My head is batting me. Quasi just rattled off a bunch of shit and I’m not sure I followed any of it.

‘Yep. All caught up. 12094.’

‘84.’

‘Yep. All caught up.’

Quasi smirks at me. I honestly think I got this position as a fuck off to his boss. In the space of 200 years, everything went from fucking dreadful, to even worse, to a nightmare corporation hellscape, to a Utopia for all of mankind, right back to a corporate hellscape. The fuck happened? Aliens happened. Aliens, the fucking time-travel they brought with them, and money poked it’s head back up. I do love money though. That’s why I vomited my way through orientation. It makes it all worth it.

‘Ok, so after here there’s what’s known as “history’s triple threat”, and that’s World War Two, the Roman Empire and the dawn of man.’

I’m going to play a game of catch-up and explanation. This is something my parents used to play with me when I did something like steal chocolate, or catch mother wanking off granddad. Except you’re not in trouble, and I’m not crying.

So present day kind of doesn’t fucking exist anymore. I mean, it does, but in a much looser more personal sense. Essentially in 12131, we made contact with a tribe called something that isn’t pronounceable in the transatlantic language, and certainly can’t be spelt. But we ended up calling them Hoogers and they didn’t mind. Some people do object. I don’t see how it’s any of their business. They’re determined to communicate with the Hoogers in their own language, but that’s like trying to talk to a bee by breakdancing, and you don’t have any legs. We called them Hoogers because that’s what their language sounds like. “Hooger huh hoog”. Although I probably shouldn’t say that, because I knew someone that got sacked for xenophobia.

And when I say a tribe called Hoogers, I mean fucking Aliens. But Aliens is kind of an outdated term, because in the same sense that present day doesn’t exist anymore, neither do aliens, because technically we’re all Aliens in one way or another.

The Hoogers visited. Hey guess fucking what, they’re from the past, technically, and they tell us the past doesn’t exist. To which I say, where do all of my bad feelings exist if the past isn’t real. Apparently they’re in my head. And then they go on to explain, well it does exist, but it’s the present, at all times, so really the present doesn’t exist. And everyone said what the fuck are you talking about? And then made fun of their silly voices.

They then brag about their light-speed space-travel. Big whoop, even Pakisandia did that one. But, in their technique to discovering light-speed travel, they accidentally discovered time-travel. Big whoop, we’ve been travelling forwards in time since the presumable big bang. You did it quicker? Hoog, we already had fast food restaurants blasting burgers in our mouths before we finished asking for it. It became a health violation and is now against international law. You got more shit for us to outlaw?

Nah nah nah. They went so far into the future, they looped back around to the past.

Say what?

They go so far into the future they end up back in the past.

So first of all, we asked if time ends. And they say time doesn’t exist. So we asked how did you go back in time by going really far forwards in time if time doesn’t exist? They said exactly. And now I work as a time travelling tour guide. Or “Moderator”.

So earlier, when Quasi said we went back 147 years, what he really meant was we went forwards 200,000,000,384 years. Well, that’s the closest estimation.

I’d also like to clarify that technically my “present” is 12231. By which I mean, it’s been 12231 years since the dawn of civilisation on Earth. Or rather 2231 by the Gregorian calendar, roughly. What happened there? Well…

‘You’re probably wondering why Jesus isn’t within the triple threat criteria’

‘Yeah, he was in the planogram.’

‘Not that planogram.’

‘Yes, 32AC. Jesus, born 10,000.’

‘Oh well that should be redacted. We’ve given up.’

‘Given up?’

‘Yeah, we can’t find him. Israel is a big place. Shit, the Middle East is a big place. Needle in a haystack. Any records of him were written well after he supposedly died. So he either didn’t exist, didn’t exist in the time stated, didn’t exist in the area stated, or he did exist, time and place, but the place is so huge he might as well not have. Plus, we’ve lost too many mods trying to find him. Or mods claim to have found him, but they’re never accepted as the real Jesus. So what’s the point, you know? If someone came up to you now and told you they were Jesus, would you believe them?’

‘No?’

‘I’d believe every single one if it meant I get to stop telling people about it.’

By this point a crowd had gathered around us. All sorts of people, races, species, what have you. Tourists.

Quasi pulls out his time machine, it’s actually called a chronusitinerantur, but fuck it — it’s a time machine.

‘Should I assume you have brought yours?’

Well shit, I didn’t know I needed to bring it. I pat my pockets, pretending to look for it. Really, I’m killing time until Quasi gives up and let’s me go home.

‘Should I go back in time and get it? Heh…’

Quasi’s heard that one. He ignores it. Pulls out a spare. Bet the fucker knew I’d forget. He hands it over to me.

‘Do not lose it. Right, time’s of the essence’

Quasi does his shit eating grin at me again. I bet he says that every day. He thinks he’s the king of time travel jokes? I bet his boss told him that one and he felt obliged to laugh, and is now stuck telling everyone the same thing. I wonder if I have the same fate.

Quasi pulls the trigger grip on the chronus and shoots off. This is my very first history tour. I’d be nervous, but I’m too nauseous to focus on anything.

Tourists are free to roam this area for a little while. It’s safe. Everything’s perfect. We’ve come back here so often, everyone is used to the time travellers. They even know how to avoid becoming the shitshow future, but it’s inevitable.

That’s something we learnt. That butterfly effect we tip toed around so much, doesn’t really matter. I mean, it matters hugely short term, but long term, everything’s inevitable. So in the end, we never really go out of our way to fix anything. Humanity is plagued with thousands of years of war and misery, it’s human nature. No matter how many Hitlers you kill, shit is going to kick off at some point. Millions of people are going to needlessly sacrifice their lives at some point. In many aspects, such as that, the Hoogers are better than us. It’s like that line in Hitchhiker’s Guide To the Galaxy, I think, where dolphins turn out to be the superior species in their simplicity. But even dolphins rape, so I don’t know what makes them so high and mighty.

‘Gather around everyone. The tour is about to begin. Have you all enjoyed 12094?’

Some little blork raises her head.

‘It’s 12084, actually.’

Fuck off.

‘Ha, very good. At least I know you’re all paying attention.’

I hold up the planogram. Time to recite.

‘So, as you may already know, 12084 was deemed the perfect period in humanity. Does anyone know why?’

The little blork goes to open her mouth. Nah.

‘Hands raised if you know the answer.’

A few people raise their hands. There’s a nice looking elderly being, I assume female, but the mind plays tricks.

‘Yes, you.’

‘Money became obsolete, socialised health care became obsolete, and hate crimes such as racism and homophobia became obsolete.’

‘Yes! Very good. Since the invention of the duplicator, there became no need for money or ownership as everything, literally everything, was plentiful. Socialised health care finally got the correct funding in 12056 and was so advanced, conventional health care became unnecessary. And obviously racism and such is stupid, and was left with the lizard brained people.’

A lizard man pokes his head up.

‘Excuse me?’

‘It’s a human expression. Anyway, we’re at war. It’s 6th of June 11943. Zap.’

Why isn’t the time thingy doing it’s thing?

‘And zap.’

For fuck sake, zap me to war. Why couldn’t Quasi stay with me and make sure I went to war safely. Why does everything keep fucking up on me. Why is everything so quiet? Hang on, where is everyone? Hang on, where the fuck am I?

Looks like I’m, ah perfect, I’m nowhere. Literally, there’s nothing here. Did I send myself somewhere or did I send everything else somewhere? Are those people in fucking Normandy? One of them had three eyes, they’re not going to last on either side for very long. Forget about them, I need to figure out my situation. They’re all from the future and distant worlds. I’m not.

So I’m standing on solid ground, and I’m surrounded by nothing but white. Maybe I’m dead? Is this what death looks like? It looks shit. It can’t be death, there’s no one here. My chronus has no reading. I think the floor is wet. It smells mildly salty. Ew.

Wait, I can hear a whisper, but it’s shouting at me. It’s coming from everywhere and nowhere at once. I think it’s saying -

‘Oi.’

‘Hello?’

‘Look up.’

‘Where are you?’

‘Look up.’

I look up, and holy shit. What the fuck is that?

‘Hey.’

‘Erm, hello. Who are you?’

‘Oh, I don’t know.’

‘It’s just that, you look like a giant squid?’

‘Ha. Giant squid. What is that?’

‘It lives in the sea.’

‘Ha. The sea. What is that?’

What the fuck is wrong with this squid?

‘What are you?’

‘What am I? I’ve never been asked so I never needed to know.’

‘Am I living in a riddle?’

‘Ha. Riddle. Wha-’

‘Don’t ask, I’m not explaining. Where am I?’

‘Everywhere.’

‘Everywhere?’

‘Yes. Everywhere.’

The giant squid floats down to me.

‘Who and what are you?’

‘I am Sam. I am human. Are you from the future?’

‘The future?’

‘When did you get here?’

‘The same time as you.’

‘So you haven’t always been here?’

‘I don’t know where I’ve always been. I’m just here.’

I’m going in circles here. Seriously, what the fuck is happening. I need to take a walk, but walking here feels like walking on a treadmill into a wall.

‘What’s that?’

The squid points at my chronus.

‘It’s a time machine.’

‘Time machine?’

It has never heard of either word.

‘Yes. So, there’s this thing called time. Which happens by just existing. Like, when we met is now in the past, and us talking now is the present, and us talking next time is the future.’

‘Ah, future!’

‘Yeah, future, and this is a machine that can take us to different points in time. Is any of this making sense?’

‘No. Can I touch it?’

I toss the chronus at the squid. It catches it in a tentacle. The squid tinkers with it. It beeps. Holy shit it beeped.

‘Holy shit, what did you do?’

‘I don’t know. What does this do?’

The squid clenches the trigger.

‘No wait!’

It pulls the trigger.

BANG.

My ears. My fucking ears. The fucking squid blew up. Oh my god. It’s everything. Holy shit. I mean it’s nothing, but it’s everything. It’s space. It’s the sun. It’s Earth. It’s happening so fast. Everything is happening so fast. It just went from dinosaurs to the ice age in a matter of minutes. Holy shit it’s the dawn of mankind. Oh it’s over before I finished my thought. The stars are dying out. It’s over. That’s it. I feel warm. And squishy. That was incredible. I’m actually crying. That was beautiful. What was that? What is anything?

‘Zap.’

What was that sound?

‘And zap.’

Who’s that down there?

‘Oi.’

‘Hello?’

‘Look up.’

END.