Here it is. The end. It’s very long.
***
Richard Wurtz was an out of work computer programmer living alone in Miami, Oklahoma. Without a steady job, he spent his days searching for opportunities to provide local businesses with freelance web design. The remainder of his time was spent in a nearby casino and off-track betting house called The Stables. Richard was forty-three years old, barrel chested and balding. He’d tried Rogaine and prescription pills, he even attempted a combover once. He had a sweet tooth for Science Fiction, and a penchant for buying pornographic films from the Internet whose plots involved extra-terrestrials, global takeovers, and inter-species gangbangs. His friend Domingo Santiago would describe him as, “Your average Joe. Only his name isn’t Joe, it’s Richard.”
As he exited the game room of The Stables on a mild March afternoon he passed the cashier and handed her his voucher. She looked at it for a moment, turned her gaze to him and then punched some keys on her calculator. She wore a putrid floral vest over a white collared shirt. Her name tag read, “Dot.” The cash register rang and the drawer flew open. She reached inside with her thumb and index finger and emerged with thirty-five cents.
“Thanks for playing. Come back soon.” She looked down as she spoke.
“Do you guys have a website?”
“Next!”
Richard reached into his shirt pocket for a pair of black plastic sunglasses that looked like something a child might adorn, and walked out into the parking lot. He rolled his car down H Street and onto I-44. It was a five minute drive to his apartment complex. When he arrived he strolled over to the communal mailboxes. He stopped to pick up his mail and chat with Cindy, a neighbor Richard had been trying unsuccessfully to court for slightly over two years. Twenty-two months and six days, to be exact. He told Cindy to stop by anytime, and she replied, “Perhaps.”
At his front door he wrestled the key into the lock. He heard his Anaïs–his cat–squealing at the top of the landing. He ascended the stairs and dumped his bundle of mail on the couch. He greeted Anaïs and held her as he moved into the kitchen and shoved a frozen Stouffer’s macaroni and cheese dinner into the microwave. He spooned out some Nine Lives for the cat, and when all the preparations were completed he plopped down on the couch with his steaming yellow dinner tray and flipped on the television. He was just in time for the start of an hour-long block of The Simpsons on his local FOX affiliate. He thumbed through the mail, first stopping at the Victoria’s Secret catalogue conveniently addressed to Racquel Wurtz. Then noticed the small, beige envelope bearing a college crest in the upper left-hand corner. His heart skipped a beat. It was him.
One week before what was to be the media event of a lifetime, Richard packed up his Volkswagen Golf and headed East. He spent a night in East Saint Louis, two in Indianapolis, and one final evening in Columbus, Ohio before arriving in the greater Philadelphia area two nights before he would become the world’s first time traveler. He had no idea if there would be others. He did not know if there were rules and regulations, or if he could even choose where he wanted to be sent. In a small town called Mars, Pennsylvania, he bought himself a toupee. He wouldn’t travel looking out of style.
On Friday night he cruised South Street. He ordered a cheesesteak at Jim’s, then took a taxi over to Gino’s for another. On Saturday he remained in his hotel with a mild stomach virus. Sunday morning came and a car arrived to take him to the facility.
When the car pulled to a halt, he realized just how many people were there to support and protest the event. Crowds patroled by police officers and military personal jeered at Richard. They carried homemade signs that read, “TIME TRAVEL IS TEH SUCK” and “HYMEN WILL BE PWNED.” For the first time since receiving his invitation, Richard felt fear. He approached the entrance of the airplane hangar-sized building and was escorted inside by two burly guards. They walked along the rear wall of the giant room, to a tiny, plush conference area.
The place was occupied by five or six other people, Richard guessed. He smiled at them politely before heading for the craft services table for some food. He checked the fake hair resting atop his head in a mirror, and when he turned around he was face to face with a stunning young brunette.
“Hi. I’m Aime. What’s your name?”
“Hi, Aime. Di- Richard Wurtz, at your service!”
She giggled. She couldn’t take her eyes off him. Well, not him, his wig. It was obviously a woman’s wig.
“I can’t believe this is happening. It seems so surreal.”
“Oh it’s gonna be a wild ride,” Richard began, “You’ll shit your pants and die!” As soon as the words left his mouth he regretted it. He tried to brush it off and change the subject. “So, where do you want to go?”
“I want to see ancient Greece.”
From behind Aime a voice asked, “Are we doing introductions? Let’s all go around the room and tell each other our names and where we’re planning on traveling. I’ll begin. My name is Gerald Farnsworth and I wanna go to the moon.”
“This isn’t a spaceship you idiot, it’s a time machine!” Yelled Dörph Brötzmann, a mustached German citizen who spoke in a thick accent. Farnsworth apologized, mumbled something about the lost city of Atlantis, and they continued around the room.
“I’m Dörph Brötzmann, I want to see the landscape of my homeland circa 1938.”
“I’m Victoria Denham-Goldthwaite, but my friends call me VD for short. I’m from Edmonton, Alberta. I want to see the garden of Eden.”
Lastly came a blonde woman of Scandinavian decent, she stood and spoke slowly, “My name Elluva Maat. I like to meet husband in future. Any time.”
Brötzmann sighed audibly, “Very well then. That’s everyone?”
“Not quite.” It was Dr. Herman Hymen, clad in an oversized lab coat. “My name is Dr. Hymen and we’re about to break history wide open, my friends.” Silence permeated the room. “Don’t mind my surprise appearance, I just wanted to greet you all and thank you for your participation in this experiment. Now, I’ve got to meet the press and prepare the machine. My assistants will prep you and there is some paperwork to fill out. You know, promises not to file a lawsuit, that sort of thing. If you have family with you, please inform the assistants and they will ensure all your folks are front and center for your departure and arrival. I want to thank you all again. I’ll see you in a few minutes.” With that, Dr. Hymen left the room and made his way along the wall of the hangar until he reached the highly secured front area of the room, where he was allowed to proceed past a series of armed guards.
He walked briskly, confidently, as made some final preparations. As he calibrated and checked levels, he walked hand in hand with Lenore. Suddenly, from above, a series of bright lights fired up and bathed the gaping space in whiteness. The door at the far end of the hangar opened and people began filing into the hangar. They raced to set up equiptment. Curious onlookers walked the length of the guarded barrier trying to peek behind the curtain that ran the length of the wall. All the major news networks had large crews and TV cameras perched on scaffoldings in the rear. Somewhere, the President of the United States was mulling around, probably drinking coffee and munching on a bear claw. The crowd consisted of mostly press (international and national), with some senators and foreign dignitaries scattered throughout.
Twenty minutes later, the temperature steadily rising under the lights and from the crowd’s nervous anticipation, Dr. Hymen emerged from behind a large blue curtain in his lab coat. He cleared his throat and delivered the speech he and Lenore had written the previous night, a speech he committed to memory when he was unable to sleep.
“Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen at home and abroad and to all the ships at sea. Not in the entire scope of recorded history has a discovery caused such a response across the continents. If the media analysists’ predictions are accurate, this will be–by far–the world’s most accessed broadcast. Billions of us are anxiously awaiting history, so I will not take too much of your time.” He yanked at the long rope hanging behind him and the curtain fell. “This, is what you’ve been waiting all these months to see. Please allow me to explain. What you see here is a thirty-foot by thirty-foot sterile room, encased in glass twelve-inches thick. It is a vacuum, totally insular and closed off. The far wall of the enclosure houses two computers, both of which are hooked up to the large closed circuit television sets you see mounted above. Those computer monitors allow the test subject to enter their desired time and geographical positioning. It is fed into a secondary lab where my staff will control the experiment. The only other object in the vacuum is that large red lever, used to set the process in motion by opening the space/time continuum. We here at the lab have taken to calling it ‘The Hymen Popper.’ Once that lever is pulled a signal is sent to the system’s mainframe and everything will be set in motion. So. Let’s make some history, shall we? I’d like to introduce you to our first traveler. His name is Richard Wurtz from Miami, Oklahoma. The birthplace of Mickey Mantle. Richard, are you set to go?”
Richard, who was waiting in the vacuum the entire time, gave a thumbs up. He wore some kind of suit, he had no idea what it was made of. It felt like lead and stunk like decay. It smelled like the time he found a mousetrap housing a week-old dead mouse in his apartment. Richard slowly moved to the first computer where he punched in April 1, 3006. On the second monitor there appeared today’s date, April 1, 2006. The return time was set for 3:05pm. It was right now 2:58pm. He punched in the longitude and latitude coordinates he was given by one of Dr. Hymen’s assistants, then he approached the lever, and with the whole world watching, he pulled it towards him just as the clock struck 3:00pm.
A moment later, a burst of incandescent light blinded the audience, and Richard Wurtz was transported. The crowd roared and audience members embraced one another. They hooted and cheered, some folks even popped corks on bottles of champagne. Herman turned to Lenore and smiled. They kissed and then he turned to the crowd and pumped his fists in the air. He looked down at his watch and then back to the vacuum. In another, larger burst of light, Richard appeared. People again roared. But Herman’s eyes squinted, and he furrowed his brow. Something was wrong. At first no one seemed to notice, until a photographer near the front row pointed and screamed in horror. Richard’s torso was fused to the glass wall of the vacuum. He was, in fact, embedded in the glass about halfway up the side of the wall. Motionless, lifeless, he remained hanging there. A trail of blood rolled down the wall and Richard’s wig slid off his bald head and fell to the floor below.
The curtain dropped and Dr. Hymen quickly turned on his microphone to assure the crowd everything was fine, and that Dörph Brötzmann would be out at any moment to complete the second successful trip through time. Some crowd members screamed a litany of profanities at Herman. These detractors were escorted from the premises. When the curtain raised, the body of Richard Wurtz was gone. Dörph Brötzmann stood in his place, visibly trembling through his custom made time travel suit. When he spoke, his voice cracked. He hesitated before approaching the computer to punch in the coordinates for Berlin, Germany in 1938. He set the return time for five minutes from take-off, and pulled the lever.
While he was gone, the crowd continued to whisper and the volume of their cacaphony swelled with each passing moment. There was a faction on the right side of the room who celebrated Brötzmann’s trip as the first official expedition through time, but others in the crowd were skeptical. They wanted to see him return, in tact, before they lauded Hymen’s machine. One innocent man had already died today. Herman again addressed the crowd and tried to explain what happened.
“There were a handful of scenarios that my team and I could not account for. Subject number one has absolutely proved one of these theories to be true.”
From the audience came a cry of, “You killed an innocent man! He wasn’t a test subject, he was Dick Wurtz! We went to MIT together!”
“You see,” Herman began. “The earth rotates on an axis. At the same time, it also is revolving around the sun. Without absolutely precise geographical coordinates, the traveler will return at a slightly different location due to the earth’s constant motion. In some instances, the earth’s constant movement means another object might take up the desired position. Since two objects cannot exist in the same physical space…” He glanced over at the clock and noticed it was 3:06pm. Dörph Brötzmann had not returned yet. “…Two objects will fuse together and become one mass if they are to exist in the same space.” He looked over as the time changed to 3:07pm. “While we’re waiting for subject number two’s return, let’s get Miss Amie Barnhart in there!”
Amie appeared from another side door and entered the vacuum. She waved nervously to family and waltzed over to the computers. She deftly punched in coordinates for Greece in 3000 BC. She too set her return for five minutes after her transportation. After she disappeared Herman addressed the rapidly thinning crowd.
“A few moments ago I mentioned the Earth’s movement. I guess maybe…” He looked at Dörph Brötzmann’s sobbing wife and children. “If the planet was on the other wide of the sun on November the 9th, 1938, a time traveler who thinks he will land in Germany might land somewhere in outter space. Or, I mean, the Earth might have been in the proper position, but since it was winter in 1938 he could be in the southern hemisphere somwhere. Subject number two could be anywhere, I suppose. It’s another one of those scenarios that could not be accounted for during the rat testing phase.” He paused before continuing, “I guess what we’ve learned today is that rats, aside from being stunning mammals, are also marvelous time travelers.”
“Hymen I’m going to lop your fucking head off!” An audience member screamed.
“Rats aren’t animals they’re marsupials you ass!” Yelled another critic.
“What shit college would hire you?” The insults rained on Herman Hymen.
Suddenly a blinding blue light exploded in the vacuum and the body of Amie Barnhart appeared thrashing violently on the floor. She convulsed for a few seconds before her body seized one final time and then ceased moving. Her bowels released and her chest cavity burst, sending her innards and her waste spewing outward. People fainted, vomited, cried, pick an emotional response, someone felt it. The curtain again fell and Herman sank to his knees.
“I… the space time continuum… it…” He couldn’t find the words. What had became of Amie Barnhart was simple. The speed at which she traveled through space time fried her brain, shredding its contact with the remainder of her system. At some point during her travel, she had simultaneously began suffocating, starving, she entered cardiac arrest, her pain receptors began firing away… Her brain could not instruct the body what to do. On a molecular level, her cells were decimated. Herman knew this was the case. It happened to one of the rats, or a dozen. He didn’t want to recall how many.
A mob rose from the seats and began to approach Dr. Hymen. He grabbed Lenore and hid behind the curtain. The crowd broke through the fortified barrier, incapacitating the guards. Herman let go of Lenore’s hand and raced to the door of the vacuum. Just as an outstretched arm tried to force the door open, Herman sealed himself inside with Miss Barnharts stinking, demolished corpse. As the mob beat at the glass walls he thought long and hard about his actions and his naïvete. If only this had never happened. How blindly optimistic he had been. He looked to his hands. He noticed his wedding band, and after looking up only to see Lenore being led away by armed guards, an idea came to Herman Hymen. He turned around and faced the computer, punching in the date of their wedding. He needed to go back, to prevent it from happening, to change his life’s path. He did not set a return time. He pulled the lever.
HEAT. He felt his blood boil and then everything went black.
When Herman Hymen came to, he was immoble. His eyes had trouble adjusting to the light, but he felt he was in the right place. He had made it. After some time he was able to move his arms down to his sides, past his hips to his legs. Cold. Hard. He tried to punch at them, to stir some movement, but there was no feeling. He looked down and he saw metal. Silver. He was seated? As his eyes focused he realized he was upright in a chair. Only, his legs were no longer usable. From his neck to his lower back he was fused to a wheelchair. He remembered how he had rented a wheelchair that would be avaialable for Herman’s father should he begin to feel weak at the wedding ceremony. This must be that very chair. He tried to tear himself away but it was useless. He beat the armrests with his fists and howled.
It was early morning and the sun was just peeking over the horizon. Light was entering gently through the stained glass windows in the church. He rolled himself out the sanctuary and down a long corridor to the women’s washroom. Inside there was a full length mirror. He whimpered as he studied his reflection. It was the very same image he saw each time he closed his eyes. It was his recurring dream realized. He tried to yell, but instead he choked. He sat there and he wept. Then Herman began to pray.
***
the end.
