The Jump Journal

by Douglas Corriveau

  I guessed I showed that stuffed hunter’s trophy who was boss, because that shut him up good. As I drained the last of the bottle and peered through it like a hobo’s telescope, it occurred to me once again how low I’d fallen. I’d done well for myself during the last half century or so; exploring the frozen oceans with that Arctic fishing crew was certainly a highlight, as was my trip to Japan. There had been plenty of grand adventures and lovely people that I’d grown to respect and trust for the year that I’d known them. If only that were enough.

  After I had reached the end of my rope with the experiments, I’d thrown myself into every distraction imaginable to forget, for as long as I could, that on May 16th the world’s reset button would strike my efforts from existence and I’d be left to start 2012 once again. Back when I was more than a shell, I’d read an interview with an elderly Japanese man. He admitted to torturing Allied soldiers during World War II and when asked, he revealed the secret to breaking the human will: “It is simple,” he said, “Give a man nothing to live for, but do not let him die.” I scoffed at the time. How could a man lose faith in everything he holds dear? Now I knew. It was just a matter of time.

  Drained of tears and emotion after nearly four centuries, I just leaned heavily on the bar and heaved a sigh. The key-less drunk shuffled up to the bartender and repeated his distress to the exasperated woman. I shook my head dully. The pre-hangover ache quickly put a stop to that, but I continued to sympathize with the poor girl attempting to explain that they didn’t have his keys. I knew what it was like to repeat an activity over and over with the same results. The man wobbled unsteadily and a faint clink sounded from his pants pocket in response. My eyebrow shot up. There was no way.

  My curiosity was peaked, so I snuck up behind the man and eased a hand into his pocket. A metallic lump greeted my probing fingers, and sure enough, I pulled the drunkard’s “missing” keys out of his own pants. I glanced over my shoulder at the girl behind the bar, who clapped both hands over her mouth to stifle her laughter. I rolled my eyes. I spun the guy around and dangled his keys in his face.

  “You found ‘em!” he roared gleefully. The odor of cheap beer on his breath almost knocked me down. This fellow knew what he liked in his liquor and wasn’t afraid to over-indulge. He crushed me in a hug before I had time to protest. After he dropped me back to earth, he snatched a pen from a nearby table and started scrawling on his hand. The bartender and I exchanged puzzled looks.

  “Uhh, what are you doing?” I asked, not convinced I really wanted to hear the answer.

  “I-” he announced far too loudly, “-am writing a note! On my hand!”

  “Why are you-“

  “This hand!” he added helpfully, shoving it in my face as if it was unclear which hand he had made his “Etch-A-Sketch” markings on. With a little bit of effort, I translated the drunken chicken scratch.

  “ ‘Keys Left Pockat’” I read dubiously. “You spelled pocket wrong.”

  He didn’t seem to mind.

  “Now I’ll always know where they are!” he bellowed triumphantly. He slapped me hard enough on the back to leave a welt, winked to the bartender, and fell on his way through the door, roaring with laughter the whole way. I winced and stretched out my back. There’d be a handprint there tomorrow. I picked the pen up off of the floor and tossed it back to the barkeep.

  “Better keep this in case he comes back. He might need the other hand to remind him where he parked his car.”

  She smiled and nodded.

  “Not a bad idea. Thanks for helping him out, I never would’ve thought he had them the whole time.”

  “It was that or listen to him go through his song and dance again,” I snorted, regretting the animosity in my tone. “Really, though, writing on his hand?”

  “Hey, if it keeps him from doing the same thing over and over, I’m all for it.” She turned and whisked a tray of used cups off to the kitchen. I settled back onto my stool and attempted to take a swig from the empty bottle. I muttered a curse and readied myself for another jump back for a full one, but I stopped cold as a vague, loosely formed idea trickled through my hazy mind.

  That crazy drunk had gotten what he wanted: his keys. Once he had them, he was on his merry (albeit still wasted) way. And what was it that the bartender said? If it keeps him from doing the same thing over and over...I snatched the pen up off the bar where she’d left it. I finally had an original idea, a potential escape plan! I had to try it immediately! Right away! I dashed for the door, excitement and adrenaline coursing through me. I promptly tripped over a chair.

  Maybe it can wait.

  ****

  That next morning, I woke with a throbbing head, but my hopeful attitude from the night before lingered like a pleasant dream. I had an experiment to perform, and this one had the potential to change the game for good. First things first: I had to wake up a little.

  I made my way groggily to the kitchen sink and slapped my face with water from the tap, gasping as the icy liquid sucked the wind from my lungs. The super for the apartment complex had definitely lied to me about that new hot water heater; every ounce of water that spewed from these faucets was as cold as a shaved polar bear in the Arctic winter. I couldn’t complain, though. I was more than familiar with this sort of place. It was cheap for a reason, which placed it right within my usual low quality living spaces.

  I paced the floor, oblivious to the clothes strewn across the room. The details were crucial to this experiment. If I didn’t plan perfectly, there was virtually no chance of success, and I desperately wanted this to work. The variables and probable results crashed over me. It was overwhelming. Before my nerve broke completely, I glanced at my watch... 10:45 am. A shiver raced down my spine as I considered what I was about to attempt. Even the sight of echoes triggered all sorts of unpleasant memories. In the past, I’d chosen never to watch them vanish, but I’d also failed to consider that they might represent a way out.

  I hesitated one final time and braced myself, my mind spinning feverishly in search of words. I’d never had to talk to myself before, or at least not like this. The next words out of my mouth would be the most impor--

  I was sitting on the couch. I’d been standing one second ago, and now I found myself sprawled on the hideous plaid cushions with a dumbfounded expression plastered across my face. With growing urgency, I patted myself down in search of any lingering pain from jumping, but I found none. Clearly, I hadn’t jumped, but why couldn’t I account for the past? Well, I wasn’t even sure how long it’d been. I snatched up my fallen watch... 10:48 am. Three minutes of blank memory.

  A dumb smile grew until it almost split my face. It was just like I’d hoped; I finally had reason to hope again. I screamed in victory, but fell silent when an angry neighbor cursed me out from upstairs. I dropped to my knees, filled to the brim with joy, excitement, adrenaline, and a host of other emotions that I was too dazed to identify. Think back to your most amazing moment, maybe that soccer championship you won with an underdog team, and picture that pulse of victory multiplied by a hundred. No, a thousand! I’d never been happier to have holes in my memory, and I’ll tell you why.

  The night before, after the encounter with the drunk, I’d raced back to my pad (well, as quickly as I could while smashed) and snatched up a piece of paper. I’d been inspired; “If it keeps him from doing the same thing over and over”, the bartender had said. Echoes, the bizarre phenomenon created by jumping back to the moment of a previous jump, had been a constant source of pain for me. The night Tara left me, I’d come to a very loose conclusion that if I could stop an echo, then I wouldn’t have made that particular jump. At the time, I’d had zero evidence to support that idea, but it hadn’t mattered. The continuum was too strong at that point in the past, and no matter how I’d tried to go about it over the past four centuries, I ultimately failed.

  That night in the bar had triggered a whole new perspective, however. I’d been so obsessed on the big picture that, like an i
diot, I’d never thought to start small. So after I crashed through my front door at 2:00 am, I’d immediately ripped a page out of my current journal and left a set of experiment guidelines for myself the next morning. It went something like this:

  Pick a time to jump. Remember the exact time… it’s important.

  Jump back two minutes before that time and try to get the echo’s attention.

  If all goes well, he’ll see you and know that the plan worked. If you fail…...please don’t fail.

  That was the extent of the plan. To someone else, it probably looked a bit thin on paper, but it wasn’t. I’d only ever tried to talk to an echo in one time location, and that location was blocked by the Rubber Band effect. But this…this was new. When I’d made those instructions, I hadn’t had all of my wits about me, so I hadn’t considered the effects of stopping a jump in progress. Think about it for a second. If I jump backwards and stop myself from jumping backwards, then I’ve essentially created, and closed, an infinite loop. But what happens to the jumper who encounters the echo?

  I had the answer now. It was hidden in those missing few minutes.

  I had in fact jumped. Not “me”, per se, but the past version of me. The purpose of the instructions was to ensure that both the jumper and echo knew about the plan, so that when the jumper arrived, the echo would immediately know not to make the jump. Here’s what I didn’t foresee: As soon as the echo bailed on the jump, the jumper would cease to exist in the past. Obviously, if the echo representing the past self doesn’t travel back in time, then the jumper would never have to stop them. Once reality has changed, the echo and the jumper change roles, and the jumper fades from the timeline and from memory.

  Everything that I just explained was fleshed out later, over the course of the day. My celebration at that moment was just in recognition of the fact that I’d stopped myself from jumping. For the first few moments, I didn’t even bother to think. I simply knelt there on the floor, too full of exultation to move or speak. I could change my past. There was so much to think about, so much to plan! Could I go further back? Was there a way to remember the interaction between echo and jumper? Now that I knew it was possible, could there maybe, just maybe, be a way to close my year-long loop forever?

  The rest of that day (and week) were spent pouring over the research that I’d collected. Hours blurred together in a caffeine-fueled haze, full of frantically scratched hypotheses and poorly lit reading materials. I couldn’t begin to tell you how long that I slaved, feverishly scribbling as I attempted to craft an escape hatch with the knowledge that I had just gained. I didn’t eat. Or sleep. Nothing mattered except the work. It was only when I’d literally passed out from exhaustion that I decided I might be overworking myself.

  After recuperating for a day, I took a deep breath and eased myself back into the war zone of research. If only my teachers from high school could have seen me then. Who “doesn’t apply himself” now, Mrs. Gotel?? Still, I knew that just tossing theories around like a beach ball wouldn’t be enough; I had to keep experimenting. For convenience’s sake, I’ll dub the process that I was working on “loop closure” so you can follow along easily. At this point, I understood the following things: The jumper who closed the loop would disappear, taking the memory of the interaction with him, and the echo would become the reality. Honestly, that freaked me out. I knew that I was the same smartass kid that I’d been before that experiment, but it was discomforting to know that for one moment, there had been two of me. Echoes had been easier to dismiss when they were intangible.

  Anyhow, the two critical pieces of information to determine about loop closure were whether or not the jumper could impart information to the echo and if the loop closure process could take place despite the Rubber Band effect. For the next few weeks, I spent the majority of my time designing different tests. I wrote notes to myself, I tried taking videos of the loop closure, I even attempted a double loop closure to see if I could catch myself in the act. Nothing stuck. I always snapped back to consciousness, with no memory of the interaction. There was one peculiarity that I noticed after a while, however; the duration of the loop closure was proportional to the distance of the jump.

  Let me simplify. Imagine that there is a line between two points. Call them “A” and “B”, like thus “A---B”.

  “A” is the initial jump, “B” is the second jump, and the dotted line is the time in between the two. For example, I make the first jump (“A”). I wait four hours in between “A” and the second jump (“B”). What I discovered was that a four- hour gap created a memory lapse of about ten minutes. I determined that was the result of a third variable, “C”. It looks like this: “C… A---B”.

  “C” represents the path back to the original “A” jump point. So to follow through with our example, I had to double-back the full distance between A and B to get to C and close the loop. Doing so stretched out the timeline and bought me ten minutes with the echo.

  Granted, there was no proof of this concept outside of experience, but it seemed like the longer the path back to “A”, the more time it took for the continuum to realize that something was out of order and correct it. That is, a four hour jump gap created a ten minute memory blackout, an eight hour gap created twenty, a day-long gap pushed it up to an hour. You follow?

  Naturally, once I pieced this together, it became a huge source of curiosity. What had happened during these lapses that I didn’t know about? Had I just been sitting around shooting the breeze with myself? I bet I was great company. As I gave it more consideration, it occurred to me that I might be missing out on an opportunity of untapped potential. Maybe I’d failed to capture those moments in my memory because I hadn’t taken advantage of that time in the null zone.

  That thought was like a germ, spreading, replicating, and chewing away at my mind as I tossed away plan after plan, my frustration mounting with every failed attempt to break through the walls in my memory. As the balled-up drafts of experiments cluttered my floor, I felt the buzz of success fading away. What good was it if I could stop myself in controlled environments if I couldn’t make a lasting impression? After all, these experiments weren’t designed to satisfy scientific curiosity. The end goal was, and always had been, to intercept the echo at the beginning of the year. I’d been thrilled at my first successful loop closures, but as I continued, I’d realized that all the echoes that I’d stopped had wanted to be stopped.

  Since the echoes in the experiments were me from the recent past, they knew, or at least suspected, that they could be stopped by the jumper. The echo that I always encountered in August didn’t have that knowledge. What was to stop him from deciding to jump on another day after I’d evaporated from reality? It was too much to leave at stake. That’s why I needed some way to breach the memory barrier. If I could educate the echo about the cost of using our “gift”, then there was a chance of avoiding an era of suffering.

  I pounded my head against the wall. Every ounce of me was screaming to punch, kick, and howl against the powers that be. I was so close; the key to escape was there, I could sense it, but it was like trying to catch a sunbeam with a butterfly net. I begged, screamed, cajoled, bargained, and raged at myself to find the solution, but as days slid by with no progress, the undiscovered answer itched at me, persistent and growing, growing, growing, until-

  My head snapped up from the table. Bloodshot eyes flared wide and hands shaking, I hurriedly scrounged up a piece of paper. I had it! To this day, I don’t know if I had dozed off and dreamt it up, or some tiny spark of inspiration had completed the final piece. Just so I’m clear, by “having it” I mean that I’d created another experiment, not a firm answer. This was the ultimate test; a way to determine if permanent release from this loop was possible.

  I ripped my jacket off of its hook in my rush to exit the apartment. I needed a little help with this one. Surging with anticipation, I slammed the door behind me on my way out to the streets.

  Chapter 31


  The eleventh hour. The calm before the storm. A hush fell over the crowd. Humanity has coined some wonderful phrases for the breathless moment before a powerful event collides with the commonplace. Everyone has those moments. Some are full of fear, or maybe nervousness, as the skin crawls and butterflies dance chaotically in the belly. Others sing with ecstasy, like a family waiting to welcome its newest member into the world. It’s easy to get caught up in that sweeping tide of emotion, and forget for a second that one way or another, for better or worse, the moment of waiting will pass, and everything will change.

  Forever.

  ****

  She was certainly nice enough, although her eyebrows had the cock-eyed tilt of suspicion that said You’re crazy, aren’t you? To be fair, I probably looked the part of the local crazed hobo. I hadn’t showered in at least three days or paid the slightest attention to what I was wearing, a fact that I became painfully aware of as pedestrians sized me up on the sidewalk. I would have stared, too; mismatched socks covered with flip flops led up to raggedly frayed jeans, which were complimented by a too-small, neon green T shirt. The coup de grace was my black overcoat, open at the front to reveal the ridiculous outfit in all its glory. My wild hair and raccoon eyes didn’t help salvage my image, either.

  Despite the obvious visual deterrents, the girl that I approached was willing to give me a hand. I didn’t ask for much. All that I needed was a random topic written on a piece of paper, the first thing that popped into her head. The important thing, I told her, was that I didn’t see what she wrote before she put it into the envelope.

  “What’s this for, a magic trick?” she laughed.

  Sort of, I thought, but I kept it to myself. There was no point in trying to explain. I left her there thinking that I was some weirdo trying to hit on her. It was simpler that way. I made a mad dash back to the apartment, struggling to catch my breath as I prepped for the experiment.