A Stable Loop In Time

Chapter 3

“Let’s see… December 31… Year 2000…” Xan said, pressing down on a few tiny buttons on the side of the silver cylinder. “Okay, ready to go!”

He started to press down on the large button situated on one of the circular ends of the tube.

“No no no no no no no wait don’t do that-“ Destiny frantically begged.

“Ah, ha ha ha haaa!” Alan cackled.

And Xan pressed the button.

“I swear, if I die- Ow!”

Destiny fell right on the floor, Alan and Xan falling on top of her, laughing. All three of them got up and dusted themselves off a little.

“Ow… My back…” Destiny stretched a little as she stood up. “Hey… where’s the couch? And why is there NO FRIGGIN HOUSE ANYMORE?”

Destiny, Alan, and Xan were now standing on a featureless, gray concrete slab next to the road. The house was gone.

“I know why!” Alan exclaimed. “It’s because apparently, in the year 2000, what is now Xan’s house didn’t exist yet! We’re in the past, son! That’s why we fell, too. There’s no couch here in the year 2000.”

“Woo-hoo!” Xan yelled. “We’re totally gonna go on a time-traveling adventure and it’s totally gonna be awesome!” He did a little dance.

Destiny, ever the skeptic, wanted more proof that they were really in the past. She looked around and saw somebody riding a yellow bike down the street. She rushed right into the road to stop him.

“Hey! What are you doing, I almost ran you over!” The guy complained, getting of his bike and staring sternly at Destiny. He was taller even than Alan, with light blue eyes and long, black hair that went down almost to his shoulders. Destiny spaced out.

“Um, excuse me, lady? Why?” The man asked, waving his hand in front of her face, snapping her out of her dude-induced trance.

“Oh, sorry about that,” Destiny said sheepishly. “Anyways, this is a weird question, but do you know what day it is?”

The man raised an eyebrow. “It’s December 31st. Now, I must be going-”

“Thank you, but, like, I wanted to know the year it was, too,” Destiny explained matter-of-factly.

The man raised his other eyebrow. “Now that’s a weird question. Although, it is almost 2001, so you could be just confused. It’s the year 2000.”

“Told ya!” Alan shouted from the side of the road.

Destiny rolled her eyes. “Okay, thanks, dude. See you never.”

The man got back on his bike, muttered something, and drove off down the road.

Xan ran out into the road, Alan following him. “So, Destiny. Are you convinced?” Xan asked. “If you are, let’s start doing this whole adventure thing. You know, go to different periods of time for fun, and then just go back to when we started when we get tired of doing that. A pretty un-boring way to spend the day.”

Destiny sighed. “Yeah, I’m convinced. And if this does turn out to be some hallucination in the end, I guess we should enjoy it while we can anyway.”

“We’ve started to come up with a rad plan detailing exactly which periods of time we want to go to in what order,” Alan added. “We think first we should go to the Seven Wonders of the World, back when they were still standing. And maybe then go see Tutankhamen when he was king of Egypt, and George Washington getting inaugurated as the first president, and see real samurai in ancient Japan. And then we could go see some epic airplane duel, like in World War Two or something. What do you want to go see? By the way, we already traveled to pioneer days, back when this city was still a town, still being built. It was crazy old-style, man.”