Where Time Overlaps

WHERE TIME OVERLAPS

“Ugh…” Paul moaned. He felt as if the wind had been knocked out of him. He wasn’t sure where he was, but it was warm and bright. He struggled to take a few breaths before he sat up and hugged his arms to his body. He looked around. Wherever he was, at least it wasn’t raining. He was glad for that. The last few days, or maybe hours, it was hard to tell…had been something of a nightmare. He tried to remember all the things he’d been through.

He remembered leaving his home in Toronto with his canoe on the top of his car. He remembered the way he felt with each passing kilometer as he made his way north of the city. 

He remembered pulling the canoe onto this lovely island on Grey Lake, and that was when everything had changed. He remembered falling asleep in the sun and waking up to a new landscape. His canoe was gone, and everything seemed different. He’d met two boys who left him stranded and alone. He remembered wishing for adventure, which made him smile now that he realized his wish had come true. He adjusted his backpack while he saying aloud, "Be careful what you wish for.” 

Paul could sense a presence behind him. 

“I thought I heard someone talking,” a female voice said.

Paul was on his feet in an instant. "Where did, who are…?” he stammered.

“I’m Grace Suki,” she answered. “And you are…?”

“Paul. Paul Mackenzie.”

Paul eyed the person standing before him from head to toe, a slight Asian woman with straight chin-length black hair. He could see she was a little over five feet tall to his almost six feet. Her voice was welcoming. He was afraid to trust his instincts that suggested he had been found and should be happy, since so many of his recent experiences had been mysterious. He felt guarded and unsure.

“Nice to meet you, Paul Mackenzie.” Grace held out her hand and shook Paul’s. She took note of his appearance and tried to offer an aura of calm, although her heart was racing and her mind was spinning with thousands of questions. Could this be the person Phillip had met long ago? He certainly fit the description he’d given her.

“Do you know who I am?” asked Paul. “Have they been looking for me? Am I back?”

Grace took a deep breath and sighed. She was trying to find the right words to comfort Paul, but how could she explain his circumstance? She started with the most obvious concern.

“You’re not hurt, are you?”

Paul shook his head. “Not unless you think falling through time is a reason to be worried.” He expected Grace to be shocked at his response but was even more surprised when she offered no reaction, almost as if this was not unexpected.

“That’s good. I mean it’s good that you’re not hurt. Do you want to tell me how you got here?”

Paul looked around and noticed a light in what appeared to be a tent-like structure standing behind Grace. He wasn’t sure where to begin. Could he trust this person? What was he getting into? He decided to explain what he knew.

“I, uh… This will sound like I’ve lost my mind. I don’t know where to begin.” Paul shook his head and ran his hand through his hair.

Grace nodded, and he felt encouraged to continue. 

“I remember canoeing to this island, and the next thing I knew I was somewhere — as if I went back in time…”

Grace motioned to the tent behind her. “Why don’t you come and sit down? I have a feeling this might be a long story. If you’re hungry, I have a sandwich and a Coke.”

“That sounds good,” admitted Paul, comforted by the thought of something as familiar as eating a sandwich. 

They walked to the tent, where he noticed a table covered with notebooks and some dated lab or science equipment. Grace was wearing bell-bottom jeans, a jean jacket, and hiking boots, clothes suited for the bush that were a bit dated. She brought him a sandwich wrapped in wax paper and a Coke in an old-fashioned bottle. 

“I have a very weird feeling about all this,” said Paul. “I saw two boys a while ago. They weren’t from the year 2004, and by the looks of you, I mean by what you’re wearing and that bottle of Coke, you aren’t either.”

Grace eyed Paul carefully. “It’s 1967.”

 “Wow!” Paul paused to think. “Thirty-seven years! This can’t be happening… I think I’ve had a stroke or maybe I bumped my head.” He looked at Grace and noted her serious and sympathetic expression. Her dark eyes shone with understanding.

“Oh, I have a feeling there’s nothing wrong with your mind. You might be just a tad confused but be assured that we share that state of mind.”

“Carry on, please while I eat that sandwich…and drink that Coke,” said Paul with a bit more confidence than he actually felt. There was only one chair near the tent.

Grace noticed there was nowhere for Paul to sit, so she suggested they sit on a rock in a clearing where she had found him. Paul used his backpack as a backrest and unwrapped the sandwich while Grace sat cross-legged and faced him.

“As I said, this is 1967,” began Grace. “I think the two boys you are talking about would be Tim and his brother Phillip…”

“Tim, yes, Tim was definitely one of them,” said Paul. “So, you know what happened to me?”

“I have known Phillip, the younger of the two you met, since 1960. I’m a physicist working as a professor at the University of Toronto. I have spent many years studying singular events such as the Bermuda Triangle, where things have disappeared without a trace. I had known for many years while talking to my colleagues that there was an interesting man who worked at the bank and had amazing stories about a particular island not too far away from Toronto where very strange phenomenon were taking place. He even had a twenty-dollar bill and a two-dollar coin minted in 2003…”

“I gave a kid a twenty and a toonie,” said Paul. “Could that have been mine?”

“Without a doubt,” continued Grace with more confidence now that this stranger did appear to be the person Phillip had met years before. She suddenly felt more alive than she had ever felt. Years of dedicated research and determined effort had led her to this moment. She could hardly contain her excitement knowing that at last there was a breakthrough in this important research, and she was living it. 

All the years she’d spent working and studying were paying off. Here was the Paul she’d heard so much about. It had taken her a while to buy in to Phillip’s story, she admitted. As a true scientist, she needed proof before she was convinced. It had been the twenty-dollar bill and the coin that ultimately convinced her, and now this. She continued with her side of the events that unfolded over the years.

“It didn’t take me long to become fascinated with Phillip and his stories. With Phillip’s help, and the help of other associates, we came here to explore. We took some equipment with us to gauge the seismic activity as well as radioactive emissions but were soon aware that we had arrived completely unprepared for what we found. We had no equipment to record what we noted, so we headed back to the lab to update. This was the most exciting thing any of us had ever experienced. I mean, in all of history, nothing like this had ever been noted. There appears to be a seam or a wave that passes through the planet, and perhaps the universe where,” Grace took a deep breath and looked at Paul, “and I know this sounds wrong, but where time overlaps…” She waited for Paul to catch up, knowing that this information was a lot to take in.

Grace continued, “The ‘shifting’ you experienced is an overlap that is frustratingly unpredictable. We have been researching here every day for eighteen months, four weeks of which have happened here on the island and are hoping for another shift so we can try to figure it out. Much more research is needed, of course, but I have a theory that there is a spot here where time hiccoughs or burps and then realigns itself. It happens sort of like an earthquake with no fault line. There could be a vein that holds a combination of minerals, metals, and chemicals that combine with electromagnetic components. When the Earth’s crust moves, the vein is disturbed, breaking the connection. When the components find their way through again, we see another shift. We are confident it will happen again and are praying that we are on the right track to uncover some of the mystery. We just needed another shift to happen. Seems it did, and here you are!”

“You said this is a place where time overlaps. Does this mean time can move forward and backward?” asked Paul.

“Well, that’s what we’re trying to figure out. An overlap would indicate that time could move in both directions, but as I said, the shift is unpredictable.”

“But I found the island in 2004,” said Paul. “It didn’t seem to be a place of research or interest. In fact, it was, or is, the most unremarkable place… If it was such an important place, why wasn’t it guarded more carefully?”

“That is concerning, coming from my place here, in 1967,” responded Grace. “There must have been a development that I’m not aware of… What year did you say you are from?”

“August 2004.” 

“Whoa…and I’m guessing that you haven’t heard anything at all about this phenomenon, have you? I mean, something about mysterious disappearances, time shifting, singularities or anything?”

“There have been some unexplained disappearances, sure, but nothing that would explain something like this, no.”

 “It must mean that they haven’t made any progress. It’s taking them longer than I thought it would, and not only that, and if I’m reading this right, your appearance here seems like it didn’t even happen.”

Grace leaned back and looked around her. “Why…?” 

Paul was eager to hear more. “You said you worked with Phillip. What about his brother?”

“Tim went back to the island the day after he’d found you to bring you some clothes and food and was never seen again. Not as far as 1967, anyway,” said Grace, “but I’m still on his case.”

Paul stared off, lost in reflection. “Poor guy. I hope he landed somewhere safe.” He changed the subject. “You’ve missed a whole lot since 1967.”

“Yeah, I do have some questions for you! Like, the Vietnam War… How did it end?”

“Badly…lots of lives lost. Ended in 1975… You missed Nixon’s presidency and impeachment…Watergate is still an open sore. Oh, and they landed men on the Moon…way back in ’69.

Canada had some drama too…” Paul continued. “Separatists in Montreal got out of hand, and Trudeau had to impose the War Measures Act. And we now have adopted the metric system…”

“Yikes… Sounds like a lot of drama, except for the metric system…yay Canada!”

“So, what happens now?” asked Paul.

“Well, for starters, I’m going to record your arrival. A lot of my work has to do with recording every detail, and your arrival here is a rather big one! I’ll do that while you finish your sandwich. First chance we get, we’ll head back to Toronto to see if we can add another piece to the puzzle, now that we’ve found you.”

“I was five years old in 1967,” said Paul. “So weird…”

“Welcome to my interesting world,” answered Grace as she unfolded her legs and stood on the rock.

“Aren’t you afraid you might shift out of this place one day and be just as lost as I am?” asked Paul.

“Are you kidding?” exclaimed Grace. “That is my absolute goal. I am just waiting for the moment to come…”

Before she could complete her thought, the ground beneath them began to hum. A beam of sunlight penetrated the greenery, landing on the rock, making it appear translucent. Grace had a chance to glance in the direction of the tent before a falling sensation overtook them both.