Last Flowers Before Cemetery (short story)
The Doctor said, "Think of time as a pinwheel...as an infinite array of timelines radiating from a common point". It's great imagery, one I've held dear for quite some time. When I'd traveled to times where time travel was still pure fantasy, I'd seen these timelines referred to as "alternate universes", but that's not strictly speaking true. All of these variants of space/time, or what the Doctor called "instances", have emerged from the same point of origin and belong to the same universe, even if we as humans can only experience our small slice of it. Moving from one instance to a neighboring one is like moving from spoke to spoke on a bicycle wheel. It's actually easy, but with the caveat that you cannot return to your original instance. Once you leave, there's no going home. However, moving backwards in time is another matter altogether.
For you see, the second law of thermodynamics states that entropy increases over time, which is a fancy way of saying from order comes disorder. As time increases and we get further and further away from the point of creation, the universe grows colder and colder. This "time machine" works because it's an energy transference device. All it does is facilitate the trading of energy between two instances of different ages. SO, to travel back in time, I've always had to acquire (ahem steal) large amounts of ununoctium, plutonium, uranium, and other high-energy materials to move lil ole me. One time, I stored 1,000 barrels of petrol in a warehouse just to trade places with some unsuspecting poor soul that lived a hundred (or so) years before.
I've made the jump a few hundred times, and I'm none too proud of the way I did it. I've lied and cheated and stole from people to get what I needed and be on my way. I've hurt at least a dozen people... mostly guards or policemen of some sort. I was once completely surrounded by military police, armed with guns (how quaint!) and crude explosive devices. In another instance, I was chased by a fleet of police droids, and in a third instance, a horde of flying drones! And in every case, the outcome was the same. I'd hide while my PNDD (Personal Nano Defense Device) swarmed invisibly to my pursuers, infiltrating their bodies and sending them all into shock while I made my cowardly escape.
And yet, these days, I find myself thinking back to my original sin: Envy. I was a young student, failing out of University (the last such institution on Earth). Most people "learned" by having knowledge encoded directly to their brains versus learning the old fashioned way - through audio lessons and visual cues (quaint!). It was seen as a high honor to be able to attend school, and I was about to lose it. My physics professor, the good Dr. Santiago, had discovered a way to displace objects by moving them through space/time. He was the one that discovered that objects moved through space/time actually traded places with another object of similar displacement. As a twenty-two year old boy, I was enamored by his discoveries, but also insanely jealous. I was losing a key opportunity, while watching the Doctor achieve the success that I had always envisioned for myself. On the day I was supposed to move back home, I visited the good Doctor with my illegal PNDD and forced him to use his own machine. I laughed in amazement when the replacement soul that appeared before me was a younger version of himself from another instance! This Dr. Santiago was a mere child, stripped of his life just so I could take a little revenge on the universe. I became panicked and stole his backup device without a second thought. I hurried to my dorm room, where I prepared for a hasty exit.
I deserve to die for what I've done.
I've spent an entire lifetime jumping, at first to run away from my crime, and then somewhere along the way, to run into the good Doctor. To apologize for what I've done. I had hoped we would both arrive at the same idea - that as the only two time travelers in existence, that the only way we'd meet again is by traveling closer and closer to the center of the pinwheel...the point of origin. The further back we traveled, the lower the # of possible instances would exist and our chances of finding one another would increase. In this way, he could exact revenge upon me (if he wished) and I could express my remorse.
But, going back hundreds of years at a time is not fast enough. I'm well over 80 years old, and without access to modern medicine, I'm afraid I've made my last jump. I lay in a hospital, writing my final thoughts into this lap-based computing device in hopes that you find this, Dr. Santiago. I wanted to say that I'm sorry. I was a tortured child, a bad student and an evil man, one that ruined hundreds of lives just so I could find you in time and apologize to you in person. You were a good person who wanted to teach the world what was possible, and teach me about the consequence of time travel. I've learned more than I can handle. I've decided to spare more lives and abandon my quest to find you. I've found peace here - it's 2016 and it's a good a place as any to watch the world grow old.
A nurse brought me flowers, a beautiful bouquet of color that popped off of every stem. There was no note attached, so I did not know who to thank, but it did come with a small pinwheel. I don't know who this could have came from - one of the nurses, perhaps? - but I'd like to think it came from you.
Safe travels.
For you see, the second law of thermodynamics states that entropy increases over time, which is a fancy way of saying from order comes disorder. As time increases and we get further and further away from the point of creation, the universe grows colder and colder. This "time machine" works because it's an energy transference device. All it does is facilitate the trading of energy between two instances of different ages. SO, to travel back in time, I've always had to acquire (ahem steal) large amounts of ununoctium, plutonium, uranium, and other high-energy materials to move lil ole me. One time, I stored 1,000 barrels of petrol in a warehouse just to trade places with some unsuspecting poor soul that lived a hundred (or so) years before.
I've made the jump a few hundred times, and I'm none too proud of the way I did it. I've lied and cheated and stole from people to get what I needed and be on my way. I've hurt at least a dozen people... mostly guards or policemen of some sort. I was once completely surrounded by military police, armed with guns (how quaint!) and crude explosive devices. In another instance, I was chased by a fleet of police droids, and in a third instance, a horde of flying drones! And in every case, the outcome was the same. I'd hide while my PNDD (Personal Nano Defense Device) swarmed invisibly to my pursuers, infiltrating their bodies and sending them all into shock while I made my cowardly escape.
And yet, these days, I find myself thinking back to my original sin: Envy. I was a young student, failing out of University (the last such institution on Earth). Most people "learned" by having knowledge encoded directly to their brains versus learning the old fashioned way - through audio lessons and visual cues (quaint!). It was seen as a high honor to be able to attend school, and I was about to lose it. My physics professor, the good Dr. Santiago, had discovered a way to displace objects by moving them through space/time. He was the one that discovered that objects moved through space/time actually traded places with another object of similar displacement. As a twenty-two year old boy, I was enamored by his discoveries, but also insanely jealous. I was losing a key opportunity, while watching the Doctor achieve the success that I had always envisioned for myself. On the day I was supposed to move back home, I visited the good Doctor with my illegal PNDD and forced him to use his own machine. I laughed in amazement when the replacement soul that appeared before me was a younger version of himself from another instance! This Dr. Santiago was a mere child, stripped of his life just so I could take a little revenge on the universe. I became panicked and stole his backup device without a second thought. I hurried to my dorm room, where I prepared for a hasty exit.
I deserve to die for what I've done.
I've spent an entire lifetime jumping, at first to run away from my crime, and then somewhere along the way, to run into the good Doctor. To apologize for what I've done. I had hoped we would both arrive at the same idea - that as the only two time travelers in existence, that the only way we'd meet again is by traveling closer and closer to the center of the pinwheel...the point of origin. The further back we traveled, the lower the # of possible instances would exist and our chances of finding one another would increase. In this way, he could exact revenge upon me (if he wished) and I could express my remorse.
But, going back hundreds of years at a time is not fast enough. I'm well over 80 years old, and without access to modern medicine, I'm afraid I've made my last jump. I lay in a hospital, writing my final thoughts into this lap-based computing device in hopes that you find this, Dr. Santiago. I wanted to say that I'm sorry. I was a tortured child, a bad student and an evil man, one that ruined hundreds of lives just so I could find you in time and apologize to you in person. You were a good person who wanted to teach the world what was possible, and teach me about the consequence of time travel. I've learned more than I can handle. I've decided to spare more lives and abandon my quest to find you. I've found peace here - it's 2016 and it's a good a place as any to watch the world grow old.
A nurse brought me flowers, a beautiful bouquet of color that popped off of every stem. There was no note attached, so I did not know who to thank, but it did come with a small pinwheel. I don't know who this could have came from - one of the nurses, perhaps? - but I'd like to think it came from you.
Safe travels.
posted by Nathan at 2:11 PM
