Author: Steve Smith, Staff Writer
There was a door at the end of the Science wing that Malcolm had never opened, not in the decade or so he’d been at the university. He’d assumed it was a mechanical room, or something similar, but tonight there was a light on. Had the door always been windowed?
He listened outside, and hearing nothing, tried the handle, finding to his surprise it to be unlocked. Curious, he pushed the door open and peered inside.
The room was an office, or a library, or some combination of the two. Shelves lined with books, and tables piled with clutter, and beyond it all, peering at him from behind a desk sat a woman.
“Malcolm, welcome, you’re right on time. Come, have a seat.”
Malcolm, certain that he’d never seen this woman before in his life, nevertheless found himself wandering into the room and settling into a seat opposite her.
“Have we met?” His tone a mix of quizzical and guilt, she obviously knew him, and he had no idea where or when they’d have met.
“We’ve had many conversations, you and I Malcolm, but I suppose not yet. My apologies, I’m usually better at this.”
He mulled over whether he should correct her obvious grammatical error, and just couldn’t help himself.
“We either have, or we haven’t. We can’t have had conversations if we haven’t had them yet, that makes no sense.”
He straightened a little in his chair, feeling for the moment an air of superiority.
“Ah, right, you’re still stuck on linear time.” She looked away then, scribbling into a notebook on her desk.
Malcolm’s short-lived feeling of superiority evaporated like gasoline on hot asphalt.
“Linear time? You’re time-traveling? Is that your story?” Now he was vacillating between being perplexed and annoyed.
“No, no, nothing as primitive as that. You still consider time a linear thing, we’re beyond that, so I’m just here, in all of your past, present, and future.”
“I don’t believe you.” He folded his arms, having decided on annoyance. She was trying to make a fool of him.
“You thought I was making a fool of you, when we first met, which I suppose is now.” She smiled. “I’m not, I assure you.”
Malcolm’s arms dropped.
She produced a deck of playing cards from a drawer. “Here, close your eyes, and I’m going to give you a card.”
He closed his eyes, and held out his hand. She placed a card into it and sat back.
“What is it?”
He turned the card over. “Three of Diamonds.”
“Are you sure?”
He looked again. “Eight of Clubs…”
“Positive?” She was smiling now.
“Five of Hearts. How are you doing that?”
“While your eyes are closed those few seconds ago, I just keep changing the card.”
Malcolm did not like this one bit and got up shakily, dropping the card on her desk before backing towards the door. “I don’t know what you’re playing at, but I’ll not be made a fool of.”
She sighed. “No worries, Malcolm, it always went like this. We’ll talk when you figure things out.”
Reaching the door, he turned to grasp the handle, noticing the door was now solid steel, with no window at all. He turned to survey an empty supply room, barely more than a closet with a bare bulb swinging overhead.
He headed for the parking lot in a hurry, jumping at the sound of the door swinging closed behind him.
By the time he was in the car driving home, the nagging feeling that he’d met the woman before was buzzing like a live wire in the back of his brain. He was going to think about the events of the evening, and he was determined to somehow figure them out.