Time Stations
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
She set up a receiving station in her office. That receiving station was anchored at 3:45 PM, August 22nd, 2018.
As soon as she turned it on, the messages from her future self came pouring in.
Advice on theories, scores from sports games, inside knowledge on upcoming relationships and a thousand other subjects. Apparently, the future her had no respect for causality.
Reality shattered.
She set up more message depots ten weeks apart and gave them addresses.
She answered questions. She’d forward questions back to the proper message depots and an earlier self would try to find out answers and forward them back to the future.
She employed people. Her earlier selves employed people.
Every message station became a corporation. Every ten days, she set another message depot up. Her corporation would get to a deserted part of the world, set up a beacon, and turn it on. As soon as they turned it on, a building would materialize around it with an employee base that had always been there.
After August 22nd, 2018 at 3:45 PM, there were no more mysteries. Reality became as malleable as smoke in the air.
The thing that’s hard to imagine is that whenever reality changes, no one notices. It simply becomes the way it’s always been. The theory is that that we are shuffling through realities like an infinite deck of cards. We can’t tell. She either ended the universe or created the multiverse.
The only way to live here is to live here, they say. I tried making some bets on upcoming games but they never pan out. Something changes, I guess, and the score changes, so that’s that. I don’t make a fortune and then lose a fortune; I just never had a fortune. If you see what I mean.
I have to accept that what is real right now is all I’ve ever known.
I wonder if one day, someone will send a message back and successfully set the wheels in motion to assassinate her and put this world back into a place where her discovery never existed. I wonder if that’s even possible.
Not that I’d notice if it happened. This world would cease and I’d be in a world where her invention never existed. I’d never know the difference.
The 365 Tomorrows Free Podcast: Voices of Tomorrow
This is your future: Submit your stories to 365 Tomorrows
The Past
365tomorrows launched August 1st, 2005 with the lofty goal of providing a new story every day for a year. We’ve been on the wire ever since. Our stories are a mix of those lovingly hand crafted by a talented pool of staff writers, and select stories received by submission.
The archives are deep, feel free to dive in.
Flash Fiction
"Flash fiction is fiction with its teeth bared and its claws extended, lithe and muscular with no extra fat. It pounces in the first paragraph, and if those claws aren’t embedded in the reader by the start of the second, the story began a paragraph too soon. There is no margin for error. Every word must be essential, and if it isn’t essential, it must be eliminated."
Kathy Kachelries
Founding Member
Submissions
We're open to submissions of original Science or Speculative Fiction of 600 words or less. We are only accepting work which you previously haven't sold or given away the rights to. That means your work must not have been published elsewhere, either in print or on the web. When your story is accepted, you're giving us first electronic publication rights and non-exclusive subsequent publication rights. You retain ownership over your story. We are not a paying market.
Voices of Tomorrow
Voices of Tomorrow is the official podcast of 365tomorrows, with audio versions of many of the stories published here.
If you're interested in recording stories for Voices of Tomorrow, or for any other inquiries, please contact ssmith@365tomorrows.com