The first thing I asked my wife when I woke up this morning was, "What time would it have been yesterday at this time?" After some swift mental calculations it appears I have arrived at my destination.
You see I am part of a small group of scientists who have actually broken through the time barrier. We have spent endless hours of intense dedication; depriving ourselves of even the most basic of human needs; slaves to achieving a goal that others have merely scoffed at. We are a team of three men and seven women, a ratio I naturally decried considering women-kinds track record for getting anywhere on time. But given enough time (ha-ha-ha-ha) we were able to overcome even that!
Where do I start? Let's see. Oh . . . we initially set a modest jump goal of just one hour. This way all of the principals would be in place, the synchronometers could be synchro-whatevered and we'd kinda know if it worked. After much discussion we decided a trip backward one hour would give us the most information. This was so because we could have one of our team, and all of his future knowledge, reporting directly back to us from the past. That and we were afraid that if we sent someone one hour into the future, they may not recognize us when the rest of us got there the old fashioned way.
My first impulse, upon waking, was to throw open the sash and shout down to the newsboy, inquiring to as to the date. But I live in a single story house in the country and none of that stuff is there. So I sprang to the Internet instead.
We had had many discussions prior to my momentous trip into our recent past. They went something like this:
"So, if I make it, safely, one hour into the past, will it get light earlier or later?'
"Earlier." Larry said.
"Later." Steve insisted immediately.
"Guys . . . Guys!" I shouted. "We will have plenty of time for you two to wrestle with your conflicting time theories, later."
"Yeah," said Maureen. "At least an hour."
"You see," Steve snapped back. "She is always taking his side!"
"Gentlemen, ladies, perhaps we should begin with an easier problem." I tried to reason with them. "If I am successful, I expect to relive the hour I have traversed and to see everything you have seen again. At some point, our time-lines will merge and I will be able to rejoin you. When that happens, will it get dark later or earlier?"
"Earlier," said Larry
"Later!" Steve insisted again.
I saw I was not going to break this deadlock of powerful wills any time soon. Nina looked at Maureen and said, " 'At least an hour.' I just got that!"
"Look," I said. "Every time we all get together we always get bogged down in your complex theories. Earlier! Later! Is it not possible for us to come up with a Unified Theory that takes the best of both arguments and . . . I don't know . . . unifies them?"
It was like a bomb went off in the room. Everyone was silent for a moment. Processing my bold new suggestion. Thinking. Suddenly three people sprang to their white boards and began scribbling frantically. Two others were typing rapidly on their notebook keyboards. The rest of us held our breath. Praying.
"I have it!" Larry and Steve shouted simultaneously.
"What?" I cried out for the rest of us. Anticipating. Hoping.
"Well," Larry began. "You really gave us the idea." he said looking at me. "Your so-called Unified Theory got me to thinking that we should take into account space as well as time. "
"And mass." Steve interrupted.
"Yes." Larry answered. Peering at Steve over the tops of his reading glasses. "And mass. But for any of this to work we must hit the window precisely. No variations. According to my calculations . . . that window will be . . . " He continued to scribble his neat little hieroglyphs as he spoke. " . . . at 2 AM on October 29th. And . . . " he wrote a few more lines, "when you arrive . . . It will still be night." He stood back, replacing the marker in the wooden trough and re-examined his work. "It will still be night," he repeated.
"So should I prepare to see dawn earlier or later?' I queried.
"Earlier." Larry said with finality.
"Later!" Steve insisted -- yet again.
"Listen to me, everybody." Maureen spoke up. "I have listened to your theories all night. Sometimes we just have to take a desperate leap into the unknown and see what life throws at us. Steve, if we are successful, Johnny can leave a note for our future selves and we can get the final pieces of the puzzle through real-time, scientific data. Until then, we need you two to work together. Johnny is willing to risk his life for this. It has to work!"
So that was pretty much how it happened. At precisely 2 AM on October 29th, 2007, I became the first man to travel back into the mists of time. At least I think I did. I sorta fell asleep around 1:30 and when I woke up it was 6:40 and the sun was already up. All I could do now was to try and blend in and wait until night fall.
I didn't know if that would occur closer to 5 PM or 7 PM. But, either way, I must leave a note for Steve. I owe him that much.
In the mean time, I'm thinking about calling someone in Arizona to find out what time it would be if they were here.
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