Temporal Quantum LockA Story by Sam AmmonsDeja Vu, past lives, just a what if. . . Joseph Cardigan walked down a path in New York City staring at the space elevator. The base of the structure was twenty miles out to sea, impossibly gigantic, towering into the sky, graying in the early autumn Sun. The exterior of the structure was covered with dark solar panels, it’s enormity disappearing out of sight and into space. Joseph sipped his coffee and approached a woman sitting on one of the benches in Central Park. “Good morning. How are you this fine Saturday?” Joseph asked cheerfully sitting next to her. The woman made an indelicate sound, but didn’t say anything. “I love this time of year, ” he said looking around the park, “It’s already beginning to get cool. Another couple of weeks, and the leaves will begin to change.” He took another sip of his coffee. She looked around staring at him with eyes as dark as her hair, but still remained silent. Throngs of people went about their day hardly noticing those around them. Cars fought for space on the streets, while people shouldered their way along the sidewalks and walkways. Any area where a body could fit, one was there. In the park, a couple shared a kiss on the grass, children battled each other with holographic velociraptors, and other species of dinosaur in the trees and paths. A street vendor peddled hot dogs, pretzels, and coffee at the entrance. The crisp air was filled with contradictory smells. Cooking food from nearby restaurants, freshly mown grass, and a distinctive odor of rubber and electric ozone exhaust, which anyone had who had ever lived in a large city would identify with the scent of home. “So what brings you here, Lyssa?” “I’d have thought you could tell me, old man,” she answered. Lyssa looked at Joseph more closely. “You’ve aged,” She reached out to touch the gray hair at his temples, but he shied away from her hand. “It’s been a long time.” “How long?” “An eternity, remember?” “You’re the one who cast...” “Humanity’s ingenuity always amazes me,” Joseph interrupted her. He thrust his chin in the direction of the space lift. “Greed and stupidity,” she said bitterly.“ When they first built it, you could actually see the asteroid capture. See them mining it, ripping it down to a pebble, harvesting everything they could. Water, minerals, precious stones, and metals.” “And they’ll transport them down the lift, supporting millions. Eventually, they’ll finish the shipyards and start constructing massive ships to colonize the solar system and beyond.” “You can’t even see that now because of the pollution,” she pointed skyward, “Just a haze over everything. They know the material from the mining process is floating down and entering Earth’s atmosphere. They just don’t care.” “Of course they care. They’ll change it soon.” “Not before affecting hundreds of thousands of souls stuck under this contraption.” “It’s their. . .” “Sure. Sure. Free will.” “Everyone is gifted with choice. What kind of world would it be if no one had it for themselves? There wouldn’t be individuals, just what someone thought everyone will be, and what people will do. There has to be choice. There has to be chance.” he finished his coffee and threw the cup in the trash can. “Sounds pretty boring without them if you ask me.” They sat in silence for a time, watching the world unfold around them. Everything was how it should be, how it would be, but then the light dimmed as a great storm cloud traveled between the light and the ground, or perhaps Lyssa had stretched forth her hand spreading the darkness from her fingertips. The mood of the people around them changed. The children started to blame each other for cheating, the vendor fended off accusations of uncleanliness, the couple raised their voices in a petty argument about nothing. Car horns shrieked across the park and beyond. The crescendo of angry, scared, or sorrowful voices inundated through the city. Joseph took in a deep breath, and let it out slowly as if blowing away a cloud of swarming insects. The world shuddered for a moment, more precisely it echoed into a thousand and a thousand possibilities, blurring and vibrating into the infinite like a picture of a fast moving object taken by an old camera with no shutter adjustment or the strings of an instrument. The time-strings of dimensions grew closer and closer together. This caused an ominous sound throughout time and places. A audible noise coming from nowhere and everywhere at random across the planet. A province in northern China. Just outside Dallas, Texas in the suburbs, and a small island south of Japan heard the noise. People flocked outside to listen. Back in New York, the space elevator swayed, and explosions rocked it’s core. The monstrosity toppled over, looming over the city as an afterimage of doom. Then it stopped. A blink later, and all was normal again. The world returned to balance on the fulcrum between chance and fate. The elevator remained whole. Joseph looked at Lyssa. “You can’t change history,” he said. “Why? It will just repeat again, right? Why not have a little fun?” she smiled evilly. “They,” he gestured broadly, “will begin to notice. Energy cannot be created or destroyed. Deep down, they’ll remember. Deja Vu. Past lives. Premonitions of things to come, memories of things that never happened, or happened differently. Dimensions will blur together. Children, and sensitives have already begun to suspect with your tampering. Children quickly forget, most adults shake it off like a bad dream, but some will hear their inner voice clearly, and suspect something isn’t quite right.” “Their spiritual energy is a waste. They’re numb between the ears.” “It’s always artists first. Probably because of their empathy or how they already view the world.” “Again,” she turned to look him in the eye. “so what? It’ll just begin again, and restart.” “The universe exploded into existence, and eventually, the dark will crunch everything into an atom, but the light cannot be contained. It will erupt into being again, yes, but not if you continue.” “What’s wrong with a little Jamais Vu? Afraid what it might lead to? Would creation be so bad without chance or fate?” “You have to stop trying to change history. It has to be that way” “Between you and me, the bigger part, it's personal. The rest of it is just politics. I want to change history. You don't want me to. Hell, that's something we could argue about over beers. You and me, hanging around shooting pool, drinking beer, and arguing. Should I change history? Shouldn't I change history? But, that's just arguing politics. There's something else; I just don't like you." Lyssa stood and stretched. She arched her back, and raised her clasped hands over her head. She turned back with a smile. It faded quickly as she met Joseph’s unfaltering gaze when she locked eyes with him. “Don’t you have to be in that thing?” she gestured toward the elevator. “I’m already there, remember?” “Not really, no.” With that, Lyssa wondered off into everything and nothing, while Joseph faded into everything and everywhere. The world continued hardly remembering or noticing anything out of place. Do you?
THE END
© 2019 Sam AmmonsAuthor's Note
|
Stats
72 Views
Added on April 7, 2019 Last Updated on July 24, 2019 Tags: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Past Lives, Premonitions, The Mandela Effect, Alternate Realities, Good vs Evil, Interpretive Author
|