Yahtzee by Neil Christiansen

It's important not to get caught up in the details. No one knows why it happened, so it's not worth trying to parse it out here. The important thing is that it all happened at once. The lunatics said it was the rapture, but of course that didn't make sense because they were still there... here... uh, shit this is hard to explain.

So it was November 12th, 2024 when it happened to me. I know. I know I said it happened all at once, and it did, but at different times for everyone. Fuck, this isn't helping.

November 12th, 2024 the elevator doors opened on the ground floor of the thirty story office building where I work. I took a step into the box and I found myself in small room. Okay, yes an elevator could be a small room, but that's not what I'm talking about. It was bigger than an elevator. Maybe twenty-five feet on each side. The floor was dirty beat-up wood planks and there were half a dozen desks lined up neatly in front of me, but, well, not like work desks. These were old-timey school desks, complete with angled surfaces and ink wells.

The front of the room had a small slate chalkboard framed in wood and on a stand. There were math problems written on it. Everything from basic arithmetic to mid-level algebra. It was quiet too. Very quiet.

I was of course profoundly confused, dizzy, nauseous, and afraid. I spun around to step back but the door behind me only led to a dusty road running through an overgrown field of wheat. I stepped through anyway and nothing happend. I was just on the porch of the room I'd just come out of.

The sign above the door said Grainsville School. Not elementary school, or middle school, or high school, just "School".

"What the fuck!"

The shout came from behind the building. I stepped off the porch and ran around to find the source. Standing in a long wooden trough of dirty water was... uh, a person. I honestly couldn't have told you their age or gender. They were just, like the idea of a person. Like a stick figure but fleshed out into reality. They were dressed in a solid orange jumpsuit and wearing what looked like wrap around sunglasses except that the lenses were clear and wrapped all the way around their head.

"Hey," I said. "Are you okay?"

They looked at me like I was offensive to their eyes.

"What did you do?" they shouted at me.

"Me?" I looked around, there was no one else there. "I didn't do anything. I just got here."

"From where?"

"I-" suddenly my brain felt fuzzy. "I don't know. I was somewhere else and then I was here."

They looked at me like I was stupid, then their expression flattened and a terror crept across their face.

"Yeah, me too I... huh."

After stepping out of what we eventually determined was a horse trough, the person, who identified themselves as Quincy, and I took a look around. The building was an old one room school house, except it wasn't old. Many of the items inside seemed to be brand new, and the chalk on the board was certainly fresh.

After an hour or so we started down the dirt road hoping to find a town nearby that could shed some answers. We found the town, the answers, a little less so.

The town was like something out of an old wester movie. Dirt roads, log cabin style buildings with horse posts and water troughs in front. The sign at the edge of town said Grainsville, population 240.

That number seemed about right, but the populace itself was not. There were some cowboy looking folks for sure, but also lots of people that looked like Quincy, or even weirder. Plus several people dressed as hippies, 1950's housewives, 80's buisness men, and men and women in Victorian era costumes.

Some spoke english, but many seemed not to, and everyone was in a panic. People were screaming at each other in dozens of different languages, and different accents. Fights were starting to break out in small groups. The place was a terrifying cacophony of frightened people who didn't know where they were or how they got there.

I looked at Quincy to see if their expression mirrored my own feelings of desperation, it did not. Quincy was calm. I don't think they knew what was going on any better than I did, but that didn't seem to rattle them. They tapped the side of their glasses and did some wiggly thing with their fingers at their side then strode into the madness like a firefighter entering a burning buiding.

Something in the wraparounds Quincy wore allowed them to communicate with people. Folks calmed down when they approached them. They could talk to people in any language, with any dialect, and thank god for that because it's the only way we were able to figure out what had happened.

I say that with a grain of salt. None of us figured out the why, or how of the matter, what we did come to understand was that everyone there had appeared there from somewhere else in the world, from some other time in the world. All at the same moment, but from random periods in the, well, in my past and my future.

In the coming years we learned that this had happened everywhere. Across the globe human beings were redistributed. Sucked out of their time, their place and dropped randomly into a new reality. Every era, every location, like dice shook in a Yahtzee cup and tossed out on the fabric of time.

The thing was, once we understood, once we settled on the reality and accepted that it wasn't going to go back, we came together. Not just the folks in Grainsville either. Everyone across the planet. Everyone had lost everything. Almost no one had any family or friends land in the same time period. We were all alone, and all the things that separated us before were meaningless because it was all gone.

Yes, there were people in the world who had held power in whatever time and place they came from, and they all tried to hold on to that again, but it didn't last long because the trappings of that power, the privileges and reinforcements that came with it were gone. 250,000 years of human history had been put in a blender and poured out like a history smoothy.

I'd like to say it was a Utopia, but we all know that's a dream. The people were still people. Groups formed, people redistributed themselves with other people from their time, or their language, or their culture. Whatever helped them find comfort and security, but there was no fighting. No animosity. No one could claim ownership over land, or property. Everything came via sometime else.

Quincy and I stayed together for a long time. We found each other alone and scared and we helped each other find a new direction. They struggled without the technology they were used to from their time, I did too if I'm honest.

Q passed away last year and it's been tough without them, but I watch the world figuring out what it is again and it makes me happy. It gives me hope. Maybe that's why it happened, maybe that's what we needed.


The Long Way
By Heidi Blalack
‘Tiktok: @saintmox Pawpaw

My name is Queenie Quince Long and I live with my mother, Beatrix Beau Long the time traveler, and my aunt, Alice Alcide Long the soothsayer and art dealer, in our Boston home near Fenway. I first witnessed my mother emerge from within our kitchen fireplace when I was seven. She was just coming home from visiting the future. It happened to be my birthday so her presence was expected but not her means of entrance. She just walked right out from the spot where a fire had just been. I was wide-eyed and in such shock that the spoon I was holding slipped from my grip and fell to my porridge.

I sat still with my mouth agape, wondering what on earth I had just beheld, and if, perhaps, I was in need of spectacles. My mother spoke then to calm my panic. “Take courage, Queenie. You have not taken leave of your senses.”

From the doorway Aunt Alice chimed in saying, “nor are your eyes in need of examination.” She continued into the kitchen and greeted her sister with a hug without regard for the soot or her dress.

I nodded, thankful for the reassurance. Then, with the whole of my breath, I hurled questions at my mother and aunt without pause. They joined me for breakfast, and we spent the rest of the day doing our chores and sharing the details of their work as time traveler and soothsayer.

That was many years ago. Surely she’ll arrive soon.Today is my 13th birthday, after all.

“Take courage,” my mother said, letting me know all was well, as she stepped from the fireplace, dusting off soot and smiling. “I’ve only just returned and had hoped to find you still in bed and surprise you child o’ mine.”

Of course I had ten thousand questions about her work during her time away from us, but I had learned patience and so I stayed my inquiries.

“We will need a big breakfast for the rest of the day. Is your dearest aunt still asleep or has she even returned from the dance hall?” Mother said this with some judgment in her voice, but I didn’t mind. I was perfectly capable of taking care of the house.

Aunt Alice was out but not at the dance hall. “She is out with Ginne,” I said. On this beautiful morning she was out for a ride with her favorite horse. “Can we make waffles, mother?” I asked.

“For the most important day of the year? Of course, child o’mine. We are going to the Museum of Fine Art today, so I do hope she gets back in time to join us.” Her tone held such an eager fashion that I knew there was something joyous to come.

It was this tone which broke the dam of my patience, and all of my questions flooded forth. “Where did you go this time? Did you make history change? Is Grand Ma-ma still in France? Or did you visit my father? Shall we be getting anything new in the home?” I yelled this from the pantry, grabbing the ingredients to make waffles along with applejack and apple butter. “Cousins visited just this past week while you were away, so the pantry is full of apple goods.”

“All in good time child o’mine and remember that time is our specialty.” Her secretive grin drove me mad with the need to know more, but she then said the most amazing thing. “Today is your 13th birthday and so I must begin your instruction as a Time Mage such as myself and your aunt.”

“What?” I nearly tripped over my mouth as it dropped open. Mother made a habit of wonderful, shocking surprises.

The kitchen door opened and aunt Alice came in to see my mouth stuck open and my mother heating up a waffle iron. “You finally showed up, eh? Do you want anything other than waff…”

“Beatrix!” Aunt Alice interrupted my mother. “Did Mother send any news with the painting?"

“Alice Alcide! They already dislike time mages, but you know as well as I that cousin Valentine cannot be challenged and he has already given approval.” She picked up the bottle of applejack, “See this? He would not have sent this if he didn’t approve.”

Aunt Alice huffed but then turned to me, “My dear birthday girl, you realize that I had to reshelve all the books that you had left out in the library?” She hugged me and gave me a kiss atop my head. “Were you time slipping again?” My face reddened with the truth being said by the family soothsayer. Alice simply smiled at me and squeezed me again.

I looked back to my mother at the stove. “Mother, will you and I be able to visit the past or the future together?” The waffles were well underway when she finally answered my question,“It is a dangerous thing to time travel but it is a joy.” She was thinking hard on how best to answer. “Not everyone in the Long family can travel in the same way. Grand Ma-ma is stuck in the past and your father is in the future. They will never meet and yet they will know each other if we in the present can be vigilant with our records.”

The waffles were done and eaten with AppleJack and Apple Butter sauce, and the Long family then readied ourselves for a day on the town. We spent midday at the museum and, thanks to my aunt, observed new collections that had just arrived, courtesy of the Long family. My aunt pointed out all of the paintings from France in the 1600’s where Grand Ma-ma was to be seen in the background. One special painting she wanted me to see was of Mother and Grand Ma-ma at the same age. We danced around like silly goats and made much fun in our secret joy that others could never share.

In the afternoon we arrived at a photography studio and had our portraits taken so that my father might have a picture of me. That evening I began in earnest the journaling of my experiences for myself and my training, and my father, who I might not ever meet.

Queenie Quince Long Entry date 1906 April 7th

Mother visited today from some time in the past. She said she met a farm girl that reminded her of me, and she was compelled to come visit to see how I had got on.

Which Time Is It?
by London Hatchet

This was not what I expected.

When you agree to be a part of experimental technology that’s largely untested on humans, you know things can go wrong, you know you could… die. So when I entered a time machine and I started across this, time bridge, they called it, I thought I would somehow travel across it to the other side. That wasn’t how it worked at all.

It was an assault on the senses. All of the senses. You know when you look directly at the sun? After that you see a little white-ish dot everywhere you look. This was the opposite. Everything was white, bright white, blindingly white, and there was this tiny pinhole of color. One dot of focus. But I couldn’t focus, couldn’t think of focusing. Because I was distracted by my nose feeling like it was filled with ammonia. It burned, and my nose was trying to flush this toxic ooze while also spreading to my eyes (no more pinhole of color) and my throat and mouth were filled with- Look I don’t want to get into how I know this, but it tasted like rancid urine. My hearing was inundated by excruciating squealing and a thunderous boom, like a bomb going off next to my head (without the inconvenience of losing my head). Which left the sense of touch. The worst one. People describe pain in funny ways, like being hit by a truck. We get the idea. It hurts. Badly. You want to die. When I tell you I wished my pain was that small I’m in no way exaggerating, just take my word for it. The only thing I can think of to compare it to: imagine every nerve ending in your body is a fingernail. They all get peeled back and a red hot poker is forced on that spot. But it’s everywhere. Every single nerve. With everything going wrong, the problem was exacerbated by unimaginable pain.

It should have killed me. I wished it killed me.

Now the experiment. The goal was to experience, observe, and report. Did I disappear then and appear now? Fade away and fade in? I don’t know. As far as reporting on time travel it was a complete failure. I couldn’t think. All I was doing was reacting. Nothing made sense when it was happening. But there was one thing I understood without a doubt: humans should never time travel.

I do remember falling. It felt like well over two meters. But that was the least of my worries at the time. I was trying to feel my way through the space I was in, which should have been exactly the same as I left. Exactly ten minutes in the future. So why was the fall from so high? Why was there a fall at all? And why is it quiet? At least I think it’s quiet. I couldn’t hear anything beyond the ringing in my ears, a nonstop tone in the key of G. That goes away, right?

Obviously I didn’t hear the quiet. It was a fair assumption from the surroundings I could perceive. When you accomplish something extraordinary, you expect for people to be around you, excited, fist pumping. I didn’t get the impression any of that was going on. I didn’t feel anyone in the space. I was all alone, in this open fie—

I’m touching a tree. When I left we were in a field. An empty, flat field as far as the eye can see. I think I would have noticed a tree. I could really use my eyes right now.

—————

It took several minutes but my eyesight was finally coming back. All my senses were starting to go back to their normal imperfect selves. I am clearly not where I was. When I was is debatable. I have nothing as a source of reference. The forest that I found myself in the middle of was a definite sign something went wrong. Or right? It just occurred to me, I was on a very ‘need to know basis,’ and it didn’t seem they felt I needed to know anything. Something beyond time travel happened here. Unfortunately I can only offer more questions.

Did I travel to a different time at all? Maybe this wasn’t time travel as I was told. Was this a type of distance travel instead? If so, let me be the first to inform you, no matter how fast you need to get there, this isn’t worth it. The blood coming out of my ears is exhibit A in reasons why flights are the better option. Still, it was a real possibility that was what happened. There were patchy spots in the field I left, revealing red clay. The dirt here is a rich black. And the obvious, I’m in a forest now, instead of a prairie.

And… There are men on horseback coming this way. Okay. Don’t panic. I’m not here for any nefarious reasons. I’ll just tell them—

Yeah, I’m screwed.

My legs went weak and I was barely able to keep from shitting myself when the horses encircled me and a man with a litham scarf, covering most of his face, had an arrow drawn, aimed at my head. I instinctively raised my arms and lowered to my knees in surrender.

“I come in peace,” I said. Didn’t know what to say, really. But when I get nervous I tend to try a little too hard to be cute and funny; lighten the mood.

I was unsuccessful.

“🜂🝁🝃 🝅🝆🝇 🝈🝉🝊 🝋🝌🝍 🝎🝏🞀,” he said. I have no idea what that meant, nor can I repeat it. I don’t think I’m capable of all the clicks and rolling of the tongue. But I can tell you what he wasn’t saying: any variation of a reciprocatory response he also was coming in peace. He was mad. And I didn’t belong there.

My uneasiness was apparent. I closed my eyes in anticipation the arrow would soon be loosed and I would meet my end. But I was saved when the voice of another man interrupted the savage slaying of an unarmed man: me. I’m being dramatic. I have no way of knowing if he was savage. He was, however, quite ugly. I finally got a decent look at his face. The visible part looked like a horseshoe crab, but of course, attached to a humanoid body. The bottom half of the face was still a mystery being covered by the litham. So, was this an alien in this strange new world I have found myself in? That’s right, another Star Trek reference.

What made me wonder even more was this man of some authority, because he stopped my assured death. Even more curious was he was speaking in English. And the alien (I guess he’s an alien) understood. Maybe, just maybe, I was going to get out of this terrible situation alive.

The man dismounted his horse, a tall, slender man. He was also wearing a litham but there was no question he was a man. Middle East-African was my guess from his accent and the facial features that were exposed, plus the litham like they wear in the Sahara. The words he uttered next were both telling and confusing, because they didn’t make sense, but yet they made all the sense in this world.

“Which time is it?”

Scott Roche

Killing Time
@blueblazeirregular42

Dr. Linn looked at the Master Chronographometer, which showed he’d arrived at the appointed place and time. He had no doubts, of course, since he’d invented and perfected the technology. Now it was a matter of doing what he’d come here to do. He was kitted out as an early twentieth-century American, as best as their scarce records could tell them.

It had taken him a lot of time to decide which event he’d try to prevent first. There were so many. He decided he’d start small. The weather in this part of the southern United States was hot and humid, even at the beginning of September. Knowing it would be, he’d worn a linen suit common to the period. He'd also worn a badge of prestige on his arm. There were quite a few people on the street, but Linn had known precisely who he was looking for. He had burned the young man’s face into his brain.

He crossed the street, coughing as unfamiliar exhaust fumes attacked his lungs. How people lived like this, he could never understand. There, underneath a street lamp, stood a bespectacled young man, his dark brown hair parted down the middle. This was Linn’s target.

“Excuse me, sir. Are you Dr. Carl Weiss Sr.?” Linn’s accent must sound foreign, given the study of a language no one spoke anymore. All they had in his when were text files and a few bits of audio and video of poor quality.

The young man, who had been looking at the impressive building nearby and chewing his nails, looked startled. “Why, yes I am. Who are you?”

“I am a fellow physician and engineer. My name is Seamus Linn. I’m familiar with you through your postgraduate work in Vienna.” Linn extended his hand, hoping he was getting the greeting correct. “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Weiss looked up at Linn’s odd salute, arm up and palm down. “The pleasure is mine, Dr. Linn. Quite the coincidence running into you here of all places.”

“You would think so, yes. But I had the knowledge you would be here tonight.” Linn was ready to render Weiss unconscious if necessary but hoped it would not be. “I have a most urgent matter I need to talk to you about.”

Weiss looked both troubled and intrigued. “How on Earth did you know I’d be here?”

“You have but to come with me and speak with me for a few moments and I will make everything clear to you.” Linn’s hand went into his pants pocket, resting on the stunner he carried.

“I have business of my own that’s quite urgent. And I’m reluctant to skulk off with a stranger who might have a pocket pistol.” Weiss glanced down to where Linn’s hand was buried.

“Then I must tell you what I know.” Linn pulled his hand out slowly. “I know that tonight you will enter that building and have a confrontation with Senator Long. I do not know what your intentions are, but I know you are armed. I also know you won’t leave that building alive.”

For each phrase Linn uttered, Weiss’ eyes got bigger. “I have no ill intentions towards the Senator. I've no idea why you think you know these things. I was planning on going in there to talk to him. His policies have harmed our fair state and I wish to have my voice heard.” High color appeared on Weiss’ cheeks. He was passionate about what he'd said.

“I must speak frankly then. Your words with him will no doubt result in an argument and furthermore both you and Long will die as a result. Your good intentions will be spoiled.” Linn reached out to rest his hand on Weiss’ shoulder. “I believe you are made for greater things than to die tonight.”

“Are you some kind of spiritist or astrologer who claims to know the future?” Weiss shrugged away from the hand on his shoulder.

“No. I am a man, like you. One who believes in science.” Linn looked at his Master Chronographometer, which looked like an oversized pocket watch, and saw it was just past nine o’clock. “Terry with me until twenty minutes have passed. This is all I ask and no more.”

Weiss touched his jacket under his left arm and shrugged. “I can see no reason to deny you some conversation. You say you are a doctor and an engineer. Did you invent that remarkable timepiece?”

Linn smiled. “I did indeed. It does much more than tell time, but perhaps we can talk about that later.”

Before their conversation could continue, a pair of men ran up to them. Linn was startled to see himself standing in a charcoal gray suit and wearing a patch over one eye. Next to him stood a doppelganger of Dr. Weiss.

Linn Beta reached over and ripped the red armband off of Linn Alpha. “You couldn’t have known the significance of that, but I’m glad no one important saw it.” He balled it up and thrust it in his pocket.

Weiss Alpha looked back and forth at the Beta versions. “What on Earth?”

Weiss Beta smiled and patted his Alpha on the shoulder. “I’m proof that what this man is saying is the truth. But there’s more, isn’t there?” He looked at the Linn in the gray suit.

“Indeed. By not killing Long, the American Nazi party gained prominence.” He looked at his Alpha. “When we go forward, we see that we made a mistake in our probability equation. I brought this young man back as proof to ensure we kill Senator Long and still have Weiss survive. You see,” Linn Beta looked at Weiss Alpha, “you are far more important than I knew. If you live, your family line will help push us out into the stars at least two hundred years early.”

Weiss Alpha shook his head in disbelief. He looked like he was about to faint. “I must be going mad.”

Weiss Beta shook his head. “You aren’t.” He shook himself by the shoulder. “Our future is so much brighter if we do what we came here to do, but live. I will go and do what needs to be done. You stay here with the Linns.”

“But you’ll die.” He looked at Linn Alpha. “Won’t he?”

“If he does, it won’t matter because his timeline will stop existing the minute Long dies. If he doesn’t die, I’m not sure what will happen to him. I may take him back to my time for study. This is all new science. All I know is, you must live.” Linn Alpha nodded at Weiss Beta. “Go and do what you came here for.”

The two Linns and the one Weiss watched as the young man out of his own time ran up the stairs to the state house. The fate of all their futures hung in the balance.

Those Free Days of Wild
Ash Ward
@ashwardwrites

It is summer, but nearly fall. We’re squeezing in that one final summer gathering before the business of the school year upends our schedules. And while Heather tells me about some drama at work I do my best to listen, but if i’m honest, I’m barely there.

My son is at the edge of the treeline, his face is flushed, a little sheen of sweat on his brow as he dashes between the shadows. His unique-to-him laughter trails behind him like the fading light. Evening nestles into the beginnings of night, and he, with the remaining neighborhood kids, runs wild and free, playing some half-imagined game with only the vaguest of, and ever-changing, rules. They darted into the darkening woods as if nothing in the world can touch them.

For a moment, I am one of these children, back in my own childhood, in the trees with the coolness of the earth beneath my bare feet. The echoes of my friends call out as we chase one another, flashlights darting in the dusk as we searched for lightning bugs and buried treasure. It feels like I could reach back through that hazy recollection and touch it.

I feel… sad. A yearning, a mourning for those free days of wild.

He comes running back, breathless, and I tousle his damp hair and tell him, “You so sweaty.” He laughs, eyes sparkling just like mine used to when I was his age. That same look of exhilaration that only children can master.

He looks like his father, but right now, he is me. In tiny quirks. In too-sweaty hair. He is those little echoes of who I am.

He runs off for more play and I just stand there, gobsmacked, unable to perceive anything but his pure childhood. They grow so damn fast. Too damn fast. The days can be excruciatingly long, but the years blink away in an instant. I want to soak him up, already mourning days gone through our fingertips.

My eyes are bleary with the threat of tears and I hope the twilight is dark enough to hide it.

I miss my baby. And at the same time, I wonder at what kind of adult he’ll be.