Jeremy Robinson - The Didymus Contingency

David chuckled lightly.

“Well?” asked Tom with a slurred voice, “Where’d it go?”

“Let’s just say some paleontologist is going to be very confused when he digs up a Neanderthal sitting on our chair,” David said, grinning ear to ear.

“My God, we might have changed the course of human history!” Tom blurted sarcastically, “Imagine! Chairs invented earlier, leading to the idea of having a throne, upon which a king is crowned and a monarchy is born centuries earlier then we currently know! By my calculations the time change shift hits us in three… two… one…”

Tom finished his countdown with an impressive belch that went unnoticed save for the rotund cowboy at the next table over who raised his chicken leg to Tom and nodded his head as if to say, “Nice one.”

David shook his head. Tom was a silly drunk if you stayed on his good side. “While I don’t think our chair will have any effect on the time stream, we do need to be more careful in the future,” David said.

“So puh-artna,” Tom said with a drunken smile. “Tell me how our little invention works.”

“You’re not going to remember a word of this in the morning,” David said, thoroughly amused.

“C’mon buddy, humor me…” Tom replied as he blinked his eyes, trying to clear the cobwebs.

David picked up the watch and held it up in front of Tom’s face. Tom focused on the watch as best he could. David worked the buttons with skill and spoke as he did so, “Look here. This sets the date, not today’s date mind you, the date you wish to travel to. We even included settings for B.C. and A.D. Here is the time of day, again, the exact time you wish to travel to-not our time. And look at this! Anywhere in the world you want to go to. After picking the year and time you can enter global coordinates, which are then automatically adjusted for continental shift. Just push this button and poof, you disappear…to another time…another place…another way of life, in the blink of an eye.”

“Okay,” Tom said. “So then the real question is…if the watch…which was on the chair…which belongs to the new king…created the time…warp? Wormhole? What are we calling it anyway? Forget it. Not important… Why didn’t the watch disappear too?”

“I thought about that. It’s elementary, but I think the watch might have to be attached to whatever it’s sending back in time,” David explained.

“Huh, I still can’t believe this works.”

“Believe it,” David said, “It’s about time you believed in something.”

David’s comment sank in slowly and got twisted in the process by Tom’s tanked brain. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

David spoke quickly, “I didn’t mean what you think. I-”

“You what?” Tom said, his voice growing angry, “Want me to believe in your God? Your Jonas…”

Tom squinted his eyes, attempting to free his mind of the alcohol’s effects, and said, “Your Jesus? It was my lucky day. That’s what he said, you know, my lucky day! My lucky day…”

Tom spoke through gritted teeth, “Megan dedicated her life to ‘saving people.’” Tom’s nostrils raised and his lips turned down. “Saving people… She called it that. She died for being a Christian. She died… She died because she believed in an ass of a God who could care less about those who served him.”

David looked around the room. They were beginning to get an audience.

“Here God! I want to serve you so I can die too!” Tom shouted toward the ceiling. He looked back at David. “I hold Jesus… Jesus is responsible for her death. She’s dead. It’s his fault. How could I ever believe in him? If he were who everyone says he is, why did he let Megan die?”

David spoke slowly and softly. “Sometimes bad things happen to good people and we can’t see why. But the greater good-”

“Greater good? David, my wife was gunned down in front of me and died at my feet! Right at my feet. And the blood… What good could possibly come of that?!” Tom fumed as his mind raced. “You weren’t there, David. If…if you believed in Megan’s God, you died. They killed you. Fffft, that was it. If you didn’t…if you didn’t, you lived. It was that simple…that easy. Be glad you weren’t there. You’d be dead too.”

“She died for what she believed in, Tom,” was all David could say.

“Why do you think…? What… Yeah, you know, you’re right. She died for what she believed in: nothing. She died for nothing… Megan died for nothing.”

Tom wound up and punched the tabletop with all his might, getting the attention of everyone in the restaurant. Tom’s chest heaved with each passion-filled breath. He thought of Megan and how he wished he could save her-go back and save her-but he knew he couldn’t. Time would be changed forever and the time travel device he invented would cease to exist, trapping Tom in an unbreakable cycle of self-defeat. But there was something he could do. Something that wouldn’t change time, but would prove once and for all that Megan died for nothing and that David’s naive beliefs were ill founded. At least David could be saved from a life of worthless devotion to a dead god.

Tom shoved away from the table and pounded toward the door.

“Tom, wait,” David urged, not sure what was happening. He fumbled with his wallet, attempting to pay for their meal before leaving. Tom had plenty of time to make his escape.

David careened out of the restaurant unsure of Tom’s plans. Would he find Tom crying over the loss of his wife? Would he encounter a swift fist to his jaw? Would Tom pass out and wake up with a headache?

The Land Rover skidded to a dusty stop in front of David, nearly crushing his feet. Tom was behind the wheel. David approached the already rolled down window. “What are you doing?”

Tom looked at David, his eyes clear and said, “If you could go back in time…and witness any event…from beginning to end, where would you go?”

David was exasperated and didn’t want to spend time on silly questions, “Tom, I don’t know.”

“Well, I do,” Tom informed him.

“Tom…”

“I’m going to prove it to you once and for all. I’m going to prove it to the world. My wife is dead and so is your God, dead and buried,” said Tom, “Don’t worry. I won’t change anything. I won’t get involved.”

“You’re drunk!” David shouted, “You can’t drive!”

“You can’t stop me, David.”

“Give me the keys.”

“Goodbye, David.”

“Give me the keys, now.”

“See you around.”

“What are you going to do?”

Tom was finished with the conversation and slammed his foot on the gas. The SUV peeled off, leaving David to choke on a cloud of dust. David coughed as he chased after Tom, yelling, “Wait! What are you going to do?”

David stopped running in the middle of the road and caught his breath. He mentally sifted through all the possibilities Tom’s drunken mind could be considering. He thought about what Tom had said. Where would he go? What event would he witness?

David opened his palm, looked at the heavy metallic watch and found the answer. They had unlocked the door to the past and Tom was going to step through and face the man he blamed for his pain.

David’s face contorted into sheer panic and he said aloud, “No… Oh no, Tom…”

He smashed through the doors of Peggy’s Porker Palace. “Help! Somebody help me! I need a ride!” David shouted. A room full of slovenly, bibbed truckers stared at David, annoyed by the disturbance to their feast. David met their eyes and knew he was going nowhere fast.

A dark blue Chevy pickup with bull horns tied to the front stopped amid a cloud of dirt only ten feet from the inconspicuous shed in the middle of nowhere. David flung the door open and jumped out.