Dragging the Frame
by Jason Erik Lundberg
The young woman at the bus stop told me she was my daughter. She was attractive, Eurasian, had dark brown hair and blue eyes, but only looked to be ten years younger than me, and I told her so. I couldn’t have fathered her at the age of ten, could I?
“Time travel,” she said.
“Oh come on.” Much as I’d fantasized about time travel, especially to correct the mistakes of my youth, deep down I was a nonbeliever. “Einstein said it was impossible, and Mallett has said travel to the past is extremely limited. You can’t go earlier than when the machine is switched on. And I haven’t heard anything about a time machine having been successfully invented today.”
“It happened about two hours ago,” she said. “You always were a skeptic. And you made my life hell, you know.”
The thought of confrontation with a future daughter, which seemed impossible as my wife wasn’t even pregnant yet, twisted my insides a bit. Had I slapped down her dreams? Abused her?
“No, but you disapproved of every decision I ever made. We yelled and fought for most of my childhood. Nothing I did was right in your eyes. I left home at 18, and we’ve hardly spoken since then.”
“So, saying for a second that this is true, why are you here?”
She looked over my shoulder and I turned; the 171 was approaching from down the road. My bus.
“I just wanted to tell you to ease up. Trust your daughter’s decisions. Have some faith in her. Don’t be such a prick.”
I exhaled a quiet laugh to myself. It was impossible, it was stupid. This young woman was off her nut. Best just to ignore her. At least it would make an amusing anecdote later. For a brief moment, I’d been afraid she was going to say that she was here to kill me or something.
The bus was only about ten meters away, brakes already hissing, when I said, “You don’t have to be a man to be a prick, you know. Best of luck to you back at the asylum.”
I felt a hard push from behind and I tumbled into the road as the bus arrived.
Concerning the T.G. Hueler Archive of Oracular Texts Daily Fortune Book
by Rudi Dornemann
The T.G. Hueler Archive of Oracular Texts was founded in 1913, when a wave of anti-German sentiment left half the European collection room empty in the library of Snelson University.
Three crows turning in a clouded sky. Misfortune transformed to unexpected fortune.
— The Wheat Stalk Predictory, Brownville, Nebraska, 1881.
In the 1920’s, the archivists began a daily tradition of randomly choosing a prediction from one of the oracles and copying it into a large accounting book.
On a Thursday, a new moon in a cloudless sky betokens a chance meeting with an old acquaintance. On a Friday, it means bad news that has traveled a great distance.
— Proverbs from the Tchul Archipelago, New Haven, Connecticut, 1932.
By the mid-1950’s, the archive’s books of prophecy, fortune-telling, proverbs, and superstitions had taken over most of the basement in south wing.
Sand in one’s pockets: a sure sign a steady income will soon be found.
— Lunenhalt’s Almanac (translated), Basel, Switzerland, 1847.
In the late 1989, a fire razed most of Snelson’s old campus, including the library, and only fragments of the collection were sifted from the ashes.
Anvil. Lemon. Whippoorwill.
–The Oracle of the Nouns, place and date of publication unknown.
The staff lounge Daily Fortune Book, however, had grown to three ledgers, and was luckily down in the conservator’s lab in the most fireproof sub-basement, being bound into a single volume.
All in flammes devour’ed. All save one.
–The Wisdome of the Elements, Devonshire, England, 1714.
The conservators included several hundred blank pages for future entries, and the librarians in the new library’s rare book room transcribe one of the charred fragments from the old library into it each day.
To run wearing a blue hat brings dreams of snake. Singing in a green scarf induces premonitions of the next day’s weather.
–title, place of publication, and date unknown
A work-study employee in the rare book room calculated there are fragments for three years worth of entries.
If an odd number of grains of rice remain, success. If an even number, failure. If the number is divisible by three, the outcome may be altered by great effort.
This didn’t worry anyone until today’s entry:
There may be fortunes without days, but not days without fortunes.
The library staff has petitioned the board of trustees for funds to begin acquiring books and reestablish the archive.
