had a déjà vu thing, at least not that I remember" George was saying. "But I can actually imagine what it would look like."

  "You can?" Sam said. "What do you mean?"

  "Well, I can imagine what I'd see–if I did have a déjà vu. In fact, I can visualize it right now. It's something new, for me. It's sort of like a TV image where there's a picture of something."

  "Are you kidding?" Sam said. "Right now you're seeing an image? What image. That's not the way déjà vu works. With déjà vu, you see something and–"

  "Let George tell us what he sees," Neil said.

  I pointed to George. "You're on, Georgie boy."

  George set his cards on the table and closed his eyes. "It's pretty dark," he said. "It's also quite colourful…purple mostly. It's like looking into a TV set. There are two creatures sitting and watching a screen. They're really weird. They have a single eye and a spear of some sort sticking out of their head. I think it's an antenna. And their skin is scaly with floppy ears and they seem to be concentrating, leaning toward to what looks like a TV and–"

  "They're watching TV?" Sam asked.

  "Can you see what they're watching?" I asked. "Maybe a documentary on time travel."

  Neil laughed.

  George leaned forward, placing his huge hands on the table. "Wait…I see it now. The TV screen is…is…it's showing four people. Shit! It's us, here, at this table, eating sandwiches! Oh my God! That creature…it's turning around and looking straight at us!"

  Llana reached out and switched off the temporal imager.

  "From now on I'll stick to images from the past," she said.

  Kkano was doubled over, laughing.

  Chapter One

  It was such a strange set of events that I feel that I must write it down. It all started with a discussion of non-standard aliens at one of our sometime poker nights. There was Gordon, a butcher who supplied the meats for sandwiches, and Arthur who was most comfortable talking about home renovations and Johnny the scientist who usually said very little, and, of course, me, Sal, a high school teacher and the only bachelor–which explains why the poker games were always at my place.

  It was on the third Thursday in July and I was making the sandwiches in the kitchen, but I heard the conversation in the living room.

  "…but why are all aliens depicted as being six feet tall, with human appendages? Funny faces, sure, but why cartoon characters?" Arthur was talking.

  "Yeah," said Gordon. "Why not very small life forms…or very large?"

  "The possibilities range from bacteria to brontosaurus," Arthur laughed.

  "Can you imagine a human talking to a bacteria?" Gordon said, joking.

  "Or a brontosaurus," I said, carrying the tray of salami sandwiches into the living room. "In fact, why a material alien? Why not pure energy?"

  Arthur pushed the cards from the center of the table and I set the tray down.

  "Or maybe that dark energy stuff?" Gordon said.

  "Or, better still, dark matter," Arthur added.

  "You can't see dark matter, can you?" Gordon asked, turning to Johnny.

  John Richmond was chief cook and bottle washer at the GAD Collider. He had been listening, but stayed silent. He was usually quiet, pensive, but a helluva poker player.

  "Uh…dark matter, yes, invisible," Johnny said, quietly. "Twenty-five percent of the matter in the universe. But invisible, yes."

  Everybody started in on the sandwiches, yet Johnny seemed meditative.

  "Why the long face, Johnny?" I asked. "You afraid you might run across a brontosaurus in that particle accelerator of yours?"

  Johnny smiled, weakly. "I…I just thought, well…last week we had an accident…I can't understand how…"

  He lay down his sandwich, half-eaten. He looked pale.

  "What's wrong?" I asked. "Can I get you an aspirin or something"

  "No…but this accident was associated with…with dark matter," he said. "I'm now convinced of that."

  Now everyone stopped eating and stared intently at Johnny. "Dark matter is everywhere. Not visible, but it must be there, everywhere, in order that…so that the equations work…the necessary gravitational force fields. The object wasn't real…not real matter."

  With that, Johnny stood and excused himself.

  "Wait! You're not leaving, are you?" I asked. "We haven't finish–"

  "Yes, I must leave. I am…I'm sorry."

  "What object?" Gordon asked. "You said it wasn't real? What does that mean?"

  Johnny grabbed his coat and left without looking back. We never saw John Richmond again–at least not the same John Richmond.

  Chapter Two

  It was several days before we learned of Johnny's disappearance. Apparently, he was at the lab after he left us, on poker night. The guy on guard duty said that Johnny looked pale and walked with a wobble, staggering. He also said that, although he was on duty until 7 am, he never saw Johnny come out. The police searched Johnny's apartment, but found nothing to indicate foul play. After a week, the search was called off.

  We gathered together the next poker night, but with just the three of us, we just sat and discussed Johnny's disappearance.

  "He did seem out of touch," Arthur commented, "like he was thinking about something."

  "Something about dark matter, wasn't it?" Gordon said.

  "He talked about some accident and some strange object. Anybody know what that was about?" I asked.

  We all looked at each other. That was something we had to investigate.

  The next day we met in front of the GAD Collider building, about ten miles out of town. I told everyone to be dressed in a suit and tie. It was a small building, above ground, but huge under ground. The particle accelerator, I understood, was miles long, a gargantuan circle. We went straight away to the reception desk.

  "We've come to see Dr. John Richmond," I said, knowing full well that he was missing.

  "I'm afraid Dr. Richmond is not…uh, he hasn't been in for some time," the girl said.

  "Can we speak to his supervisor?" I asked.

  "Well, Dr. Richmond was the supervisor, I guess you'd say. At least he was the head of research."

  "Then could we speak to someone else in the same area, someone who knew and worked with Dr. Richmond. We have some sad news regarding John's…well, that's actually personal."

  The girl looked confused, then punched a button and said in almost a whisper, "Dr. Sloan, could you please come to the front desk?"

  We waited for about ten minutes before this Sloan guy showed
up, pretty peeved. He turned to the gal at the desk and said in a whisper that we could all hear: "I am not to be disturbed. Don't you know that?" The he turned to us. "What do you want? I'm quite busy."

  Gordon was about to say something when I said, "The dark matter accident that happened a couple of weeks ago. We're here to investigate the circumstances under which that occurred and in particular the object associated with that incident."

  Sloan looked quite shocked. "What do you know about that?"

  "That's of no concern of yours," I said. "We're here on behalf of the CI Agency and need to know the details of the accident."

  I left it unclear just what this 'CI agency' was. If Sloan asked, I'd tell him it was none of his business. Fortunately, he didn't ask. In fact, he looked rather anxious and waved us in the direction of a door as though he were eager to talk to us. We followed, took a down elevator and exited into a large lab filled wall to wall with instruments that flashed and winked and hummed. No one spoke. We followed him to a smallish office where he sat and pointed to the plastic chairs. We all sat.

  "Dr. Sloan…" I began.

  "Okay, let me explain," Sloan said. "It wasn't my fault. John insisted that I recalibrate the collider. How was I to know that that particular calibration hadn't been tried before? It was way beyond the standard particle spectrum. Richmond said he wanted to identify dark matter. That was foolish…and I told him so. No one had ever identified dark matter, but John's idea was based upon the equations that required this matter in order to stop galaxy collapse due to gravity."

  Sloan stopped and looked at his hands then pushed back a lock of hair from his forehead. He was clearly troubled.

  "It was Einstein's galactic constant, you see. Einstein himself said it was a big mistake to introduce the constant into general relativity, but John thought he could actually generate the value of the constant by considering the characteristics of dark matter. John's one hell of a good mathematician, but he ain't no Einstein. If Einstein said it was a mistake then–"