Today is the Day...Again -FYI2023- writer

Today is the Day...Again

Reggie was pulled from his dreamless sleep by what sounded like thunderous white noise cascading through his addled brain. He tried to swallow with a tongue that seemed twice it's normal size and a throat that felt clogged with sand. He gingerly sat up on the couch, nauseous, heading pounding in time with the pitter-pattering of the raindrops on the metal warehouse roof.

"What the hell happened?", he croaked. Reggie cleared his throat and tried to remember the last 24 hours. Through bleary, burning eyes he saw the bottle of cheap whiskey and the dirty glass sitting on the rickety spindle-legged table. As the fog started to clear in his pounding head, the puzzle pieces of recent events orbiting just outside of clarity, he saw the apple. He lurched to his feet and staggered across the room, arm sweeping the bottle and glass out of his way. The apple was there just as he knew it would be. He carefully took note of what he saw. Pristine except for one, clean bite. Not a hint of browning around the bite edges. A single drop of juice ever so slowly making its way down to the filthy tabletop. It looked exactly the same as it had nearly four months ago when he took that bite.

Reginald Moberly, post grad student working on his PhD in Quantum Physics, had an exceptional mind. He didn't see things the way other people did. There was no such thing as impossible to Reggie, only improbable and he had discovered a way to tilt the odds in his favor. During his junior year Reggie had come up with the "Probability Manipulation Algorithm" (PMA) which Professor Malcolm, the head of the Physics department, had immediately dismissed as fanciful bunk. Professor Malcolm had recognized the potential of Reggie's gifted analytical abilities right away. The boy could solve complex computations in his head, no whiteboards, no computer, not even a calculator. He was the kind of student that could propel his mentor to the top echelons of the scientific elite, until Reginald made his fanatical obsession with time travel known.

Professor Malcolm had immediately dismissed Reggie's theories for time travel as fantastical delusions, trying to steer him towards more "practical" applications. She flatly stated that any sort of time travel was impossible and if Reggie was going to waste his talents and department resources on that flight of fancy, she would make it her personal mission to run him out of and blacklisted from the entire scientific community. Reggie knew that, as surely as he had ten fingers and ten toes, that time travel wasn't impossible, just improbable and that is what brought about the birth of PMA. There was no doubt as to what the PMA was for and, true to her word, Professor Malcolm took PMA from Reggie and gave it to Tillerson and Wilkes to work while getting Mr. Moberly suspended and remove from campus. Perhaps some time struggling would teach Reginald some humility and he would appreciate her guidance. Regardless, Patricia Malcolm would not be made a fool of.

Reggie checked all his preparations one more time. All the recording equipment was setup. Focus lasers, field generators and pulse dampeners in place and properly functioning. It was time for a shower and shave and get this show ready. The test with the apple was proof of what Reginald Moberly had known all along, time travel was absolutely possible. Tomorrow at 3pm a handful of the greatest minds in the field of Quantum Physics would be here to bear witness to the greatest scientific endeavor since the splitting of the first atom, including dumb and dumber, Wilkes and Tillerson and, of course, Patty Malcolm, who will be stuck in academic obscurity. The icing on the cake was that at precisely 3:05pm, Reggie would step out of the Moberly field, step out of time itself, to prove his time travel theory.

As the power approached operational levels, Reggie's eyes scanned the controls one more time. A creeping, nagging feeling in the back of his mind and butterflies in his stomach...nerves. It's just nerves, has to be, he's about to be first human being to ever step through time. Everything has been checked over and over ad nauseam. Pulse dampeners are all humming along, the focus lasers start firing, no going back. Reggie feels the inexorable pull, like a mini black hole, inescapable now. Field generators operating optimally. The Moberly field comes up and starts to swallow Reggie like the whale did to Jonah, propelling him into history by sending him a day into the future. Reggie notices a wobble in the Moberly field that should most certainly not be there. A quick glance at the Quantum stabilizers and... oh my God...they were never turned on...
Reginald Moberly's last words before being sucked into the vortex of time was "OH SHI----------

...

...

Reggie was pulled from his dreamless sleep by what sounded like thunderous white noise cascading through his addled brain. He tried to swallow with a tongue that seemed twice it's normal size and a throat that felt clogged with sand. He gingerly sat up on the couch, nauseous, heading pounding in time with the pitter-pattering of the raindrops on the metal warehouse roof.

The End.

Thanks for your Story!


Good Luck in the Contest.
Johnny

Back to the future!

Cheers

originally posted by: F2d5thCavv2
Back to the future!

Cheers

Dang it. I should have included a Doc Brown

Well done

originally posted by: 727Sky
Well done

Thank you very much.

I liked it! had hints of an old Outer limits or Twilight zone type of story.

a reply to: SprocketUK

Thank you so much

a reply to: Moon68

Dammit, Mobius. Well done.

a reply to: Moon68

Too good!

Glad you put "The End", I was going to keep reading that in a loop until someone told me to stop.

Great Read, a lot of good competition this month. Much Luck!

originally posted by: PorkChop96
Glad you put "The End", I was going to keep reading that in a loop until someone told me to stop.

Great Read, a lot of good competition this month. Much Luck!

Lol. Thank you very much.