Through the Hourglass (Third Edition)

By John Thomas Hill

Chapter One

Seeing What Was To Come

The late summer heat dissipated as the storm clouds rolled in over the heart of the old city. As I lounged in the living room of my Hippocratic Hill apartment, I bore witness to the advancing thunderheads that were a long-standing tradition in these parts. For those who had lived here since birth, they were used to the afternoon and evening “thunder boomers” as a meteorologist from my youth used to call them. Those new to these parts scrambled for cover from the sheets of rain and theatrical trembles of thunder.

I had lived here for quite a long time, looking out at Parliament Hill from the twenty-ninth floor, having made the trek up that very hill many times already in my life, past and present. It’s thinking about the past that make me look back to that earlier time in my life when things were much different than they were now, when this whole area was nothing like it is today.

I had no idea when I left my job at Wal-Mart of what was to come, of course. How could I? Who would have thought that because of one strange bit of happenstance that my life would be forever altered and so dramatically changed! I had come quite a long way in the world of the present day, but I still wondered what might have been if I had stayed in the past.

It may sound cliché, but it was a night very much like any other night. It was the first of July, a few days before what was once called Independence Day in that earlier time. The Fourth of July had been the traditional time to head to the beach and escape the small towns in which we dwelt, but high gas prices and a faltering economy meant that families had little money for frivolities anymore, so the locals began to celebrate the holiday locally again. At my local Wal-Mart, perched high upon a hill overlooking the 74 Bypass, this was the perfect spot for locals to view the traditional fireworks display, and for the local merchants to profit once the fireworks display ended.

It was the calm before the storm. None of those poor folks had any idea of what would take place just a little over a mile away a few years in the future. Had they known, they would not have done anything to stop it, because it would have simply been unbelievable to think that the world would forever be changed by the events in downtown Forest City on that fateful day of July 4, 2017.

I never saw that day, of course, but the events that took place that day are etched in my mind as if burned into my brain with a laser. As I look eastward, I wondered what I would have done when the chaos broke out.

I wish there was some way to warn them, but I tried once before to go back, and nearly died from the attempt. I realized then that some things were fated to happen, and there was nothing you could do about them, no matter how much you wanted to stop the death and destruction that resulted.

So here I sit, watching lighting strike the top spire of Parliament (and secretly chuckling at the thought of certain members getting struck by a bolt or two), I sit down and compose how I got to this place. It seems both a distant memory and fresh in my mind at the same time.

The night when it took place was much like this one. I worked until nine in the electronics department, enduring the usual trials and tribulations that come with working retail. Both people who worked in the wireless department and the two who had run the photo lab left roughly at the same time as I did, but while they went home, I had another job to get too within an hour. After making a quick stop at Wendy’s for chili and a sour cream and chives baked potato, I headed over to Reeves for my security job. It was going to be a lot quieter tonight as the plant was shut down for the week due to the holiday. After relieving the second shift guard, I settled down for an evening of listening to music before doing my first round at midnight. I booted up the Pandora application on my iPhone and settled back to wait out the next two hours before heading on what was to be my last round.

I still have that phone, an ancient piece of technology compared to what we have today in this present time. How could Naomi, Julia, Sharon, Daphne, Trent, and the rest who worked in my department know that when I left the store that night I would never again come back? Then again, how could they know of what was to come? Clearly I had no idea at the time!

My watch beeped midnight and I turned off Pandora and began my first round. After going through the personnel offices (and making a bathroom pit stop), I went into the plant itself and began the laborious task of turning a dozen keys. I had nothing particularly on my mind as I turned the key in the receiving warehouse and made my way toward the back of the plant.

Then, as I left the warehouse, it happened. I can’t fully describe what exactly “it” was, even after many discussions about “it”. All I know is one moment I was walking quietly inside the low mummer of machines idling, and the next I was enveloped in a bright white light, feeling my body expand and a great force pulling on my body. It seemed like an eternity enduring whatever was happening to me, but just as suddenly as it started, it stopped.

I fell to the carpeted floor, which was the first indication that something wasn’t right. I should be on hard concrete, but I was lying prone on one of the softest rugs that I’d ever felt. I wasn’t really able to fully appreciate the feel of the fibers on my fingers as I felt like I had been through hell and back.

I heard a voice, “What happened?” It came from outside the room. I heard footsteps approaching. I was too out of it to have any emotions whatsoever. I barely had the strength to turn my body over to see my surroundings. It looked like a plush office that belonged to a well to do professional.

I heard another voice, this time female, “The burst went into the professor’s office! Quick! We have to see if there has been any damage!” They were almost here, and I had no idea what was going to happen.

At the door, I heard the thudding footsteps of someone running towards the door. Then yet another voice, this time of an older man, “Be careful! We have no idea what the temporal experiment has done to the room!” I managed to locate the door just as it opened. Entering the room was a man who looked like the very personification of an old and wise professor. He had steel gray hair that was balding at the temple and a matching salt and pepper beard. “Someone’s in the room! Who could it be?” he exclaimed as he slowly approached me.

As he came closer, another man entered the room, this one much younger. He had dark brown hair and looked like your stereotypical college student. When the female came into the room, my eyes went wide, because she was very much atypical of anything I’d ever seen! She had sky blue skin, which contrasted with the white tank top and shorts that she wore. Her hair was as blond as waves of grain in the fields of Kansas. It was at this moment that I knew I was not in Rutherford County anymore.

“Andy, help me help him up to the couch!” They both grabbed me up and helped me gently to the plush couch facing a curtain. I heard from that window the bare whispers of urban life taking place in what seemed like a downtown area. The professor spoke to me, asking, “Are you all right?”

I tried to speak, but I could barely utter any sound. Quickly I made a gesture of drinking a cup and the professor instantly responded, “Tana, get him some water, please!” The blue-skinned female walked briskly back to the room to a sideboard and quickly came back with water in a clear glass, slowly pressing it against my lips. I drank slowly until it was drained, finally able to utter a “Thank you!” before exhaustion hit my body full force, causing me to slump against the back of the couch.

Before any more alarm could go through the threesome, I said, “I’m okay, at least I think so. Where am I? What is this place?”

All three looked around at each other, clearly uncomfortable with answering that question. I added, “I can guess I’m in the future, because unless Tana is going to a costume party tonight, I’m guessing she’s not exactly human!”

The professor nodded and slowly said, “She’s from a world called Elara.” Then he asked what year it was in my time.

“The date is, or was, July 2, 2009, shortly after midnight. I assume that I’m not at Reeves anymore!”

“Reeves? What’s…oh, yes! It’s what used to be on this block ages ago!” Andy said, which drew a reproachful glare from the professor that I noticed.

“You’d better let me know what’s going on, because I have some idea as to what happened.” I said. “You were conducting some kind of experiment to try and either come back to the past or to at least see what went on in my time. Am I right?”

The professor was surprised and impressed at what I had said, “We tried to look back into the past, close to your time. We didn’t want to cross over, because we didn’t want to be stranded in the past.”

“But it didn’t go as planned?” I asked.

Andy added, “Our ‘window’, for lack of a better term, began to become unstable and began to move. We tried to pull it back into the lab, but the surge instead sent it into this room and…you showed up!”

Then a buzz came from the desk, and the professor hurriedly went over to answer what I assumed was some kind of phone. He pressed a button and a male voice came over the speaker. “Professor Chronenberg, this is building security. Our sensors indicated a power surge coming from your floor! Is everything okay?”

“Yes! Yes it is!” he said, and I shook my head. The way he said it would alert me that something wasn’t quite right. I guessed right when the security guard said, “Well, just to be on the safe side, I’m going to come up and check things out. Wouldn’t want the Dean to be upset with me if something went awry on my watch!”

I saw a very nervous look come over the professor’s face as he ended the call. He turned to Tana and Andy and said, “You need to get him to the roof! Take my transport to my home and I’ll alert Sarah what’s happened as soon as I get done with security. Don’t go straight there, because I’ll need time!”

Tana nodded and, along with Andy, helped me to my feet. “Can you walk?” she asked me.

I found that by some miracle I had regained some strength. “Yes, but not too fast.”

“That’s okay! The elevator isn’t that far.” Andy said as we began to walk out the door. The hallway looked very much like any other college building hallway I’d ever been in, save for the lack of bulletin boards. We headed to the elevator down at the end of the hall, and didn’t wait long for a car to take us to the roof. Tana and Andy were visibly relieved when the doors closed and they headed up. I wondered how this would get by security, as surely they would wonder why someone was taking an elevator to the roof after an incident happened. However, no challenge came from the loudspeaker in the car, and once it stopped, we exited and headed towards what looked like some mutated version of a futuristic car.

Then I looked up and stopped in my tracks, saying as I looked at what was before me, “What is this place?”

Tana said with a smile, “Why this is Rutherford City! This is the campus of Rutherford Polytechnic Institute, and the road before you is what you knew, and what is still called, Railroad Avenue.” Andy looked uncomfortable with this revelation, but didn’t say anything.

I stopped and said, “Before we go any further, I want to know what the date is.” As I peered into the night sky filled with what seemed like an alien skyline over the neighboring town of Spindale, Andy replied, “The date is July 2, 2509. You were pulled five hundred years into the future.”

I looked at him and smiled, saying, “Well, let’s be off! I want to see more of what this place has become!” Tana, Andy and I piled into the roomy four-seater flying car and took off on what she said would be the “scenic tour” before heading to the professor’s home outside of Asheville.