Beep beep!, beep beep!, beep beep!... Olsen's alarm rang.
Taking a few seconds to come to the realization that he had slept way longer than he should have, Olly takes a quick glance at his alarm clock and sees his little red alarm clock on his desk displaying 6:00am.
"Oh, no no no, not again!" He exclaimed as he gathered himself together from his desk that he had fallen asleep on. Off he zooms to the shower. Three minutes have passed and he is all washed up and ready to dress for work. But before he does, he puts some bread in the toaster.
Olly lives alone in a Penhar suburb in an apartment with just a room for himself, another where he basically stores his books, a decent-sized kitchen and bathroom, and a garage. But his garage is a space that holds all of his inventions.
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As he speeds up his preparation for work, his cell phone rings. He picks up the phone and immediately says, "I know, I know, I'm late again and I am working my way to being fired...blah blah blah." Mike would always mention to him how bad he was at keeping track of time and how he could get himself fired if he did not step up. And this time, Olsen was late for the morning meeting by 6:00 a.m.
He packs his bread and work files before getting into his car to drive to Penhar High School, where he teaches Physics. It's an hour drive, so he gets there at 7:25am, right at the end of the meeting, and meets the school's principal right at the entrance upon arrival.
She simply tells him that his afternoon session for Physics has been moved to the first period of the day and that he should get himself together and prepare for his class. Mrs. Henderson would normally remind him of how close he is to losing his job, but she thinks little of it today as she has a lot to ponder at the moment.
Olly gets to his office and tries to clear his ever-untidy desk space. He clears just enough to get himself prepared for the day and then goes about his business for the day—teaching the students. At the end of the day, Olly and Mike talk about Olly's progress with his experiments.
Olly grew up as an orphan, lived in several foster homes, and had always had life rough. He was a child prodigy in chess and an extremely brilliant kid who always bagged awards and medals. But he never seemed happy as he had to struggle so hard for himself every single time he needed to achieve something. While the many kids he went to college with had life quite easy for them. He, however, managed to study physics in college and graduated as the best of his class.
His difficult life pushed him to want to succeed at anything, as he knew that that was the logical eway out of his tough situations. He had always been fascinated by the concepts of time and space. His motivations drove him into an obsession with time-travel as he continued to fall deeper and deeper in love with it. He hopes one day he might be able to save his parents from the car accident that he alone survived.
Olly spends his day working as a regular teacher in high school but spends every night, alongside every little opportunity during the day, working on his project: a time machine that would allow him the opportunity to travel back in time, to save his parents and reshape his life into something without the hassle and pain he had gone through.
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"How is the equation that would compensate for matter traversal through space and time coming on?" Mike asks Olly.
"I just cannot seem to factor in enough variables that would account for successful decomposition before travel and recomposition after destination arrival in time." Olly replies.
"How long is it going to take?" Mike asks.
Well, if I did know, I definitely would not be spending more time at this job. This job will not matter once I crack this project, but I do need the money to fund it. " Olly responds.
But I seem to be getting the equation to choose the right time and destination of travel. There's some progress, at least. " Olly continues.
Well, I do hope you find what you are looking for. You do know your life is much better now, and you could forget about the past. " Mike says it in the coolest tone he can muster, so as to possibly persuade Olly to move on with his life.
"I have to go lock the lab and get home soon." I left Murray with a little food today; he must be starving by now. " Olly gets up from his seat, while gathering his papers on the experiment he showed Mike.
Sighs... "I hope he moves on from all this before he gets himself hurt, again." Mike says to himself as he walks out of the cafeteria.
"I heard that!" Olly shouts as he opens the door.
"Yeah? You were meant to! " Mike responds
Olly gets into the lab to get the keys to lock the doors to it, but as he grabs it, he turns around and sees a weird-looking project by a student. It had been completed, but tomorrow was the exhibition day. Two young ladies had been able to infuse a banana with a mind-accelerating agent. They called it the BBB—"Brain Booster Banana."
Olly imagines that taking this banana could possibly give him the boost he may need to crack his math for his experiment. He reaches for the banana and heads back home.
"Entry 1098, the banana hypothesis." Olly speaks into his recorder as he drives home.
"I have in my hand a banana by two high school kids that claim it could boost the human mind." I am going to test it today in hopes it helps with finally completing the time bubble. " He continues as he makes his daily idea recordings.
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He finally gets home, and the first thing he does is eat it.
"Uhhhh, is something not supposed to be happening now?" He says it out loud.
Nothing happens. He thinks little of it and proceeds to his kitchen to prepare dinner for himself and Murray. But Murray isn't in the house.
He did not think much of Murray's absence, as he assumed he was asleep somewhere in the house. His pet cat, Murray, is and has always been his only companion for years.
He leaves food for Murray in his tray and proceeds straight to the garage to work. He finds Murray there, but ignores the poor cat as he takes a nap under his desk. He sits down and stretches his feet in order not to hit Murray, but he stumbles on something.
He pushed a box upon which a bowling ball he had as a teen rested, and the ball fell and rolled away. As he observed the ball roll across the room, that's when it hit him. "Eureka!" Olly exclaimed.
He finally realizes what exactly may be wrong in his equation to compensate for matter traversal through space and time. You see, without this equation being perfect, anyone who attempts time travel with his time machine may have his whole being reassembled in the wrong order.
What Olly had failed to consider was gravity. As the bowling ball had been displaced by his foot, it also had gravity influencing its direction of motion. He had failed to account for gravity's influence all this while.
"This banana brain booster thing ain't not hoax" Olly says to himself.
He begins working on this new hypothesis all night. testing every variable of concern and inputing the values into his time machine. He simulates every single variation until finally, the computer indicates "SUCCESS".
Without hesitation, he enters his time bubble and selects the time and location he travels to. WHoOOooshhhh!! His entire being disintegrates into thin air.
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Olly finds himself in a place quite different from what he had anticipated. He is in a place that he does not recognize. A machine that seems to be hovering above the ground, shaped like an egg but large enough to contain a grown human, suddenly stops in front of him.
With a voice that sounds very human but clearly a computer's voice, it says to him, "You are in violation of protocol 767-B." Please step aside now, or you will be penalized. " He does as the machine says, with no understanding of what it means by the protocol. There was no one around but a man repairing a camera across the street.
He walks up to him and asks, "Where am I?"
"Such a comedian. Someone asking for directions in 2075. How funny. "
It then dawned on Olly that he had not traveled 25 years into the past, but 50 years into the future. His plans to save his five-year-old self from the pains he had endured had gone awry.
Suddenly, someone else walks up to him and says to him, "We have been waiting for this day to come." We know you did not plan this, but you were meant to arrive here. Follow me, and we will reveal more to you. "
He knows that he is in a time he does not belong in, so he follows the man in the black suit and with sunshades so early in the morning.
Little did Olly know that he had signed up for more than he had bargained for.
TO BE CONTINUED...
This is the first in a series of fiction stories I'm writing for the scholars and scribes community's "DreemPort" challenge. Click on this link to learn more about the challenge. Please stay tuned for the next installment. You could also offer your thoughts on what you expect to see in the next section.
ℍ𝕖𝕪, 𝕚𝕗 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕖𝕟𝕛𝕠𝕪𝕖𝕕 𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕤 𝕡𝕠𝕤𝕥, 𝕜𝕚𝕟𝕕𝕝𝕪 𝕝𝕖𝕒𝕧𝕖 𝕒 𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕞𝕖𝕟𝕥, 𝕣𝕖𝕓𝕝𝕠𝕘, 𝕠𝕣 𝕦𝕡𝕧𝕠𝕥𝕖. 𝕀𝕥'𝕝𝕝 𝕤𝕦𝕣𝕖 𝕓𝕖 𝕒𝕡𝕡𝕣𝕖𝕔𝕚𝕒𝕥𝕖𝕕.