“We are such stuff as dreams are made of.” Smith quipped. “The Tempest. Act four…”
“…Scene one. And it’s ‘on’ not ‘of’.” I retorted. “It continues. And our little life is rounded with a sleep.”
Smith snorted. “Ever the pessimist. And yet.” He paused for effect. “I propose to travel forward in Time by one second.”
“Smith, you can’t. Except by the traditional route. Which just takes one second to do. Except we are moving in Space-Time. Not just Time. Only light can do that without feeling the time pass.”
Smith shrugged. I tried to explain. “The Earth spins 460m/s. It moves around the Sun at 30Km/s. The Sun is rotating around the Galaxy at 230Km/s. And by conservative estimates, what became the Milky Way has moved over 46 billion light years in roughly 14 billion years. That’s 1 billion Km/s and probably accelerating. You can’t move from here to here in one second without also moving that vast distance too!”
“And yet I shall. Like this.” Smith flicked the switch on his infernal machine, and blinked out of existence.
Exactly one second later the containment field collapsed. All that had reappeared was some gas and a few tens of kilograms of dust, settling gently to the floor.
“For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. Genesis , three, nineteen.” Smith would have said, had there been anything left of him.
In full disclosure, I obviously did the research for this beforehand, so the six minutes was just the frantic typing. Hope you don’t mind.
Oh, and if you ever get tempted to time travel, don’t forget the space bit.
Years of traveling time and space, and here we are :)
Glad to see you're still writing!
Still wondering if Smith snapped back into existence somewhere else, considering how fast everything's moving... maybe he's in Oklahoma?
I do all sorts of things. Mostly badly. Mostly better than others. I tell stories. Occasionally, I lie.
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