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At The Fringes Of My Imagination (Pt.IV)
By joseexist in Musings On Muses
November 17, 2009

At the fringes of my imagination I am punching holes in clouds with my air-bike. The tinted visor is down and I am listening to an old song on the radio. At mach two I’m pulling heavy gees with loops and spiral dives. The wind tugs at my suite but the suit won’t let it tear me away. It dampens the g-forces as well. I drop down onto the deck and go to mach three. Desert sands rooster-tail far behind me as I turn up the volume. FM compression sweetens every note. I dart over ocean and the rooster-tail turns to liquid. The sun glints softly off the blurred chop of the water. A hurricane lies ahead and I plunge into its heart. I go to mach four and surf the eye-wall. I pick up unbalanced electrical charge and arcs of lightening fire off in every direction. I add a bit more throttle and hit mach five. One more “nudge” and I’m at mach six. I look down and flip the readout screen to an old familiar picture. I add a bit more volume, leave the picture there and take the throttle to full. I catch up with my shockwave, pass it, and catch up to it again. The hurricane disintegrates and I fly off thru the residual sheets of rain. Each impact registers like an ordinance hit but the suit cancels the inertia. At my current speed a bulge forms on the oceans surface far behind me. This far out it will create an immense tidal wave when it reaches land. I kick in the after burner look at the screen and remember the way her hair smelled. One slight course correction and I’m headed to the stars.

At the fringes of my imagination I ignore the “de’javu” of greeting myself on the street. The other “me” comes to realize he will have to repeat my actions in his future. My warning is quick and to the point. Get back in the car and drive east as fast as you can. Drive until you run out of gas. Do not stop to eat or sleep. When you stop look for the cave on the right side of the highway. It will be behind the greenest bush on the rock face. Go inside before sunset. I watch myself climb back into my car and speed away. I pull the controller from my jacket and push forward. Time shifts me back to where I came from. I pull the gold encased circuit block from the device and throw it into the smelter. I make a note. “Move lab farther away next time.” Back at my workbench I begin to assemble the next time-ingot. I hope this one works. This loop is starting to wear me down. Once the “guts” are all in place I take the smelter and pour its liquid contents into the mold. A shot of compressed air quickly cools it and I pop it into place. I push stop and that eerie silence creeps coldly into my bones. I sit and think for millennia maybe. I know the shockwave of time is still traveling outward from the earth. It will pass countless worlds and none will ever notice it. I’m not aging and nothing else is either, nothing at all. This time around I will give myself a little more time to get familiar with the device. Then I will go back and meet myself again. Maybe two brains will be better than one. I, “we”, will have to find a way to divert and asteroid, stop three missile launchers from receiving false commands from transmitters I found out about after the exchange two hours from now, and try to find the “me” that sent me to this lab here in the city in the first place. He gave me the address and just enough time to get here and this crudely scribbled note which reads: “If I can’t find you again you must try to find me.” Yesterday I found out about “me” from the future. Today I found “me” of the past and delivered a crucial message. Tomorrow I will have to find “me” from the future, but first things first for tomorrow. My past self and I must save the world. I get up and go over to the cot. I lie down, push “play”, and set the alarm just before I doze off into fitful dreams.

At the fringes of my imagination I am just getting out of my car to go in a store to pick up a new multi-meter for my lab. Just as I slam the door I am taken by utter surprise as the spitting image of “me” walks up, introduces “myself”, and mutters something about a time loop. My memory quickly replays the results of a brainstorming session from years ago when I came up with a way to capture dark matter and incorporate it into normal matter. The first circuits I built did strange things to the devices I tried to use them in. I finally shelved the whole lot after designing a “time control device” that looked to have “potential”. There was a multi-piston engine that took precedent over time manipulation. The world needed fuel efficiency more than a time machine. In any case “I” delivered a rapid succession of simple instructions to myself, adding that the multi-meter I was picking up was already in the cave I would find on the side of the road after I ran out of gas. Even though I was extremely taken aback, I immediately jumped into my car and sped away. Time is nothing to joke about and I quickly came to my senses and made the pedal meet the floor. Approximately 800 miles later I ran out of fuel and pulled over to the shoulder. The sun was just coming up and I looked up at a small green bush on the side of the mountain I had been driving thru. After a strenuous climb I soon found my self at the back of a small tunnel cut out of the rock. A metal door with a retinal scanner stood before me. What else to do? I applied my eye into the scanner field and the door opened. Lights came on automatically and I found myself wandering thru a lab. I soon came to a familiar workbench and in the center was the very device I had designed all those years ago. I deduced that I must have built it sometime in the future. The perplexing thing though, was what on earth was “I” doing with it then? Why did I bring it back to myself? What mistake(s) could I have made that warranted this action? I sat about re-familiarizing myself with a device I was yet to build. Later, I found a huge store of food, water, and many other supplies. I hoped I had not stolen any of it from the future. After a nice thick rib-eye with a side of vegetable in a great cheese sauce and an awesome bottle of wine, I found a familiar cot and began to muse about stealing some of my own things for and from myself. What was I up to? I set the alarm and dozed off to a fitful dream. I was looking at two atomic clocks with different dates and times on them. I soon realized that I was sitting on a third clock. Just as soon as I did Two of “me” popped up from behind each of the other two clocks and began a confusing tirade about putting all out heads together to synchronize all three clocks. The scene looped around for a second time and we actually began to discuss it all more clearly. The third time about we almost had a plan. The fourth time we all commented on what we had for dinner. With the fifth round, we formed and agreed upon “our” plan. Before we could initiate it though, an alarm sounded and I was snatched from the brink of eureka! I sat up just in time to hear the main entrance slam shut and immediately thereafter, hear myself calling out my own name.