Broad Ripple

By: submission | July 21, 2026

Author: Majoki

When Billy Pilgrim applied for a stockroom job at Vonnegut Hardware in the Broad Ripple neighborhood of Indianapolis, he was informed by the manager that he was overqualified. When asked in what way, he was told the position did not require any time traveling skills–ironic or otherwise.

Billy was confused. He’d never time travelled in the sixteen years of his life and didn’t really get irony which was a problem in his sophomore English class at Shortridge High. He decided he’d see if the local car wash was hiring for the summer. They were and he got on the afternoon crew.

That left his mornings free and he spent some of that time at the Broad Ripple Library studying time travel. After a few weeks, he determined that time travel was not only unrealistic, but highly impractical. One morning, he took his findings back to Vonnegut Hardware and asked to see the manager.

“I think you’re mistaken,” Billy told the manager.

“In what way?” the manager asked.

“I have no time traveling skills. Nobody does.”

“Do you read stories?”

“Sure. Don’t most folks?

“Yup. That’s a form of time traveling.”

“Reading?” Billy challenged.

“Stories often take you to the past or to the future. Sometimes both. Like Slaughterhouse Five.”

“Never heard of it.”

“It’s heard of you,” the manager explained. “You’re unstuck in time.”

“Not possible.” Billy remained skeptical. “But thank you for your time.”

“You’re the one with all the Time,” the manager said as Billy walked out of Vonnegut Hardware.

Billy stopped by the library on the way to the car wash and checked out Slaughterhouse Five. He stuck the paperback in his back pocket and felt a curious tingle run up his spine. A quiver and then a ripple. He wasn’t sure he wanted to read the book, but he felt like he had almost no choice. As if the future for him was already written.

In Broad Ripple, as in Dresden, so it goes.