Tempus Fugit, Déjà Viewer, Part 1

Chapter 1

Laozi wrote, "Since before time and space were, the Tao is. It is beyond is and is not." He may have conferred with Yoda. 

"The world's a bubble, and the life of man, Less than a span." -- Francis Bacon

"To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle, Every cubic inch of space is a miracle." -- Walt Whitman

"The time times & half time do not end before 2060." -- Isaac Newton musing on future Super Bowls. 

Albert Einstein claimed, "The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once." 

Stephen Hawking contradicted himself, "Time travel may be possible, but it is not practical.", then "I have experimental evidence that time travel is not possible."

"Time is like a river. You cannot touch the same water twice, because the flow that has passed will never pass again. Enjoy every moment of your life." -- Unknown

"How did it get so late so soon?" -- Dr. Seuss  

Traversing time physically may violate the 'grandfather paradox', but Tim Travers found viewing time virtually to be more of a Charybdis maelstrom, drawing him ever deeper. He had long admired and envied the brilliant but twisted imagination of sci-fi pioneer Phillip Kindred Dick, author of The Man in the High Castle, The Divine Invasion, Ubik, VALIS, and so much more dystopian fantasy. Many films have been based on his works, first Blade Runner, then Total Recall twice, Minority Report, over a dozen in all.

Here's a taste of Dick's warped humor. "The short story "Orpheus with Clay Feet" was published under the pen name Jack Dowland. The protagonist desires to be the muse for fictional author Jack Dowland, considered the greatest science fiction author of the 20th century. In the story, Dowland publishes a short story titled "Orpheus with Clay Feet" under the pen name Philip K. Dick." 

While searching for "leisure time travel" early one morning, a new link appeared in Travers' browser. Its hook was, "Freely explore space-time from home with Déjà Viewer, Yogi Berra STE (Settee Tuber Edition)." 

Well, Tim didn't like that couch potato humor so he clicked on it intending to leave a scathing remark. Instead, he was merely prompted for longitude/latitude and date/time coordinates. He chose, "40.7127, -74.0059" and "CE, 2001, 9, 11, 8". Seconds later a message appeared, "We're sorry. Your request is delayed by heavy traffic. Next slot in 3 hours, 22 minutes, 39 seconds." 

Still annoyed but growing intrigued, he tried "32.775833, -96.796667" and "CE, 1963, 11, 22, 11". This time it said, "We're sorry. Your request is delayed by heavy traffic. Next slot in 1 hours, 47 minutes, 8 seconds." 

His 3rd attempt paid off with "38.904722, -77.016389" and "CE, 1865, 4, 14, 20". Shadowy horse-drawn carriages crept along a gas-lit city street. Was this really Washington DC on the night President Lincoln was shot? Travers noted the site had a universal translator, seemed to possess Google Maps functionality, and used its navigation tools to locate Ford's Theatre at 511 10th St, NW. A marquee displayed a large handbill for Our American Cousin.

Wikipedia says, "The play's most famous performance was at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. on April 14, 1865. The cast modified a line of the play in honor of Abraham Lincoln: when the heroine asked for a seat protected from the draft, the reply – scripted as, "Well, you're not the only one that wants to escape the draft" – was delivered instead as, "The draft has already been stopped by order of the President!"" 

"[Booth] Family friend John T. Ford opened 1,500-seat Ford's Theatre on November 9 [1863] in Washington, D.C. Booth was one of the first leading men to appear there, playing in Charles Selby's The Marble Heart. In this play, Booth portrayed a Greek sculptor in costume, making marble statues come to life. Lincoln watched the play from his box. At one point during the performance, Booth was said to have shaken his finger in Lincoln's direction as he delivered a line of dialogue. Lincoln's sister-in-law was sitting with him in the same presidential box where he was later slain; she turned to him and said, "Mr. Lincoln, he looks as if he meant that for you." The President replied, "He does look pretty sharp at me, doesn't he?" On another occasion, Lincoln's son Tad saw Booth perform. He said that the actor thrilled him, prompting Booth to give Tad a rose. Booth ignored an invitation to visit Lincoln between acts." 

Travers also found more details of the plot. Meeting for 10 days with Confederate agents in Montréal, despite his hectic acting schedule, John Wilkes Booth's growing hatred of Lincoln oddly paralleled Donald Trump's obsession to undo Barack Obama's legacy. At first planning to kidnap Lincoln in March near his Old Soldiers Home summer residence, making the South's defeat a victory with subterfuge and blackmail, plotters waited in vain to ambush him. Sudden changes in Lincoln's schedule ironically brought him to DC's National Hotel where Booth then resided. General Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House Virginia on April 9th altered their strategy to assassination.

Lincoln's speech about suffrage for former slaves was declared his last by attendee Booth. When Booth got his mail at Ford's Theatre on Good Friday morning, including daily letters from infatuated female admirers, he heard that Lincoln, General Ulysses Grant, and their wives were expected to attend that evening's performance, though Grant was swayed by his wife to visit New Jersey relatives by train instead. 

David Herold arranged escape to Virginia, as secession conspirators plotted succession mayhem by assigning multiple murders: George Atzerodt to Vice President Andrew Johnson; Lewis Powell to Secretary of State William Seward. None succeeded in their tasks but Booth. Seward, who had been accidentally hurt some days prior, was gravely wounded in his bed by 5 knife wounds. His brother Frederick was bludgeoned after Powell's pistol misfired. Powell injured 5 men who lived, before escaping to find Herold, spooked by screams, gone with both horses. Seward's wife Frances never overcame the shock and died June 21st. Johnson was spared when Atzerodt got drunk instead.

Act 3, Scene 2, "Don't know the manners of good society, eh? Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal — you sockdologizing old man-trap." Booth knew the line would get the biggest laugh and chose that moment to strike around 10:15. Having earlier bored a spyhole in the door to the presidential box, he checked on its occupants. Slipping in amid the uproar, he shot Lincoln in the back of the head with a .41 caliber Henry Deringer pistol. Major Henry Rathbone nearly prevented his escape, but Booth stabbed him and leapt from the box to the stage. 

Raising his knife and shouting, "Sic semper tyrannis" (Virginia state motto meaning "Thus always to tyrants"), the quote comes from Shakespeare's Brutus in Julius Caesar, which Travers acted out in high school. Some say Booth added, "I have done it, the South is avenged!" 

Amid the pandemonium, Booth escaped via a stage door to where a getaway horse was held for him. Booth likely broke his leg when the horse fell on him, not by catching his spur on a flag, and sought treatment at the home of Dr. Samuel Mudd of St. Catherine, after retrieving weapons and supplies from their cache at Surratt Tavern. He and Herold fled east and south to remote Maryland swamps and eventually to Virginia farmland, finding some help along the way. 

Their first attempt to cross the wide Potomac River landed them back on the Maryland side, where Herold located allies. Members of a Confederate spy network provided the fugitives aid, fresh horses, and newspapers. Booth found out that he was considered a pariah by some he had expected to laud him for his deed and lamented in his diary. He also learned about his $100,000 reward offered by the War Department ($1.6 million in 2018 USD). 

April 24th, 26 cavalry soldiers and their lieutenant along with intelligence officer Everton Conger were dispatched 70 miles downriver from DC to Belle Plain Virginia aboard a steamer. Crossing the Rappahannock River, Conger found an accomplice and tracked Booth and Herold to Richard Garrett's farm. Since the CSA government had collapsed, the Garretts had no news source and didn't know about the assassination, manhunt, or reward so Booth passed incognito until the troops arrived at their tobacco barn hideout.

Herold gave himself up, but Booth resisted, saying, "I prefer to come out and fight." The barn was set ablaze and Booth shot in the neck by Sargent Boston Corbett, severing his spinal cord. By dawn he was dead.

A military tribunal held an assassination conspiracy trial which resulted in some conspirators' executions. 

"The seven-week trial included the testimony of 366 witnesses. All of the defendants were found guilty on June 30. Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt were sentenced to death by hanging; Samuel Mudd, Samuel Arnold, and Michael O'Laughlen were sentenced to life in prison. Edmund Spangler was sentenced to six years. After sentencing Mary Surratt to hang, five jurors signed a letter recommending clemency, but Johnson refused to stop the execution; he later claimed he never saw the letter. Mary Surratt, Powell, Herold, and Atzerodt were hanged in the Old Arsenal Penitentiary on July 7. Mary Surratt was the first woman executed by the United States government. O'Laughlen died in prison in 1867. Mudd, Arnold, and Spangler were pardoned in February 1869 by Johnson."

People still marvel at oddities linking Abraham Lincoln and John Kennedy.

·        Both presidents were elected to the House of Representatives in '46.

·        Both were losing candidates for their party's vice-presidential nomination in '56.

·        Both presidents were elected to the presidency in '60

·        Both died after being shot in the head

·        Lincoln defeated incumbent Vice President John C. Breckinridge for the presidency in 1860; Kennedy defeated incumbent Vice President Richard M. Nixon for the presidency in 1960.

·        Both their predecessors were the last presidents to be born in their respective centuries.

·        Both their predecessors left office in their seventies and retired to Pennsylvania. James Buchanan, whom Lincoln succeeded, retired to Lancaster Township; Dwight D. Eisenhower, whom Kennedy succeeded, retired to Gettysburg. They both then died before the end of the decade.

·        Both their Vice Presidents and successors were Southern Democrats named Johnson (Andrew Johnson and Lyndon B. Johnson) who were born in '08.

·        Both presidents were concerned with issues affecting African Americans and made their views strongly known in '63. Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862, which took effect in 1863. In 1963, Kennedy presented his reports to Congress on issues related to the Civil Rights Movement, and in June of that year delivered his Civil Rights Address on radio and television in which he proposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

·        Both presidents, and their successors, conferred with a nationally known black leader about civil rights. Both Lincoln and Andrew Johnson conferred with Frederick Douglass. Both Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson conferred with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

·        Both presidents were known for their wit and eloquence, and both frequently quoted Shakespeare and the Bible in their speeches.

·        Both presidents had been captains of ships in their private lives: Lincoln on a river boat, and Kennedy on PT-109.

·        Each president suffered from a genetic disease. Lincoln had Marfan syndrome. Kennedy had Addison's disease.

·        Both presidents were shot in the head on a Friday seated beside their wives. Both Fridays preceded a major holiday observed within the week.

·        During the assassination, they were sitting in an alphabetical pattern. Their spouses first name and both president's last name. J,K,L,M- Jackie, Kennedy, Lincoln, Mary. Jackie was seated to the left of Kennedy and Mary to the right of Lincoln.

·        Both presidents were accompanied by another couple.

·        The male companion of the other couple was wounded by the assassin.

·        Both presidents fathered four children, and had a son die during his presidency.

·        Both presidents had only one child survive into the next century. That child served another president by political appointment.

·        Both presidents' wives died in their sixties after an untimely decline in health, during the administration of a president who had seen their husbands in Washington, D.C. the same year as the assassination (Mary Todd Lincoln died during the presidency of Chester A. Arthur. Arthur had attended President Lincoln's 1865 inauguration. Jacqueline Kennedy died during the presidency of Bill Clinton. Clinton met President Kennedy in 1963 during a Boys State summer program).

·        Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theatre; Kennedy was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald in a Lincoln automobile, made by Ford.

·        Both presidents' last names have 7 letters.

·        Both assassins' full names have 15 letters.

·        Each assassin committed his crime in the building where he was employed.

·        Both presidents were purportedly smiling immediately before the assassination began.

·        After shooting Lincoln, Booth ran from a theatre to a warehouse; after shooting Kennedy, Oswald ran from a warehouse to a theatre.

·        Both assassins died in the same month as their victim in a state adjacent to the state of their birth.

·        Both assassins were Southern white males born in the late '30s, who were in their mid-20s, and were 5'8" in height with hazel eyes and brown hair.

·        Both assassins were sympathetic to a government that opposed the United States, and both had once resided within that government's borders.

·        Both assassins were killed before being tried, by men who were reared in the North, changed their name as adults, and were bachelors.

·        Both assassins suffered injuries during escape.

·        Both assassins fled using modes of transportation they did not own. Booth rented a horse, Oswald rode a bus.

·        Both presidents had body guards named William, William H. Crook told Lincoln not to go to the assassination point, William Greer drove JFK to the assassination point.

·        Both body guards named William died within 48 hours of being aged 75 years, 5 months.

·        Presidential security was heavily criticized, after each assassination, for being too lax.

·        Lincoln sat in box number 7 at Ford's Theater; Kennedy sat in car number 7 in the motorcade.

·        The doctors who primarily attended to each president were both named Charles. Dr. Charles Leale treated Lincoln. Dr. Charles Crenshaw treated Kennedy.

·        Each president died in a place with the initials "P.H." Lincoln died at the Petersen House and Kennedy died at Parkland Hospital.

·        Kennedy was the second president in U.S. history who issued interest-free money. The first was Lincoln, who issued greenbacks to finance the war between the states in the American Civil War.

While waiting for the fateful moment of Lincoln's assassination, Travers absorbed all of this. Unable to prevent it, aid with capture, or collect a reward, was it enough to bear witness, as history unfolded before him?