COMMENCEMENT

An excerpt from Stealing Time

by
Christopher Stasheff
Copyright © 2011

 

The high school was still in session during the day, so the Adult Education program had to hold the graduation ceremonies in the evening.  As they came into the old granite building, Angus wiped his brow and griped, "The weather would turn hot for the occasion."

"Well, it is June," Yorick reminded him.

"Hate summers," Angus grumbled as he limped up the stairs to the auditorium door.

"Brace yourself," Yorick said.  "They don't have air conditioning yet."

"Why would there be air conditioning in a high school auditorium?" Angus asked.  "It's not a movie theater."

"Oh, yeah, I forgot."  Right then, Yorick turned to accept a program from an usher, so Angus didn't have the chance to ask what he'd forgotten.

Of course, once they were inside the high school auditorium and had found suitable seats, they were perusing the program and didn't think to talk about it either.  "There!"  Angus pointed to a name toward the bottom of the list.  "Berkshire, Ada!"

"So she is here," Yorick said with a perfectly straight face.

"It's been—what?  Two years for her?"

"And two weeks for us."  Yorick smiled.  "Wonder how she likes the Twentieth Century?"

"We'll ask her after she gets her diploma," Angus said.

The speeches were long, dull, and boring, but that was what Angus remembered from his own high school graduation—and the reason why he hadn't gone to any of his other commencements.  He found himself waiting impatiently for a sight of Ada in cap and gown, and wondered if this was how parents felt.

Then the director of the GED program was saying, "Miss Ada Berkshire," and a young woman with auburn hair tumbling down about her shoulders, big green eyes, and a color in her cheeks and lips that spoke of either great excitement or a touch of rouge and lipstick, paced across the stage in black low-heeled pumps and positively glowed as she accepted the diploma.

"No glasses!" Angus hissed to Yorick.  "No glasses at all!"

"Bet she keeps 'em in her purse," Yorick whispered back.  "Probably found an ophthalmologist who pointed out she can see where she's going just fine."

The woman behind them hissed, "Shhhh!" and they subsided, but Angus now felt himself possessed of an overpowering curiosity.

Coming back up the other aisle, Ada seemed somehow forlorn and lonely… then stiffened herself into a military bearing and marched ahead.

"What’s the matter with her?" Angus muttered.

"No family to cheer for her," Yorick explained.  "Nobody to make it special."

"Hmph."  Angus snorted.  "No faith in us!  No faith at all."

 The graduates filed out along the aisles and the ceremony was ended.  Angus and Yorick went out into the lobby, looking around for Ada—and a glowing auburn-haired young woman threw her arms about Angus, crying, "You came!"

"Wouldn't have missed it for the world."  Angus stepped back and stared.  "Uh… you've learned a lot."

"Yes, and some of it was actually from my textbooks!"  Ada pirouetted.  "How do you like the new me?"

"I'll look forward to having a chance to find out."  Angus felt somewhat numb.

"Hi, my name is Yorick."  The Neanderthal leaned around Angus with his hand out.

"You darling!"  Ada gave him a hug, too.  "I didn't really mean to ignore you."

"First things first," Yorick said with a grin.  "What's the finest restaurant in town?"

 

 

After one more round of congratulations and goodbyes, Angus and Yorick came away from the door of Ada's apartment building.  "Quite a change," Yorick said.

"Yes, she does seem to have adapted pretty well."  Angus limped straight ahead, a glazed look to his eyes.

Yorick reached out and pulled him back.  "You don't really want to step off the curb until the cab comes, Ang.  Think she's worth the college tuition?"

"When she graduated high school with honors?"  Angus took a deep breath.  "Well, we'll see her at Christmas and find out how she likes the university."

He was quiet, still with a faraway look in his eye, as the taxi drove them back to their hotel.  Yorick watched Angus from the corner of his eye, and decided he'd better take care of setting up the express checkout for the next morning.

Couldn't be infatuation.  Angus would have mentioned that sooner or later.

Wouldn't he?

They went into the hotel room in which they had set up the portable time machine, stepped into it, and held onto the grab bars.  The world lurched, and after a moment's disorientation they found themselves inside the white-walled time booth in GRIPE headquarters.  As Yorick stepped down, Angus said, "You knew this was going to happen, didn't you?"

"That Ada was going to graduate from high school?"  Yorick turned back.  "Sure."

"No, I mean... my reaction."

Yorick shook his head.  "You've always been pretty good at hiding your feelings, Doc."

"Yeah, by always looking angry!  But somebody must have figured it out."

"Maybe, but they didn't tell me."  Yorick shrugged.  "Come to think of it, what was your reaction?"

Angus snarled as he stepped down and pushed past the big man.  Then he stopped and spun about.  "But you did know I was going to think of looting King John's treasure!... I mean, salvaging."

"That, I knew," Yorick admitted.

"So what's my next hare-brained scheme?"

"Can't tell you," Yorick said.

"Yeah?  Why not?"

"Paradox," the Neanderthal explained.  "The cause would be the effect and the effect would be the cause."

"Which means they'd cancel each other out?"  Angus scowled.  "Doesn't make sense."

Yorick pantomimed juggling.  "Chicken… egg… chicken.  Which comes first?"

"The rooster," Angus said.  "Sunday dinner."

"Well, look at it this way—if I tell you one of your own ideas, you won't have thought it up yourself, which means it will never have happened."

"What does it matter where the idea comes from, as long as it's there?"

"Because it's not," Yorick said.  "At least, that's what your older self told me.  An idea has to be original at some point, or it doesn't exist."

"Okay," Angus said, "let’s put it to the test.  Tell me something minor that I’m going to think up."

"You won’t believe me," Yorick warned.

"Why wouldn’t I?"

"Because I could be faking."

"Have a little faith in me to have some faith in you!!  Come on, try it."

Yorick shrugged.  "Okay, Doc.  You’re going to put a coat tree in the lab for hanging up your lab coat."

"Well?  Go on.  Tell me something I'm going to think up."

"I just did."

"You did?  I don't remember it."

"Neither do I, but I know I told you.  But, see, I told you, and you did it because I told you that you were going to do it, so you never did it—but the only reason I told you was because you had already done it."

Angus frowned.  "So since you only said it because I told you to, I never got the idea on my own… and since I didn’t generate the idea myself, it never happened, so I don't remember what it was."

"You’re quick, Doc.  Got it right on the first try."

"Well, if you say so," Angus said, but he didn't sound convinced.

"Yeah.  When the only reason you did it was because I said to, and the only reason I said to was because you did it, that makes a time loop called a paradox.  There's no original cause, so there's no effect, and the time-loop pinches itself off and never existed."

"Then how come I remember talking about it, even saying to try the experiment?"

"Because you thought of that yourself."

Angus scowled.  "Well, it's logical, anyway."  Doc took off his lab coat, then stood with it over his arm, looking around for a place to hang it.  "Y' know, we really need a coat tree in here."

 

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