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“Who are you?” Kathy said, turning to see who’d just come up to her cubicle. She could have said “This Thursday?” or “Die how?” or “How do you know?”, but any of those would have meant that she was taking the nut case seriously, this guy who had walked in, barely looked at her, predicted her death, and immediately turned to go.
He turned back, his shoulders sagging. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a week and a half.
(“Drugs!” said one part of Kathy’s brain. “Shut up,” said another part of her brain. “I’m trying to have a conversation.”)
Other than the exhausted/junkie thing, he was maybe a little cute: skinny, with dark hair and a kind of Antonio-Banderas-meets-Michael-Cera thing going on that made it seem like at any moment he might either flash you a look of soulful passion or trip over his own shoes and spill his coffee down the front of your blouse. She imagined the hot coffee scalding her chest and began to wish she hadn’t wore the pale blue blouse with the little flowers today. It was pretty, but it showed way too much cleavage
“I’m Brian,” he answered her, glancing up at her eyes from where his gaze had initially been attracted. “I jump a few days forward in time every once in a while. Then I find myself back in regular time, as if I just imagined it, except that a few days later things happen the way I saw them.
“Why don’t you play the lottery?” Kathy said.
Brian took a bent lottery ticket out of his pocket and waved it around. “I’ve been debating the ethics of that one,” he said.
She looked at him quizzically.
“I finally decided it was okay,” he said. “It’s not like lotteries are the most ethical things in the first place. They take money from desperate poor people every day and then turn a few desperately poor people into a miserably rich people. Not that I think that’ll be how it is for me. Not that people ever do.” He waited, a resigned expression on his face.
Finally, Kathy said “I think you’re crazy.”
Brian nodded unenthusiastically and turned to go again.
“Wait — you’re going to just announce my death and leave?”
Brian looked back over at Kathy, his eyes going to the wrong place for the first second or two again. “People think I’m crazy, so they don’t listen. Look at you: you don’t believe me, or else you’d ask me how it happens. It’s just that I feel like I have an obligation.”
“What about that airplane crash last week? Why didn’t you do something about that?”
“I tried. I phoned it in. I had to do it anonymously from a phone booth, though, or they’d lock me up as a terrorist. They didn’t believe me. Did I already say people think I’m crazy?”
“Maybe nobody can prevent the future from happening.”
He shrugged. “Why not? What’s going to happen — the time police are going to arrest you for not crossing the street?”
“Maybe I’m destined to cross the street.”
He shook his head. “If you don’t want to cross the street, you don’t have to. Call in sick. Take a cab and make them drop you off on this side. Leave town for the day.”
“What if the universe kills me some other way because it’s my time?”
“Then there’s an intelligent being directing the universe who has a plan for us all, which would be a nice surprise for us both. But my money is on the world not bending over backwards to kill you. You seem like a nice person. It doesn’t seem like it would be worth the extra effort to kill you off.”
“Why all the guesses? Don’t you know whether things can change or not?”
Brian shook his head. “It just started this month. Maybe it will stop sometime. That’s why I finally bought the lottery ticket.” He grinned crookedly. “Ironic, right? The time traveler who’s worried because he doesn’t know what’s going to happen in the future.”
Kathy smiled, because it was ironic. There was an awkward silence that stretched out for a lot of seconds. Finally, Brian gave a little wave goodbye.
“Wait — ” Kathy said again.
“I really have to go,” said Brian. “There’s this lady whose cat gets run over.”
“What street do I cross?”
Brian looked surprised. “Just outside, in front of Starbucks at about 8:40 in the morning. You must be on your way to work.”
“And how do you know about it?”
“I’m right there at Starbucks, getting two double espressos to see if the caffeine from the future affects me in the present. I ask you your name while you bleed to death.”
“Well, okay,” Kathy said. “Thanks. I really appreciate it.”
Brian smiled, and the dial moved from 50/50 to about 75% Antonio Banderas. “You’re welcome,” he said. Then he turned around for real and headed toward the elevator.
Kathy bent back to her work, and she wondered how the caffeine experiment had worked out. She would ask Brian when she saw him on Thursday, although she’d look for him in the Starbucks instead of crossing the street.
She switched over to e-mail and started filing a personal day request.
Luc Reid is a Writers of the Future winner whose fiction and nonfiction have also appeared in Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons, Abyss & Apex, and other venues. He’s the founder of the Codex online writers’ group; author of Talk the Talk: The Slang of 65 American Subcultures (Writers Digest Books, 2006); and a former radio commentator. He blogs about writing and the psychology of habits at LucReid.com. His latest book, is a young adult novel of backwoods sorcery in Vermont called Family Skulls, available for Kindle on Amazon.com
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20 Responses to “KEEPING AN EYE OUT FOR THE TIME POLICE REGARDLESS • by Luc Reid”
Comments
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November 21st, 2011 at 4:52 am
I’m a sucker for time travel stories so maybe that’s affecting my perspective a tad but I really enjoyed this story. The author gave very little insight into the Brian character yet I was able to come away with a stronger feeling for what makes him tick than I did with Kathy. I don’t know whether that was intentional or not but it worked very well for me.
Five stars from me!
November 21st, 2011 at 5:17 am
Her nonchalance at the end bothered me, but then (as I remembered how gorgeous Antonio Banderas is) it occurred to me that this is romance not sci-fi and Brian simply has a rather unusual chat-up technique -one that clearly works in this instance. One satisfied romantic reader.
November 21st, 2011 at 5:37 am
Good read, enjoyed very much. Excellent female voice for a male writer. Like the premise as well. Lovable characters. Could make a whole book out of this. Four stars.
Apologize for my inability to form complete sentences this morning.
November 21st, 2011 at 5:49 am
I enjoyed it. What a nice lighthearted way to begin a Monday
I agree with ajcap, great female voice for a male writer. Great job.
November 21st, 2011 at 6:25 am
Loved the slightly hopeful romantic intentions at the end here. Brian’s character, for me anyway, was well developed. I could feel his weariness at this burden. The feeling that he had to warn people of their impending doom and how that might wear on a person. Four stars today!
November 21st, 2011 at 7:14 am
Who wouldn’t love an Antonio-Banderas-meets-Michael-Cera-type time traveler? Great characterization on Brian, although I’m not quite as enamored of the Kathy character. Still, a wonderful story.
November 21st, 2011 at 7:38 am
This story I like a lot, but I very nearly didn’t make it past that first paragraph. I had to read it several times at first, then I decided to skip and carry on reading the next part. It wasn’t really until: “I’m brian…” that it really began to zing.
Having read to the end and decided it was an excellent story I read that first paragraph again several times over, and I reckon that the words: “turning to see who’d just come up to her cubicle” are the culprit. I’d cut that bit if it were my story. Those words give the impression that something is about to happen, whereas the remainder of the paragraph indicates that it (the prediction) has already happened.
Just saying. Still liked the story a lot.
November 21st, 2011 at 8:06 am
This was a really cute take on the usual time travel story.
November 21st, 2011 at 8:29 am
Time travel stories (love ‘em by the way) usually seem to have logic flaws, but so what.
In this one, our hero, knows what’s going to happen on a specific day and specific time. He’ll get up that morning, do his normal business, go to Starbucks, order his drink, and see this girl cross the street at 8:40 and get killed.
My question is, since he knows, couldn’t he change his actions that day and just stop her at the curb so it doesn’t happen? Why does he have to warn her ahead of time and then go on about his business as if he can’t help? Doesn’t quite make sense to me, but maybe I’m missing something. Maybe he forgets everything once he is in “normal” time, but that line is full of holes to since he’s warning her in “normal” time. Starting to hurt my head if I think about it anymore. Maybe Rose (#2) is right, maybe this is a romance story, and he has a great pickup line working for him. Oh well.
That said, it was well written (I do agree with scar (#7) on the opening however, a bit confusing), good characters, nice dialog. A four star read this rainy Monday morning.
November 21st, 2011 at 9:47 am
I like it. Seattle Jim’s logic flaw didn’t occur to me until I read his comment. Maybe you can get away with more in flash fiction?
Good story.
November 21st, 2011 at 10:55 am
As Oscar mentioned, a dodgy start, but the rest of the story and the voice were excellent.
November 21st, 2011 at 10:58 am
I had some difficulty orientating myself in the first three paragraphs. some queer syntax at times as well.
A time travel tale a la Niffenegger.
I quite like the way she will avoid the situation by manipulating the future.
November 21st, 2011 at 1:58 pm
I like this as a flash story, but love it as a one act play. Charming dialogue that doesn’t grate… read like a winner to me.
November 21st, 2011 at 2:10 pm
Really? I LOVED the opening paragraph. I thought it was brilliant that you didn’t open with his actual words, but told us what he’d said by her possible reactions. It was what made me smile and read on, which I haven’t done for a while.
Horses for courses.
Well done, loved this
Mel
November 21st, 2011 at 2:35 pm
Yeah I liked it a lot as well. The extra-long and twisty second sentence took a bit of thought but it set up the rest of the story perfectly. Pretty good writing, and a well-told story.
Four stars.
November 21st, 2011 at 2:52 pm
Shouldn’t she avoid Starbucks altogether? I suppose she’s decided that if she’s going to die anyway she’ll take a gamble at crossing over and “dying” in Brian’s direction since he seems to have full run of both times.
November 21st, 2011 at 6:35 pm
These comments are an exceptional perk to having a story appear here! I see what you mean about the problem of Brian’s actions in the future: I was picturing him physically being transported forward in time, though if he’s doing that, then there’s the whole question of why he doesn’t just find his future self and ask himself for some answers, so it may be just as well that I left the details of the time travel a little vague!
It never occurred to me that it could be a short play, but that’s a great idea. There are some good opportunities for playwrights who write short pieces up here–a couple of mine have been produced in the last year or two, which has been great fun. I’ll probably take a shot at putting this into play form sooner or later.
Thanks to everyone who commented about the beginning. The variety of comments helps me get a much better idea of what I might be able to improve on and what I’d better go out of my way to preserve.
November 21st, 2011 at 9:56 pm
Luc, I must admit that when Kathy decided to go to Starbucks in spite of Brian’s warning, I got the impression she was turning the warning into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
November 27th, 2011 at 5:14 pm
[...] the flash fiction “Keeping an Eye Out for the Time Police Regardless” by Luc Reid at Every Day [...]
December 2nd, 2011 at 7:28 am
Nice job! I even read this one to my husband because the voice was so strong.