Have a Drink

Have a drink

I might have invented time travel.

Well, no. Rather, I might have laid the theoretical foundations which would make time travel possible.

Really, I might have.

We had been working for months with my colleague Victor D. on the quantum statistics of spontaneous electron splitting, back at the Physics Department at the University and I thought I was starting to see a pattern there.

Very dimly at first, but it seemed the pattern wasn’t all that random and there was a clear deviation from the statistical sample.

Perhaps we could make the electronic splitting go this way instead of that way. Perhaps we could make other particles go in a statistically more propitious way.

Perhaps we could backtrack electrons following those statistics.

Perhaps we could see into the past. To begin with.

The future, and no pun intended, seemed wide open.

That afternoon, Victor left the lab, exhausted but in elation. We were at the verge of something and he left with dreams of Nobel prizes twirling in his head.

I stayed behind a while longer trying to coax my computer into producing the mathematical model that was lurking in the back of my mind.

And suddenly, there it was.

Crystal clear.

I was surprised I hadn’t been able to visualize it before.

I pushed “save as” and lay back, exhaustion finally reaching me as well.

Time to call it a day. I knew I wouldn’t be able to go any further in my exhausted state so I checked again the model was properly saved and started home.

I lived close by the campus so I usually walked home.

That night I was walking on clouds and for the first time in three years the need of a drink hit me.

Hard.

I had promised Patricia never to drink again, to keep her from walking away, and I had kept my promise so far.

It was tough at first but I had managed and my whole life, personal and professional, had gotten better in the exchange.

But I needed a drink as I had never needed one.

What the hell, a Nobel Prize deserved a drink! A small one, of course, and then I’d be in my way home.

I thought Patricia would be doubly pleased at our discovery and at the fact I could control my drinking now. No more drinking frenzies, never again.

I sat by a quiet corner in the pub and contemplated my scotch on the rocks, not quite daring to sip it at first.

I never noticed the stranger approaching. I suddenly heard his voice by my side. “It’s not going to turn out well. You’ll see.”

Startled, I turned around. “Beg your pardon?”

“I said it’s not going to turn out well. You’re starting an avalanche with a little snowball. It’s going to grow, grow beyond any control.”

Standing besides me there was an old man. His face was strangely familiar but I couldn’t quite place where I knew him from. His clothing was odd too, in a way I couldn’t define either.

He just sat down on the other chair and beckoned the waiter.

I was so stunned at the fellow’s impudence I didn’t say anything.

“You heard me right,” he went on. “Time travel will eventually be feasible. From your mathematical model, no less. And you’ll get your credit, sure enough.”

All thoughts of throwing him out of my table vanished at his words.

“What...what are you talking about? How do you know that?”

He gulped down my scotch and sighed. “Let’s just say I know and leave it at that. The corporate sharks will turn your discovery into the ultimate screw. I wouldn’t call it slavery but just about.”

I caught the glass the waiter had brought and gulped down just as greedily.

“Hold it!” I said. “You’re not making any sense. How can you know about my work?”

“It doesn’t matter, just hear me out.” And he beckoned the waiter again. And he talked and talked, describing so vividly an insane future of all powerful corporations and helpless consumers, while the scotch flowed.

Somewhere along the line I must have dozed off, because the next thing I remember is the waiter shaking me up and saying, “Sir! Sir! please wake up, it’s closing time!”

My cell phone was ringing too. Patricia! I decided not to answer just yet.

I felt a cold sweat down my spine.

The old man was nowhere to be seen.

My drunkenness evaporated and I rushed out of the pub, running to my lab.

The night man was surprised to see me so late but he let me in.

Heart pounding, I came to the door and put my eye to the retina scan and opened the door. I ran the last few meters to my desk, my heart pounding harder in heavy premonition.

I suppose you guess what happened. There was nothing stored in my hard disk, not the slightest clue to my brand new and shining mathematical model.

We tried to recover it, of course, although Victor was never quite convinced it wasn’t only a drunkard’s delusion. We tried until our grant died and Victor switched to a different field.

I’m still trying, I’ve got plenty of time now since Patricia left me.

She didn’t believe my story either, and sometimes even I doubt it. Nobody could have gotten to my desk bypassing the eye scan; only my eyes could open that door.

The old man? Nobody saw him, nobody knew him. And his face was somehow so familiar...

But I’m repeating myself, please forgive me but I tend to ramble.

Here, have a drink on me.

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