Paradox
Authors: C. David Milles
PARADOX
By C. David Milles
Text copyright © 2013 C. David Milles
All Rights Reserved
For Jo Ann, Bethany, and Owen
Time
travel was once considered scientific heresy. I used to avoid talking about it
for fear of being labelled a crank. But these days I'm not so cautious.
Stephen
Hawking—April 27, 2010
Radio
has no future. Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. X-rays will
prove to be a hoax.
Physicist
Lord Kelvin—1899
“So?”
Zac Ryger didn’t notice the voice trying
to pierce through his thoughts as he stood at the edge of the pit, envelope in
hand. Time seemed to stand still as he stared at the metal cylinder resting
next to the pile of dirt. A clean scent hung in the air from the morning rain,
and Zac mindlessly nudged some of the wet clumps of dirt with his shoes.
“Zac,” the voice interrupted, “are you
ready? You’re the last one.” Zac looked up at his teacher, who smiled and
gestured toward the cylinder. “Go ahead.”
Zac took a few steps forward and knelt
down next to the cylinder. Pretending to shield himself from the wind, he
pulled his gray hoodie over his head to hide the tears that were starting to
form and carefully put the envelope inside. He took one last look at it, marked
with nothing but his name and the year written on it. Blinking hard, he got up
and merged with the rest of the students.
“Exciting, isn’t it?” Mr. McClane said,
adjusting his black beret on his bald head. The air fogged with each word he
spoke, and he tucked his hands in the pocket of his leather jacket. “What
you’re leaving behind today won’t ever be seen again for another two hundred
years. When you’re dead and gone, your body in the ground, you’ll still live on
through the items you placed in this time capsule.” He picked up the silver
cylinder and held it up for all to see.
Zac cringed at the mention of death. He
hated how people talked about it with such callousness. It was so final, so
permanent.
So unavoidable.
Some people could talk
about their dead loved ones without a second thought. Some relived it by
witnessing it in their dreams every night.
Mr. McClane sealed the capsule and handed
it to the student next to him. “Pass it around,” he said. “Hold it in your
hands and realize that you are holding history.
Your
history.”
The students passed it from one to the other, turning it and shaking it to hear
its contents. “Even though next year you’ll finish high school and get ready to
go off to college, two centuries from now your descendants will unearth this.”
His foot tapped a marker made from marble, engraved with the names of the
students whose belongings filled the container. “And it will become their
history.”
The time capsule made its way to Zac, and
he gripped it in his hands, looking down at the metal inscription:
Matheson
High School Time Capsule
. He handed it back to the teacher, who dropped it
into the pit with a sense of finality. Zac tucked his hands inside his jacket
and followed the class back inside the building. He avoided the other students
as he made his way back; he didn’t want anyone asking him about what he had put
in there.
The assignment had been simple. They could
put in anything that they wanted to, and they didn’t have to tell anyone what
it was. It just had to be meaningful to them, and they had to write something
about it so that whoever dug it up would have some context for understanding
it. Some people put in artifacts from the time period such as a CD they burned
of their favorite songs, a book they liked, or some other item they thought
would be cool to unearth in the future.
Zac didn’t have anything like that. His
envelope contained a simple photograph of him and his parents. It was the last
picture he had that his mom was in, and it was how he remembered his family. He
still had the original at home, but it pained him to put this one in the
canister and watch it descend into the ground. It felt like he was burying her
all over again.
Maybe now the nightmares would stop.
Reliving the moment, seeing the man that took her away from him.
In his nightmares, he never saw any details; he just felt the fear and terror.
Maybe his dad was going through the same thing. When he found out that Zac was
putting something in a time capsule for school, he gave him another sealed
envelope in the morning.
“Here,” his dad had said. “Do you mind
putting this in there, too?”
“What’s in it?” Zac asked. He held it up
to the light.
“It’s for whoever opens it,” his dad
replied. He gave Zac a stern look. “Promise me you won’t open it. Just put it
with whatever you have.” Zac nodded and folded it in half, putting it inside
his own envelope. Maybe someday his dad would tell him what it was.
Now, as they all went back to class, Zac
tried to think about what he would say to his dad after school when he asked
about the time capsule.
And how he’d have to mask his
disappointment when his dad would forget his birthday again.
Zac walked through the doors of his dad’s
office building. The gleaming white interior of Chronos Labs blinded him, and
he had to wait for his eyes to adjust to the lights. The days were getting
darker earlier now, something he hated about the winter.
He nodded to the security guard and walked
down the hallway, looking at the black and white photographs of mountains and
trees.
Rounding the corner, he took a quick
breath when he saw her. Emilee was only two years older than he was and had
joined Chronos Labs when she graduated from high school.
Zac first met her when his dad was judging
the high school science fair about two years ago. He was so impressed with her
work that he told her he would give her a job as soon as she graduated, and his
company would even pay for her tuition to go to college in town. It was an
offer she couldn’t pass up.
Zac was also glad she didn’t pass it up.
“Hi,” he said, walking up to the desk.
“Hey, Zac,” she said.
“Happy
birthday.”
“Thanks,” Zac said. “You mean he didn’t
forget?”
“No,” Emilee said, putting some files in
the cabinet. “
He
forgot, but I reminded him.” She glanced up, and he was
instantly drawn into her brown eyes. She didn’t fit the stereotype of a
brilliant person like someone would see in the movies. She reminded him of what
people would think of as a California surfer girl, with long black hair flowing
down to the middle of her back. She wore a bright green headband to hold her
hair in place, and freckles dotted her face on the sides of her nose.
Zac extended the cup in his hand. “I got
you some coffee,” he said.
“Caramel Toffee.
Your favorite.”
“Thanks,” she said, taking it. “I could
use it right now.”
“Rough day?” he asked, trying to make
small talk. He always ended up sounding awkward around her. If she noticed, she
didn’t show it, another reason he liked her. She was nice, but she never really
smiled or seemed overly happy. She was always more serious, driven to succeed
at whatever she tried her hand at.
“Not really,” she said.
“Typical
day.
Classes, lunch… work here… that’s about all.” She wrote some words
down on a piece of paper and taped it above her desk.
“Wow.
The wonders of
life after high school.
Don’t you get bored?” Zac asked.
“Sometimes,” she said. “But I can’t
complain. Someday it’ll all pan out. I’ll look back on this and see that
everything happened for a reason. I mean, at least it’s a job. And they’re
paying for my college. I guess I got really lucky.”
“Luck?”
Zac said.
He shook his head.
“No way.
My dad sometimes talks
about you. He says you’re going to go places someday. He says it’s your
destiny.”
Emilee smiled. “You’re sweet,” she said.
“Do you believe in destiny like your dad does?”
“Not really,” Zac said, pacing around the
room. He looked at the framed articles on the wall, reminders of the
achievements of his dad’s company. Most of them were technical, documenting the
physics research pioneered by Chronos Labs. “I just don’t like the idea that
everything is already planned out for us. I’d like to believe that what I do
with my life is up to me.” He turned to look at her.
“Me too,” she said. She got up and took
her jacket off the coat rack near the door, putting it on. “Sorry I gotta leave
so fast, but I’m meeting Rock for dinner.”
“Oh,” Zac said. He fidgeted.
“So are… um… you guys going out?”
“Rock?
No!” She
blushed.
“At least… not yet.”
She paused in the
hallway. “But it might turn out that way eventually. I don’t know. Right now
we’re just good friends.”
“Yeah,” Zac said, trying to sound happy
for her. “He’s a nice guy. My dad talks about him too. Well, have a nice
evening.”
She turned and began walking down the
hall.
“You too.
Happy birthday.”
Zac watched her leave, then went and sat
in her chair, waiting for his dad to come out. He could still smell Emilee’s
perfume lingering in the air. He knew it was dumb to get his hopes up. She was
already out of high school, moving on with her life. She’d be here another few
years to finish her degree, and then she’d be gone.
He saw a rubber ball next to the tape
dispenser and grabbed it, bouncing it gently on the desk. He hated waiting. It
was so quiet with no one else around. He bounced the ball on the floor, seeing
how high he could make it go.
What was taking his dad so long?
He
probably already forgot I was coming
, Zac thought.
Typical
.
He rose to leave and threw the ball down
harder. It hit his foot and rolled away. Zac watched it disappear under a
bookcase. Lowering himself, he got down on all fours and reached under it. His
fingers felt nothing, and he moved until his eyes were level with the floor.
Peering under the bookcase, he saw a faint blue light emanating from it.
Allowing his eyes to adjust, he tried to focus on the source of the light but
found nothing.
An idea struck him. He got up and turned
off the office lights, and immediately, the floor was bathed in a glowing blue
light that washed over everything. Zac stood with his face pressed against the
wall, trying to see behind the bookcase. The light shone from behind it, too.
He thought he heard a noise and looked
over his shoulder.
Nothing.
Zac pulled on the bookcase to get a better
glimpse behind it and was surprised when it started moving on its own, almost
as if there were wheels under it. He stepped back as it opened to reveal a
cavity in the wall like a doorway. His hands brushing the wall, he gazed inside.
Behind the bookcase, it looked as if an entirely
new hallway stretched as far as he could see. And the source of the blue light
had to be at the end of it.