Practical Physics

A bright young physicist is being followed by a mysterious, beautiful, and strangely familiar girl... Kudos to my sister for the image.

I think she's stalking me.

She is everywhere I am -- that sad-eyed girl. She's beautiful. But beautiful like cut flowers are beautiful, as pretty as they are, they're broken somehow, their mortality inevitable.

She stands just shorter than me -- we'd be perfect dancing partners -- dark hair, darker eyes, but soft cheekbones and a fine jawline. She wears comfortable, shapeless clothing; parachute pants, hooded sweaters.

Whenever I see her, she's always passive, never going anywhere, never getting anything done. It looks like she's waiting for someone, wasting time. I passed her on my way here, she was sheltering from the rain under a bus shelter, slightly slouching against the perspex wall, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette. She looked at me, like she always does, and then the corner of her mouth twitched slightly, like someone trying on a smile and not quite sure what it's supposed to feel like.

It made me want to cry.

It began -- it seems like so long ago -- with a sudden sense of overwhelming deja-vu, as if I were suddenly remembering a dream of long ago, purely subconscious -- I had no idea what she looked like then, but I began to see her everywhere I went.

She'd be on the back of the bus, waiting outside shops and cinemas, sitting in bars. Always the cigarette. Always the gentle stare. Always the strange lost smile.

The pub's almost empty tonight, it's the unofficial haunt for the physics faculty, but with the pre-christmas coursework deadline fast approaching, minds are being forced onto matters more cerebral than simple ethanol.

She's there, sitting at the bar, on a stool that seems older, more tattered than the rest, the dark brown leather carved and pock-marked. The slouch, the gentle curve of her back over her cigarette. She has a drink this time, a lowball tumbler. Ice sharp and crystalline, whisky a dark amber. She looks up.

The eyes.

The smile.

Resolutely I stride over to her. Still her eyes are on me, not searching, not examining, not speculating, just observing. Almost scientific.

I swing myself onto the stool next to hers and catch the eye of the bartender.

The bar is almost silent, a low murmur of conversation, the jukebox turned down, but the bartender spent a time working in Shibuya and Shinjuku; he appreciates subtlety.

I flick my eyes towards her glass, and the bartender just nods. The bottle comes from under the counter and is dark brown-green, the yellowing, hand-printed label peeling.

I sip: the slight burn of incomplete distillation, the taste of potash, gunpowder and smoke, a subtle sweetness. I look at the bartender, curious. He just smiles and turns away.

I turn to the girl, "Hey," the whisky has affected my larynx, my voice seems lower, slightly gravelly.

For a moment I could swear she's going to cry, she seems to receed backwards slightly, hanks of hair slipping down and obscuring her face, but she speaks, "Hey."

For once she looks away, down at her hands, they've found a rizla and a plastic pouch of tobacco -- Drum -- and are rolling. Her fingers are long, nimble, delicate like mine, the tips lightly stained with nicotine.

The cigarette, rolled, she holds lightly in her fingers. She pauses, unsure, then looks up at me, still silent, the cigarette proffered between thumb and forefinger.

I don't smoke, but for some reason I take it in my fingers, put it between my lips. She takes a Stars-and-Stripes Zippo from one of her volimunous pockets and lights it.

The smoke is fragrant, cooler than I expected. The scent is familiar. My primary-school teacher used to smoke it.

I don't know what my expression said at the time, but a smile flicked across her face, a proper one, as her nimble fingers rolled her own cigarette, slipped it between slender lips and lit it.

I smiled myself. So it would be like this. Sitting in this bar, with this strange girl, sharing a moment. There are worse ways to spend an evening.

Then she shows me the photograph.

Photographic manipulation is pandemic, an entertaing past-time, and sometimes quite believable, but this was no fake. Not only was it very very good, but it also, in some ineffable fashion, felt right. It seemed strangely familiar.

The photograph is a family portrait. A man, a woman, and what were undoubtably their three children. The man was slightly older, more tired than when I had last seen him, but he was, without a doubt, wearing the same body as I was at that very moment.

The woman was shorter than me, younger, with darker hair and paler skin. They had three children: the youngest two were boys, identical twins, blonde like my mother, and the eldest child looked about ten or twelve, but the dark sad eyes marked her, unmistakably, as the girl now sat next to me, in this bar, in this British town, in this, the Year of Our Lord, 2007.

I looked from the childish toothy grin in the photo, to the sad, lost smile the girl wore and all the pieces seemed to settle into place.

"When do I die?"

A look of suprise, quickly supressed, "About a year after this photo was taken. I was twelve and Micah and Samuel were seven. At 3.45am, at Mercy Springs Hospital, on the 17th of November, 2023."

I don't know what to say. Would you? But she knows that, so she continues, "But somehow, everything turned out okay. It turned out you'd been putting money here and there for years, savings accounts, ISAs, and they all matured in the few weeks after. It was like you had planned it, like you'd known...

"Mum went to pieces, as you'd expect, Samuel and Micah didn't really get it. It was just me. It was, somehow, less of a suprise. The day it happened, you had dropped me off at school, and I saw you go back to the car and just sit there in the drivers seat and cry, I didn't understand, but it made me upset to see you upset. You were still crying when the teacher took me off to the medical room...

"Life went on, we grew up, Mum kinda got over it, so did the twins. I found myself following you. I went to this University, studied physics. I'd not forgotten about seeing you crying in the car, it just didn't make sense. Then I found your thesis."

"My thesis on Non-Newtonian Fluids?"

"Not that thesis, the other one."

"My *other* thesis?"

"Yeah, this one..." she says. She pulls a heavy sheaf of paper from her bag and hands it to me.

The coversheet bears my signature, the name is mine, the title: "A theoretical description of a method for the spontaneous creation of closed timelike curves."

I smile, "Not so theoretical then?"

She smiles back, "No, not so much..."

I take the sheaf from her and flick through it, the writing style is unmistakably my own, it's all good physics too... it works...

"So," I spread my hands quizzically, "Do I get to see the time machine?"

A brief glance, slightly quizzical. She gives a wide, all-encompassing gesture.

"This bar is a time machine?"

"Come on, what were you expecting? A police box maybe? A steampunk wheel with incandescent coloured bulbs and a big brass lever? You need a good-sized nuclear reactor to power this baby, and those aren't exactly mobile."

"Show me," I tell her.

She leads me downstairs into one of the tiny unisex toilet cubicals. It's cramped and smelly. Grime festers between the tiles on the walls. She rolls up her sleeve revealing a control of some kind. She flicks some buttons, presses some switches and there's a thrumming sound, filling the space.

Then it stops. She smiles.

The floor falls away.

I tumble through thick black air, involuntarily throw out my arms to stabilise myself, my ears tell me I've stopped tumbling and I feel her reach out and grab my hand. At the same time I feel a presence; there's something here, in the darkness, something huge and dark and terrible.

Then the lights come on and I can see it.

Laser beams, thrown out in all directions from where I know the walls must be. Laser beams, travelling in what I know must be straight lines. Yet they curve, ever so gently, spiralling towards what I know must be the center of the room.

They are travelling in straight lines, as photons must, but space itself is curved, twisted and knotted in the middle of this massive room. It fills the air with a thrumming noise, and my ears tell me I'm not falling down, I'm falling towards it, gently arcing through the darkness in a rapidly-decaying orbit.

It's almost upon me.

I wish I didn't know what it is.

In Buddhism, the Third Eye is used to turn within yourself and gaze upon your own soul. Followers of those traditions are unable to vocalise well their experiences, but are irrevocably changed by them. So it was that as I passed through the singularity of a black hole, I felt a sensation that can only be described as "turning into myself," and I knew I would never see the world the same way again.

I land face down in a grassy field on a sunny Somerset hillside, in England, on the 12th of July, 2054.

The air seems fresher here, the grass greener, the sky brighter. Falling backwards onto the turf I see a star, glittering in the middle of the day.

She sees my attention and smiles, "That's the Sunjammer, GAS Mana."

The Physicist in me positively squeals: "You've got solar sails working?!"

She grins, ear to perfectly-formed ear, and something funny happens to my guts: "Yeah, GAS -- Google-Ansari Starship"

"So what else have I missed?"

"String Theory is old and busted, the new hotness is Heim theory."

"Heim theory? The ramblings of an old German?"

"A bloody clever German, after his notes were published they took to calling him Newton's reincarnation."

I smile, nod, stand.

A sudden flash of perspective: I see myself an ant, standing on the surface of a misty globe, the Starship high above suspended in space, a parking orbit, forty four thousand kilometers out. All of us, earth, spaceship, moon, hurtling through space at a hair less than thirty kilometers per second, a "tiny speck of sand, suspended in a sunbeam."

I look at her, she looks at me: "Let's get drunk."

As far as paternal bonding goes, it was pretty wierd. Time multiplies the divide in custom, speech, and manner between generations. A cultural schism between you and those who, genetically, are the only people who can understand you. But we were similar in age, and good humored enough to laugh off the inevitable clunky anachronisms.

My memory of the rest of the evening stutters, like watching a poorly re-cut film. I remember a cracked formica tabletop (an anachronism of its own); she lolls against the plate glass, smiling to herself.

In front of me: orange octagonal uppers in a blister pack remind me so much of the cafe scene from Neuromancer that I order an espresso to complete it; too bitter and too hot, a stamped aluminium cup.

She's making up words now, stumbling through an explaination of the workings of the time machine, a funny story about some slightly frantic Soviet engineer and the dogy nuclear reactor he'd tried to sell her back in the '60s when she'd first built the huge concrete sphere, sitting below the pub.

I think I then went and vomited into a sink.

I stare down into the stained ceramic as it seems to squirm beneath my hands and see that she's scrawled on the back of my hand a date: 17th September, 1963.

It was only much later -- vomiting again, this time against the gnarled trunk of a giant sequoia -- that I remembered the significance of that date.

So it was that my daughter and I stagger back to The Pub at some godforsaken hour in the morning. We stumble into the cubical together, she grins at me, I grin back. "I'm proud of you love." I slur.

She looks like she's going to cry, but she doesn't, she smiles, and hugs me.

"Where now?" she asks.

"Suprise me," I reply.

I don't know what happened. Whether she pressed the wrong buttons, or whether the machine malfunctioned, but when I came out the other end I was in a pile of sodden leaves in a redwood forest.

It was raining.

I was alone.

Author's Note

[ Mark 1: I'm not so sure about the ending. I wanted it to be abrupt, but I think it's maybe *too* abrupt. ]
[ Mark 2: Okay, I've tried to elucidate a bit on the ending and sort out the grammar issues, better? worse? ]

Reviews

[Hedra Helix]

sometimes quite believable, but this was no fake. Not only was it very very good, but it also, in some ineffable fashion, felt right. It seemed strangely familiar.

I like this, good mid arc peak, subtle but on point. nice description of that feeling of exactness.

--

looked from the childish toothy grin in the photo, to the sad,

[Clyde du Coeur]

You had me at "beautiful cut flowers".
Superbly creative and telling - perhaps the ending is too abrupt but it certainly conveys the narrator's shock response of the revelation. Fantastic write JJ :)

[Alphachad]

You gotta be kidding me. That didn't stop there

[Hedra Helix]

the last part i copy pasted, the heim theory section i mean to write that that entire dialog bit was f*****g awesome.

[facadeofshadows]

Your opening analogy is beautiful and powerful. Normally I review as a read, but I found myself at the end without much on my note-taking page. That is a good thing. Usually that means I was engulfed.

This was beautiful, almost poetic. The only thing I found myself balking at was the description of the time machine (the bathroom lever/control/whatever). I thought the laser part was cool, but with how creative and intricate the rest of the story was, the actual "time machine" seemed a bit� normal. The Pub, as the time machine, was fantastic, so maybe it was just the "controls" that caught me off guard.

As to the ending, too abrupt? Not necessarily. I do think there needs to be some sort of significance to where he ends up unless you are actually implying that the machine malfunctioned (or that she pushed the wrong buttons). It just leaves a big empty question as to why it ended the way it did � which, again, may have been intentional � but seems to be the antithesis of the plot. With how fulfilling the story was, I was hoping for a more fulfilling ending.

Let me know your intent, because if it is as it was meant, I have no qualms.

[Hedra Helix]

yes, too abrupt;) but not so much the forest scene (which I think worked well and had the same tone as the rest of the strongest parts *IMHO* of your story) as much as the description of how she'd made the timemachine ( which seemed too static compared to the rest of it, instruction rather than emotion, it seemed abrupt to my read) and clarifying that she was your daughter. The reader gets that already, after they go though the machine were looking for more emotional resonance. Were like ok, got the picture, awesome picutre, what else...?

Having said that I really appreciate your skill/imagination. Its a very well written piece, very enjoyable. clear and imaginative. There a good healthy dose of melancholy (sp?) vibe to it that makes it have atmosphere and depth.

As a closing critique my opinion over all is that it is most certainly worthy of a good edit. Because I thoroughly enjoyed my read.
I would watch my tenses and try to stay true to the emotional resonance of the piece. Trust your readers and cut out most of anything redundant, you have a clear style and we get it fast from your spoon. Instead maybe build on the fathers thoughts. He's bound to have some swirling deep ones trying to take in what has just happened to him. His daughter, his death, and all that he's being presented. I think that would make your end with him in the forest *alone* tug our heart stings even harder.

Also this in particular:

I wish I didn't know what it is.

[Kristi Brooks]

FIrst of all, my favorite line in the entire story is: "then the corner of her mouth twitched slightly, like someone trying on a smile and not quite sure what it's supposed to feel like." It is that elusive perfect description of a half smile on a sad face.

I like the story. I think that the beginning is very sucessful in leading up to the meeting. I like the way that the father automatically accepts everything the instant she shows him the photo b/c sometimes we spend too much time as writers trying to explain everything out into infinity. It is possible for people to encounter fantastic situations and not have to spend three to five pages recovering from them. The way you keep it rolling really keeps the reader involved in the story.

I think the ending might be too abrupt for me, but not in the way you might think. I think the last lines about him being alone are fine, it's the way you explain her use of the machine and the line about taking "the long way round" that feels as if it might need something more to make us fully understand what might be happening to him at the end of the story.

I hope that helps. I really like this story a lot!

PS, thanks for the advice on Card. I've been meaning to read him for some time. Maybe I'll settle down with Ender's Game this weekend!

[Tony]

Kudos to you for a great story sir. Thanx.

[EliJoLee]

woww. i couldn't stop reading till the end. very nice very nice. beautifully descripted. just swell! keep writing!

[[untitled]]

thats pretty good. I like the twist. Well written.