Thirty-Eight Minutes
By: James Rumpel
0
“Here’s your order, sir.” The teenage worker slid a tray containing two pieces of white meat, a side of mashed potatoes, and a Coke across the counter. The young man’s smile was not genuine, but he appeared to be doing his best to provide congenial customer service. Bill Gruber admired him for the attempt. He recalled his time in the purgatory of part-time service jobs and knew how difficult it could be.
Bill grabbed the tray and thanked his server. He looked around the restaurant for a spot that was not too close to any other customers. The place was not crowded; eight other people were seated in the bright red booths. It wasn’t that Bill didn’t like people. He just felt self-conscious eating alone in a restaurant. The other customers would look upon him as some kind of oddball or miscreant. The simple truth was that he had gotten hungry while studying for his Acoustical Engineering final and this place was convenient.
He found a table in the corner. He took a moment to do a little people watching. An elderly couple, a few booths away, were busy arguing over the man’s refusal to wear a jacket on such a blustery day. Another booth was occupied by what appeared to be a group of four employees from a nearby oil change business. They all wore blue shirts and black pants. They barely spoke as they downed their sandwiches and fries. Another couple, in their early twenties, sat close together. They enjoyed their lunch and a hushed conversation.
Bill didn’t find any of the other customers to be overly interesting, so he started to dig into his meal. He ate slowly, having no desire to race back to the apartment and the large stack of notes on soundwave behavior. The right thing to do would be to go back and eat while studying but he needed a break.
The sound of the oil-change workers standing and returning their trays jarred Bill from his daydream. His cell phone told him that it was 12:42; he had been in the restaurant for thirty minutes.
Without warning, a brilliant light enveloped the restaurant.
1
“Here’s your or . . .” The teenage worker froze as he handed Bill his tray. “What the hell? Didn’t I already give you your food?”
Bill was just as bewildered. Moments before he had been seated in a booth finishing off the last few bites of a chicken breast. How was he now standing at the counter?
Other gasps and similar expressions of shock could be heard from every other person in the restaurant.
Bill instinctively glanced at his phone. The time read 12:04.
“Did anyone else see a flash of white?” asked the elderly man.
Everyone nodded.
“It’s like we jumped back in time,” said one of the oil crew. “I know I finished my meal, but now it’s here in front of me again.”
“This is just too weird,” said the young woman.
The restaurant manager and cook emerged from the kitchen. The manager unleashed an expletive-laden tirade about how freaked out she was. Bill couldn’t help but agree.
“What’s going on?” cried the elderly woman. Her husband moved to her side.
“Look at Twitter,” called out the man from the young couple. “It looks like the same thing happened all over the place. There are tons of tweets about this.”
“Let’s just all remain calm,” said the old man.
“Remain calm?” shouted a member of oil change crew. “We just jumped backwards in time. You have to admit, that is freaky.”
The older, jacketless man remained the voice of reason. “Maybe we did go back in time or maybe we are all crazy or we were hypnotized or something. Whatever happened, everything seems to be normal now. Let’s just have our lunches and see what happens.
“I not hungry,” said one of the blue-shirted oil changers.
For the next twenty minutes, everyone just sat at their tables reading their phones. There were already all sorts of hypotheses being suggested from all over the world. None of them seemed reasonable, but then again, reason could not explain what had happened.
Bill didn’t touch his chicken. Every few seconds, he found himself looking at the time. Eventually, 12:42 rolled around.
2
“Here’s your or . . .” The teenage worker stopped. “Damn. It happened again.”
“Well, I’m not sticking around this time,” announced Bill. “Maybe by changing locations, this will stop.”
He left the building and jogged back to his apartment. His phone was ablaze with messages. The social networks exploded with people asking what was happening and providing outrageous theories.
He got to his apartment at about ten minutes after twelve. He called his mom and could tell from her hysterical reaction that she was experiencing the same time displacement.
“Everything will be fine. There are some really smart people in this world. They’ll figure out what’s going on.”
The conversation ended with Bill telling his mom how much he loved her. After ending the call, he glanced at the clock on his DVR just as it switched to 12:42.
3
“Here’s your or . . . Oh my God.”
17
“Here’s your or . . .”
“Here we go again,” said Todd, the lead oil-changer. The restaurant patrons had gotten to know each other during the repeated thirty-eight-minute replays.
The other members of the Kwikest Lube team were Jamaal, AJ, and Derek. They tended to be quiet, letting Todd be their spokesman.
Barry and Marsha were the names of the young couple. They had recently moved in together, making a trial run to see if they could consider taking their relationship to a more formal commitment.
David and Ann were the elderly couple. Both were retired teachers. His area was history, while she had taught fifth grade for thirty-four years. They were the calmest of the group. David and Ann had already experienced most of what the others were afraid of missing.
Micky was the young man who seemed doomed to an eternity of handing chicken to Bill. He was a high school junior and described himself as a math geek who enjoyed playing board games. The manager was Gail. She had proven to be very temperamental, almost bipolar. During some of the replays she was calm and supportive; others found her nearly hysterical. The cook was rarely seen. He stayed in the back. Sometimes, when everyone else was being quiet, he could be heard praying in the kitchen.
“It’s like Ground Hogs Day,” observed Micky, “except we don’t have time to do much before we start over again.”
“There has to be an explanation,” said David. “This can’t go on forever.”
23
“Here’s your or . . .”
A couple of minutes after the time shift, a message from the President came on Twitter. Bill read it to the rest of the group.
“To the citizens of the United States and the all of Earth. Rest assured that the best minds in the world are working towards a solution to the current predicament. Please remain calm. We will find a solution.”
“Of course, he’s going to say that,” said Todd. He had proven to be the resident pessimist.
“It’s not like there’s anything else we can do,” said David, the former history teacher. Whenever anyone was approaching a state of panic, it was David who was able to calm them down.
“Well, we have a way to pass the time,” said Marsha. She and Barry got up from their booth and headed for the woman’s restroom together. They had done this during a few of the reiterations of time.
“More power to them,” said David with a sly smile on his face.
“So, anybody up for a game of checkers?” asked Micky. The young man began drawing squares on a placemat and tearing tiny scraps of paper to use as checkers. “How about you, Bill? I deserve a shot at revenge for last time.”
Bill shook his head. “No, I’m going to go for a walk.”
“You’re just gonna end up right back here,” said Todd.
“I know. I like fresh air. It gives me a chance to think.”
71
“Here’s your or . . .”
Todd threw a half-eaten chicken sandwich at Marsha. “I don’t care what you think. Nobody is doing anything to stop this. We are stuck like this forever.”
“The President said they are going to solve this problem,” insisted Marsha. “Isn’t that right, Honey?”
“Leave me out of this,” replied her boyfriend as he climbed out of the booth. “I just need some time away from everyone.” He headed toward the kitchen.
Everyone just sat there staring at each other. The last few time jumps had been filled with awkward arguments. The group was beginning to lose faith. Tweets from the President or optimistic scientists no longer inspired the hope they once had.
“Anybody want to hear a joke?” asked David.
“No, your jokes are stupid,” replied Todd. “This whole thing is stupid.”
“Just calm down and . . .” began David.
“Why should I listen to you?” shouted Todd. “You like what’s happening. You’re old. Now you don’t have to worry about aging. Every thirty-eight minutes you get to stay alive and live some more.” He pointed at everyone else in the restaurant. “We’re the ones who are getting cheated by this deal. We should have lives ahead of us, not spending all of eternity sitting in this stupid chicken joint.”
Bill tried to calm him down. “What else can we do? We have to hope someone can figure out a solution.”
“I have a solution,” shouted Todd. “I’m not going to go through the same thirty-eight minutes forever. It’s like a living hell. I can’t take it anymore.”
Without warning, he jumped from his seat, raced out the door, and jumped over the cement barrier which separated the frontage road from the highway. There were a few cars that did not stop immediately when time reset. They were probably driven by people who wanted to get home and see their families as soon as possible before ending up back in their vehicle again. Todd dove in front of a black SUV.
The people in the restaurant watched in silence.
“That was stupid,” said Jamaal, one of Todd’s companions. “If he’d been paying attention to the posts on social media, he would know that he’s just going to come back when time resets.”
72
“Here’s your or . . .”
Todd screamed.
After settling down, he was able to talk of the excruciating pain but remembered nothing else of his death.
“So, a rabbi, a priest, and a lawyer walk into a bar,” began David.
Approximately 100
“Here’s your or . . .”
About fifteen minutes into this time frame everyone’s phones beeped.
“At least our phones are always charged when we restart,” said Bill.
The President was tweeting an important announcement. A physicist in California had developed a theory. He hypothesized that the Earth had been engulfed by a random wormhole that caused a temporal shift. The details were too complicated for the general population, but the President insisted that the scientific community would be able to find a way to counter the wormhole’s effect. It would not be easy. Any calculations done on paper or by computers would be lost every thirty-eight minutes. Nearly all the work had to be done mentally to be preserved from one iteration to the next.
“Well, that’s good news. Isn’t it?” said David.
“I don’t know,” replied Bill. “How on Earth can we make something to stop the wormhole? We only have thirty-eight minutes to do so.”
“They’ll think of something. They always do.”
David smiled and took his wife’s hand in his. Todd shook his head.
Somewhere around 140
“Here’s your or . . .”
“Hey, the President is sending out an update,” announced Marsha.
“Well Duh,” snarled Barry, “We all have our own phones.”
After everyone had read the message, they turned, in unison, toward Bill. The group had taken to expecting him to handle the explanations of anything scientific.
“Basically, the President is saying that scientists have determined that the wormhole has mass.”
“What does the mean?” asked Gail.
Bill shrugged. “Since it has mass, it can be moved. The scientists believe there is a chance to deflect it and have it miss the Earth.”
“How can we do that?” asked Todd.
Again, Bill found himself shrugging. “They need to devise some way to exert force against it. I’m not sure what they can come up with that can be built in the little time we have.”
“Should we all go stand outside and blow on it?”
Ann, who was generally very quiet, turned to Todd. “Todd,” she said, in her fifth grade-teacher voice, “if you don’t have anything constructive to offer, you should just shut up”
Somewhere around 160
“Here’s your or . . .”
Very little progress had been reported on the attempts to deflect the wormhole. The group had divided itself into separate factions. They had reached the point where they did not enjoy each other’s company. Bill spent most of every thirty-eight-minute increment walking outside or calling his mother.
This time, he sat in his booth, doodling on a placemat.
“Why you tramp!” yelled Marsha. She lunged at Gail, the restaurant manager. “How dare you?”
Gail sprinted from the lady’s room doorway and hurdled the counter. She raced to her office and slammed the door. The sound of a deadbolt being put in place followed.
Marsha was not finished with her assault. She crawled over the counter and began pounding on the door. “I will kill you,” she yelled at the top of her lungs.
While the screaming continued, Barry sheepishly emerged from the restroom and quickly exited the building.
“That won’t do him much good,” said Todd. “He’s just gonna end up sitting next to her in about ten minutes.”
“Boy, can she scream,” pointed out David. “If she gets any louder, the windows are going to shatter.”
Bill stopped doodling and looked up.
About 161
“Here’s your or . . .”
Bill ignored the loud slap he heard coming from Barry and Marsha’s booth. He immediately took out his phone and texted his physics professor. He recalled a paper he had been reading while studying for his Acoustical Engineering final. It had been written by some Swiss physicists who had been able to levitate objects, even mice, using sound. He asked his professor if she thought sound might work to deflect the wormhole.
While Doctor Howell could not supply him with a definitive answer, she said that she would try to spread the word throughout the scientific community. If the idea had not already been explored, she would do his best to see that it was.
About 200
“Here’s your or . . .”
Bill gazed intently at his phone. Recent reports had indicated that the prospect of using soundwaves to alter the course of the temporal wormhole had potential. A plan to broadcast the correct frequency from as many sources as possible was being considered.
Expert physicists around the globe had been working to develop a plan. It might be possible to emit a strong enough soundwave using equipment that already existed. The challenge would be setting everything up in the small amount of time available.
Bill’s phone buzzed. His professor was calling.
“Dr. Howell, is it true that they are going to try and use sound?”
“Yes, Bill. It looks like there is a chance it could work.”
“I can’t believe they are actually going to use my idea.” Bill tried his best not to sound too excited or boastful.
“Well, it’s not solely your idea. A lot of people claim to have come up with it. You can be proud of thinking of it, but you aren’t going to be treated like a hero or anything.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Bill. It would have been nice to be heralded for his brilliant idea, but the only thing that mattered was somehow breaking this infinite loop.
About 250
“Here’s your or . . .”
“Okay, we all know what we have to do,” directed Bill. “Remember the station is 95.6 FM. Get to it.”
The restaurant guests who had cars ran to their vehicles and turned on the radio, setting the volume to the maximum level. Bill and the others headed to a nearby electronics store. They were joined by dozens of other people from surrounding stores. With practice precision they set up every stereo in the building, pointing the speakers skyward.
Bill looked at his cell phone. “Five minutes,” he called.
Todd grabbed him by the shoulder. “I hope it works this time. We’ve tried this eight times and all we’ve managed to do is break a bunch of windows and hurt our ears.”
Bill shrugged. “There are a lot of different frequencies to try. If it doesn’t work this time, we will try another. This one should be high enough that we don’t hear it.”
At precisely 12:40, every capable radio station on Earth began broadcasting the ultra-high-pitched sound file that had been sent to them moments earlier.
Dogs barked in agony. Windows and car windshields splintered. The ground shook.
Bill, along with almost every other person in the world, looked at the time. It was 12:42. After what seemed like an eternity, it switched to 12:43.
Three days later
Bill pushed the plywood-covered door open and entered the restaurant.
“Hi, Bill. Good to see you again,” shouted Micky. “Do you want your usual? A two-piece meal with mashed potatoes.”
“No,” laughed Bill. “I’m just here for a soda. Something with caffeine. I have a lot of studying to do. Besides, I think it will be a long time before I eat another piece of chicken.”
-