I stood on the yellow and black striped floor in front of the portal. The perimeter gave off an eerie iridescent glow, but within it and beyond there was an indescribable nothingness – not like darkness, gray fog, or bright light, there was absolutely no color, visible texture or movement that I could sense. Just an empty void. Six years ago I was a respected honor student at MIT, but what started as a doodle on a campus cafeteria napkin brought me here, standing on the precipice of a major discovery, or…. I could only theorize. In the immortal words of Jayne Cobb, "What you plan and what takes place ain't ever exactly been similar." Only one test item I’d sent in had returned intact. It was the locket with Dianna’s picture – the one that I wore now.

Who doesn’t think about the possibility of time travel? 

The intriguing possibilities of what could be learned from our future or our past, are an irrepressible draw. I thought I had broken the code which would allow humanity to break the bonds of time. I imagined people traveling from century to century as easily as one hops the cross-town bus. However, two years into my studies, there was an accident. I spent the night after back in my apartment, angry and frustrated at my clumsiness. How could it all just be gone in an instant? I grabbed the bottle which I had bought to celebrate my breakthrough, and drank myself into a stupor, and then a deep slumber. When I awoke, the sun shone brightly through the thin curtains. My head ached, my sight blurred and my mouth tasted like black licorice dipped in sour cream and microbial feces. I forced my tongue off the roof of my mouth and Lon Chaneyed my way to the bathroom. I brushed my teeth and stepped into the shower. Cold water on, and Oh yeah. That was the ticket. I was coming back to life. I dressed, got a cup of instant coffee and plopped down in front of my computer. 64 unread e-mails? I must have gotten on someone’s Spam list. Karen… Bill… Sean… eBay… Victor… Karen… Larry… Larry… Larry… No, no, these were all real e-mails, but… Wait a minute. August 3rd? Holy crap. Did I sleep all day yesterday?

Holy...… crap.

I picked up my phone and hit Larry’s number.

“William? Did you fall off the Earth yesterday?”

“No. Listen Larry. I’m really sorry. Something came up and… Hey meet me at Dante’s and I’ll get you one of those Caramel White Fudge Nutmeg Decaf Cappuccino thingies that you like so much.”

“Okay. Make it 10:00, and you owe me a good explanation.”

“Thanks. Bye.”

“Bye”

Shit, I’m glad my boss is an old friend. Now… Spectacles, testicles, wallet, watch, phone… keys? There you are.

The 33-1/3 minute drive to the lab with the windows down was enough to clear the cobwebs. I can make the drive in under 30 minutes, but the record collector in me likes to shoot for 33-1/3.  I mentally tried to piece together some of the data that I was sure to have lost yesterday, or, day before yesterday. I pulled into my parking spot and slammed the car door, and slammed the car door. AND SLAMMED THE CAR DOOR. One of these days I’m going to get that fixed. On the way down the hall I passed Willie. Willie had been a janitor here at the college for as long as I could remember. 

Willie doesn't talk about "before" and most of us have learned not to ask.

“Morning Mister Willie,” I called out.

“Morning… Mister Willie,” he called back.

The greeting was old, worn out and comfortable, like those shoes your wife’s been pestering you to throw away.

I don’t usually lock my office door, but I thought I would need some solitude to try to remap my data and formulas. I took a long, deep breath, held it and hit the main frame’s restart button. It clicked and whirred softly to life. Blue screen of death….. “C’mon baby" … The Microsoft logo appears with a bling. Sign on. *********** Project 42 ….. Hmmm…. Unencrypted. Maybe it saved a backup file there before I effed it all up yesterd…. Day before yesterday.

I watched the page come up and breathed an uneasy sigh of relief. Looks like I’ve got some corruption in the secondary…..(pause….) well, that’s interesting. I’d’ve never thought of inverting that. There was a fleeting moment when my mind went back to the movie ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still.’ Had someone broken in and corrected my calculations? E… over… sin… divided…… Why didn’t I see that before? The phase shift isn’t non-linear. It doesn’t pass through time at all. All these years I was aiming at one target and with the help of my mystery angel, I hit another. Multiple universes, not moving on parallel trajectories as has always been theorized, but perpendicular. I only needed to recalibrate the phase inducers, make a couple of small modifications to the portal, hook up the power source, and Voilà!

Now, I stood on the yellow and black striped floor in front of the portal. It wasn’t anything like Hollywood TV or Movies. There weren’t any bright flashing lights or sciency noises. Inside the test chamber you could hear a pin drop. The only indication of anything happening was the portal’s iridescent glow and the almost imperceptible tick of the countdown timer. I grasped the locket which hung around my neck, and stepped through. There was a momentary pull, the opposite of a puff of wind. I stumbled a step forward and without fanfare a new set of surroundings appeared. I stood on a paved path before a stand of trees. A young couple approached, and without thinking about how it would sound, I asked, “What is this place?”

“You’re at the zoo, dude.”

“The… zoo. Of course. The Franklin Park Zoo. Thank you. Good day.”

The couple mumbled something as they walked away. Probably making note of how appropriate to see a loon at the zoo. It suddenly dawned on me how ill prepared I was for this journey. I didn’t bring food or water and there was no way of knowing if the forms of currency I had on me would be worth more than a roll of Charmin here. I should bring a compass next time. I was familiar enough with Franklin Park and so far nothing looked different. Maybe, instead of traveling to a different universe, I merely hung a left and went south a few blocks. Wouldn’t that be ironic. Headlines read, “Scientist Spends Years and $500,000 to Move Four and a Half Miles. Well, if I’m going back to the lab, better get hoofing it. Looks like I'm going to miss my ten o'clock with Larry. Why didn't I bring my damned phone? I thought I was traveling to another dimension. Duh. Oh well. Maybe I’ll Stop at Boston Burger…

I started walking, but as I passed through the zoo entrance, I saw a taxi dropping off a woman and child.

“TAXI!”

“Where to, boss?”

All things considered, it seemed like a loaded question. “Oh, … um, MIT I guess. Alumni parking, please.”

“Sure thing, Mack.”

“Say, driver. Is Nuggets still around?”

“The old record store? Sure. I’m in there all the time. I like the sound of the old vinyl."

“Take me there instead. Maybe I’ll make some use out of a wasted trip.”

“You sound a little disappointed.”

“It’s a long story. Let’s go see if we can find some unscratched singles. I need a few more spiders anyway.”

“Spiders?”

“You know… spindle adapters.”

“Ummm… Yeah. We’ll see what they have.”

The cabby parked the car and we went into the shop together.

“Mack. I’m going to be back in 60’s soul. Holler when you’re ready.”

“Thanks.”

I went over to a rack full of 45s and started to flip through the sort of alphabetized selection. I picked up a sleeve that said EC WHITE ROOM in Sharpie. Maybe the trip wasn’t wasted after all. If this is in good shape… I gently opened the sleeve, inserted my finger, and not wanting to touch the record, I felt around for the hole. That’s weird. I pulled the record out and examined it. Bewildered, I asked the cashier, “Is this a special edition?”

“Let me see it….. No, there's nothing special about it.”

“Yeah I just noticed it has a 9/32” spindle hole instead of an inch and a half.”

“Inch and a half?”

“Standard hole for a 45.”

“45?”

"Yeah, you know. 45 RPM single.”

“Mr. I don’t know where you’re from, but that’s a regular old 48 with the same old spindle size they’ve always had. Do you want it, or not?”

“Sure, um… yeah. Ring it up. HEY! CABBY!”