Author: Colin Jeffrey

“Your order will be ready eleven months ago next Tuesday,” the drive-in automat informed me. “And your bill will be minus eighty-four dollars, less tax.”

I put the car in reverse, drove home backwards. When I got there, I put the newspaper back into the door slot and switched off all the lights.

As I backed into the living room, my wife unwaved me goodbye and went back to bed.

I unsmiled at her retreating figure and unbuttoned my overcoat. I walked backwards down the hallway, remembering what it would feel like later that evening when I’d arrive home tired and hungry.

Outside, my neighbour was un-mowing his lawn, his mower carefully disgorging and replanting clippings.

Mrs. Clavicle across the road looked away from me and unwaved as she carried last week’s garbage up from her bins, scolding the dogs that hadn’t arrived yet.

I shimmied backwards to my car and rolled onto the street. By the time I reached the city, the traffic had untangled itself. Accidents reversed in an elegant dance: bumpers undented, panels unscratched, horns untooted.

I saw my destination in the rearview mirror – I had unremembered it from an ad I hadn’t seen: The Ministry of Temporality. A tall glass building, lights blinking out next to advertising signs that turned off.

I reversed my car into the parking lot next door. The valet handed me back my keys.

As I backed in through the ministry’s doors, the desk clerk was already unstamping paperwork I hadn’t filled out.

“We’ll be unfulfilling your request in approximately forty-two minutes ago,” she told me. “Please unwrite your details on this form.”

As I sat on a chair in the foyer, a door closed to my left and a man in a white lab coat walked in, holding a chalkboard. As I watched, he erased the empty board and words appeared:

Hello Mister Fleagle, I am Doctor Happenstance – you are caught in a time anomaly.

I unnodded my head. He erased again:

I can help you if you come to my lab.

Another erasure:

Please unfollow me out of the corridor to your right.

I did as asked and found myself in a room full of complicated machinery.

Doctor Happenstance unhooked me from some unattached cables, then untwisted dials, flipped off switches, and unadjusted some settings. The room distorted. A coppery smell filled the air. My vision blurred. When it cleared, I looked up at the clock. The second-hand was moving clockwise.

“How do you feel now, Mister Fleagle?” asked the Doctor.

“Much better, thanks,” I said, relieved to be moving forward in time. “What happened?”

“It’s a little difficult to explain,” he said, “but it seems a rift has opened between our universe and another.” He frowned. “And bits of time are – to put it simply – out of sorts.”

“Will it ever return to normal?” I asked.

“That we don’t know,” he said. “But we’re working on it. That’s why we created this ministry.”

When I arrived home, the lights were already on for the evening.

“Hi honey,” my wife said. “Everything okay?”

“It is now,” I said, grinning. “In fact, I feel like celebrating.” I put my arms around her waist. “Let’s go out for dinner.”

“Ok, great!” she replied.

“Can you phone the restaurant while I have a quick shower?” I asked.

“Sure thing.”

As I towel dried my hair on the way to our bedroom, my wife was just hanging up the phone.

“How did you go?”

“Great,” she said, smiling. “We’ve got a booking for nine-thirty two weeks ago next Wednesday.”