By Jim Doran
I stood beside a cliff’s edge above the Pacific Ocean, preparing to jump.
Theoretical physicist Wanda Pepper stood between me and the edge. Her cropped, raven-black hair had a stray, orange-dyed curl in front that bounced when she moved toward me.
Wanda patted the electrodes on my chest. “You’re all set.”
I scratched the stubble on my chin. “Are you sure? I’m rather fond of being alive.”
Wanda stepped away and produced a gadget like a cell phone from her pocket. “Time travel isn’t for wimps. Are you backing out?”
A year ago, since the prior February twenty-ninth to be exact, I would’ve laughed in Wanda’s face. I was a different man then. Adrift, certainly. But now, I was resolved to see this through. “Explain what will happen once more.”
Wanda’s nasal-infused voice spoke louder than the night’s crickets and the waves below. “While it’s theoretical, I’m certain wormholes exist on Earth, cloaked in weather phenomena, making it hard to prove apart from mathematical physics.”
I’m jumping to my death based on the hypothesis of a single scientist.
Wanda continued, “I’ve mapped likely wormholes. Larger ones exist above the Earth’s surface, mainly over the ocean. We’re lucky my model identified one this close to land.”
“The wormhole I’ll pass through halfway down to the ocean.”
“Yes.” Wanda tapped the screen of her device. “A body at rest passing through a wormhole experiences a sudden burst of unnatural energy. The blood flows quicker and may coagulate. Hyper-temporal passage requires not only sound physics but precise biological conditions.”
She’d already told me this. “My blood must pump hard to compensate for the shock my body will receive.”
Wanda blinked at me. “If it doesn’t, you’ll die. That’s why you need to jump off the cliff instead of being lowered through the wormhole.” She spoke as if I were taking out the garbage.
I breathed deeply. “Am I ready?”
“Did you write the note?” she asked.
Her question led me to recall the one Pamela had written. Different words, same conclusion. I had read Pamela’s many times, holding the paper as if it were a museum antique. Sometimes I held it against my chest as I did Pamela when she was an infant. Her tiny body had a heartbeat then.
I stepped to the edge of the cliff. “I did. It says, ‘What was the point of life?’”
“The scientist in me likes the directness.” Wanda closed in next to me. “The rest of me is not amused. But if it does the job.”
I rolled my shoulders. “If you’re so confident about this wormhole, why did you have me write a suicide note?”
Wanda brushed back her orange curl. “If the wormhole moves, I can’t save you. I could go to jail, Hudson.”
Because, knowing Wanda, she’d tell everyone what had happened even if it didn’t work.
“With your note, I’m protected.” A wind gust blew her hair to the side. “No one will question it. Did you know the most common time for suicides is around New Year’s?”
So that was why she put this off until December 31.
And yet, January wasn’t as deadly as February twenty-ninth.
“If I succeed, my past self disappears?” I asked.
“My unity consistency conjecture states two identical bodies cannot exist at the same time. Your last instance usurps your prior existence. Your past body’s location will shift to the bottom of this cliff. But you’ll retain your memories from this year.”
Wanda and her conjectures. Pamela had interviewed Wanda for a high school paper on time travel. My daughter hung the paper on a posterboard on her wall.
I gulped. “Any last advice?”
Wanda put her hand on my shoulder. She’d always been so businesslike before, but tonight, her eyes glistened. “Hudson, I know why you volunteered for this. Screw temporal anomalies. You do what you need to do.”
If the wormhole net didn’t exist, I would fall to my death. But one way or another, I would hug Pamela again.
I launched myself from the cliff. The air screamed past me—ghosts of past jumpers howling at me. At a time like this, they say your whole life is supposed to flash before your eyes, but for me, it was just one scene.
“Dad, do you have a moment?”
“Sorry, honey. I’m busy.”
The pressure stretched my skin, and my heart pounded. I couldn’t catch my breath. A few conscious thoughts paraded through my mind. They spilled from my head like puzzle pieces from a box. My wife, dying of cancer. Me, throwing myself into work after her passing. Pamela, looking for comfort but receiving only my grief-stricken isolation. Why couldn’t I see what I had been doing to her?
The air crackled and buzzed around me. Time suspended for a few seconds, and then my body hit the water as if I had jumped from only a few feet. The sudden change set my body trembling.
I surfaced and gazed at the sky. The full moon was now a crescent. Wanda had done it, but how far back had I gone?
Standing knee deep in water, I started my phone. Face recognition allowed me to access it, though tears reddened my eyes. I held my breath, waiting for the device to synchronize with the satellite. When was I?
My phone’s home page rendered the date. February twenty-eighth.
And then the cell rang. I fumbled with it, not expecting the call. Pamela’s name appeared on the screen.
I answered it. Pamela’s sweet voice, alive but troubled, asked a question…
“Dad, do you have a moment?”
This time, the answer is different.
“I have all the time in the world for you, honey.”
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Inventive with the time travel method, and poignant with the traveler’s motivations. Excellent work, sir. A home run.
Many thanks. It was a fun story to write.
Wow… I’m tearing up. This was such a powerful story!
Thank you so much.