A Dream From The Past

After finishing at the port Albert decided it would be ok to try out the tele-porter for the trip ‘home’, as he was getting rather tired and didn’t relish the thought of taking the long transport trip back to the Haven. Josh had given the coordinates to the tech at the console and they each entered a pod. As Albert stepped in he glanced over to Josh with a strong look of trepidation, but before he knew it they were all standing in the ‘closet’ back at the place resembling his office—Haven. One by one, they walked out of the closet and then Josh led him out of his office and down the hall to another door and they went in. This room closely resembled Albert’s home back in New Jersey.

“Oh my!” Albert exclaimed, “You did go to a lot of trouble for me.”

Albert walked around surveying his new but familiar surroundings—it even had a bathroom and a kitchen, and from what Albert could tell everything worked. The icebox and cupboards were even stocked with his favorite and familiar food.

“This place was designed to help you feel more at home.” Josh commented, “You must be pretty tired, but just in case you cannot sleep right away your study has a bookshelf with an entire library of stories, both fiction and non-fiction, as well as scientific papers and a newspaper. Your study has a special feature that allows you to find the book you are looking for faster, as you sit at your desk reach under the tabletop and find the button. When you push the button a holographic librarian will come up to assist you; just tell it what you are looking for and it will find it for you. As for the newspaper—well it’s not really made of paper—you push on the top corner of the first page and then give it the date of the news you wish to read. Yes you can give it dates as far back as 1955, but then you will also want to give it the city and the name of the newspaper you want. Otherwise it will pick the most prominent Oklahoma City newspaper in print at that time.”

Shivu chimed in as he noticed Albert fiddling with his clothes, “Your clothes will just slide off like a sweatshirt and pants do, just throw them in the wastebasket—don’t worry they are recycled—and you will find pajamas and slippers waiting for you in your bedroom.”

Josh smiled at Shivu and continued, “You will have a liaison to guide you through this new world and she will stay with you as your personal assistant for as long as you need her services. Her name is Salina and tomorrow morning at 7:30 sharp, she will be here to pick you up. It’s ok if you are not awake by then, she will probably just come in and wait in your study until you do get up.”

Shivu jumped in again his face contorted with a look of curiosity, “How did you know what time she was coming?”

“I’m psychic”, Josh ribbed but then he came clean, “I grabbed my messages while you two were locked into conversation back at the café. Any way Salina says that there will be a press release on Thursday officially announcing your arrival, and I will be there for you as support if you need it.”

“I didn’t even notice, but then you did have that little episode where you nearly fell out of your chair,” Shivu added in retrospect.

Josh confessed, “I accidentally had the volume turned up too high on my ear plugs. They nearly blasted out my ear drums.”

Shivu laughed heartily, “And I thought that we were boring you to sleep.”

“It wasn’t that bad, I just thought I could be a little efficient,” Josh replied.

Albert was lost, but figured eventually he would understand what these two were talking about, in time.

Josh turned back to Albert and finished his thought, “I will be going home tonight, unless you prefer I stay.”

Albert entertained the thought for a moment and then decided, “That’s ok Josh, you can go home. It appears I have everything I need here to get along just fine.”

Josh then turned to Shivu, “You can go home to your family too; I won’t need you again until Thursday and even then that’s only if you want to come to the press conference.”

“Oh! I will be there,” answered Shivu enthusiastically, “Where will it be?” as he held up his watch and said, “Record.”

Josh leaned into Shivu’s watch and replied in a monosyllabic tone, “Thursday at 11:30 in the morning, at the World Trade Center Super Tower.”

Then Josh stepped closer to Albert and reached out to hug him as he said his goodbye, “See you Thursday, Uncle. It has been a great day!” They embraced in a strong manly hug and slapped each other on the back almost instinctively.

“I had a good time too, and thank you for bringing me here,” Albert said.

As they released, Shivu stepped closer and held out a fist to which Albert grabbed and turned it into a handshake with his other hand on top, and Shivu awkwardly followed suit and moved his hand up then down as Albert directed.

“Oh right!” Shivu exclaimed, “The …hand…shake.”

Albert nodded and smiled, “It was good to meet you.”

“It was an honor and a pleasure to meet you sir.” Shivu stated with reverence.

At that, the two started to leave, stopped just outside the door to look back at Albert and wave, and then disappeared as the door slid close between them. Albert could hear their footsteps making their way down the hall; he imagined they were headed back to the office and through the tele-porter. Now left alone to his own thoughts, the first thing he decided to do was get more comfortable, so he headed to the bedroom for those pajamas and slippers. He quickly pulled off those new clothes and slipped into his night gear then turned down the lights and tried to lie down briefly. Although he was truly tired, it seemed impossible to sleep now; his ‘study’ beckoned to him, like the ocean calls to the sea captain. He had too many questions and he knew there was a good chance that most of the answers could be found there. So, in the soft glow of the nightlight that lit his way, he got up and slowly sauntered off to the study.

As Albert entered the study and turned on the light, he noticed the desk in the middle of the room and it seemed like any ordinary desk he had seen in his years as a professor. Curious how ordinary the room looked although he knew there was something different about it, over in the corner stood a chalk board mounted on a tripod with a mathematical problem drawn upon it and the bookshelves were lined with books. It looked just like his study back home in New Jersey; the room was filled with a motley bunch of furniture that looked as if he had picked it all up at various garage sales. There on his desk was the newspaper Josh had been talking about, so he decided to sit down and read that first. It too looked like an ordinary newspaper dated Sunday, July 19, 2082, but it had an interesting title “The OK Express News”. The headlines caught his attention, so he decided to read on and catch up with the news of this time. Maybe later he would change the date, but for now this time seemed extraordinarily interesting.

After an hour or so of reading the news he was feeling a little drowsy and having difficulty sitting there reading. At first he thought about using that hologram thing and reached under his desk to find the button. However, with a tense back and a stiff neck, he decided he was too tired to just sit there, so he got up and stretched a little and walked around the room. Out of the corner of his eye the chalkboard caught his attention once more, as he now noticed the mathematical problem written on it. This problem was very unfamiliar to him and he drew closer to it to see it better. There were strange symbols representing variables that seemed to denote parts of his general relativity theory, yet it looked like it was working on a gravity problem. As he followed the math through he could begin to see what it was leading too. Small notes written off to the side described what the unfamiliar symbols and variables were referring to

(e.g. γ = gravitons; δ = rate of dimensional shifting).

After hours of staring at and scribbling calculations on this mathematical problem, Albert could make no headway on it at all. His eyes drooped and his body could no longer stand, and he began to yawn repeatedly—it was time for bed. Slowly making his way to the bedroom he fumbled to shut off the light, stumbled out of his study, and lazily trudged down the hall. It was 2:38 in the morning when he finally slipped into bed, and shortly after, he was fast asleep.

At promptly 7:30 that morning there was a knock at the door. Salina was a very punctual person, and she also knew that Albert would probably not respond well to the intercom announcing her presents, so she opted for the more traditional and yet very primitive approach. After several attempts to announce her arrival, Salina decided Albert was probably sleeping in, so she let herself in—it was beginning to get hot outside anyway. Just as Josh had said she would, she headed straight for the study to quietly read while waiting for Albert to wake up. Like Albert had done earlier, she went over to the desk, picked up the newspaper and scanned the entire thing front to back. In two minutes she had read all the news for the day including the solar news, the world news and the latest news for Mars (her home world). That was entertaining but sure didn’t take up much time, so she looked over the library for some light reading and came across a title she hadn’t seen before.

“’War and Peace’—hmm that should be interesting” she muttered under her breath. After about five minutes she had read all but the last four pages of the book and had to put it down, for she was getting thirsty and went to get something to drink.

On her way out of the study the chalkboard caught her eye.

“What’s this? …a little math problem drawn up on this strange looking wall?”

A quick look at all the figures and variables told her that this was a gravitational math problem showing how gravitons may leak into other dimensions over great distances. Based on the short distance given in the equation—a little over a quarter of a million miles—she surmised this was an easy test of how many gravitons could leak out in the distance from the Earth to the Moon. After a few quick calculations in her head she picked up the strange writing device, which felt like grainy, fine powdered sugar packed tightly into a cylinder, and began to scratch out her answer. The wall appeared to be made of a type of slate rock and the writing cylinder made of talcum powder. This curious configuration piqued her curiosity but writing out her solution with the dry fine powdered cylinder managed to make her throat even dryer, so she made a mental note to come back and have a further look at this wall, but decided to head on to the kitchen for that drink.

The kitchen was even stranger than the study; she had heard about all these appliance things from history, but she had never actually seen them.

“I wonder what this is for?” she muttered out loud while fingering a shiny metallic object with a cord coming out of it.

“That’s a coffee pot for making coffee; would you like some?” said a voice from behind her.

This startled her and she spun around quick to see who it was, but of course it was Albert.

“Yes, I would love to have a cup of coffee with you Dr. Einstein,” she answered.

There was a clear hint of restrained and tempered excitement in her voice.

“Great! Then if you could help me by looking for the coffee, I will set up the coffee pot. Check in that cupboard over there,” he said as he pointed to the cupboard over the sink.

Then he grabbed the coffee pot and began to fill it with water from the sink. Salina located the coffee can and handed it over to Albert. He opened the can with his can opener and measured out the proper scoops into the top of the coffee pot. Salina watched with enthusiasm as he set up the pot and then took the cord over to the outlet on the wall and plugged it in.

Albert then turned to Salina and stared blankly at her for a moment. It had finally hit him—Josh had told Albert this woman was his age so he was expecting an old woman in her sixties to be showing up at his door, but this girl couldn’t be more than twenty. Although she stood no taller than he, she had striking green eyes, a shapely figure, and long flowing brown hair with these bizarre blonde streaks in it. She wore a tight fitting blue and gray sparkly body suit that fit better than a glove showing a very beautiful and flawless figure underneath. Wow! Was this how women aged in this century? Thought Albert. Oh my! Where are my manners? Realizing he had been standing there possibly looking rather crazed, he quickly recomposed himself and held out his hand to shake hers,

“You must be Salina.”

They both stood there awkwardly for a moment, as she stared blankly at his outstretched hand. Then he realized what was wrong, and remembering Shivu’s gesture yesterday, he rolled his palm face down and made a fist. That gesture she recognized, made a fist, and bumped his fist twice.

“Yes I am,” she replied, “and it’s an honor to meet you Dr. Einstein.”

“Please, call me Albert.” he said with a smile, “and it’s a pleasure meeting you. Shall we have some orange juice while we wait for the coffee to percolate?”

“Wait for what?” asked Salina, feeling a bit confused.

“The coffee needs to percolate,” Albert repeated but by the befuddled look on her face he could tell he needed to elaborate. “The coffee pot works by heating the water to a boil and then shoots the hot water up through the middle spout then down through the coffee grounds, mixing the two elements together. That’s called percolating.”

The light bulb went on, “Oh! I’m familiar with the term percolating, but I didn’t realize it was a process once used to make coffee. How long does this process take?”

“About five minut…” Albert started to answer but was cut off by Salina’s gasp.

“Five minutes! Really? It takes that long? Whoa! In that case I will take you up on the orange juice.”

Albert smiled and then replied, “Then if you will look in that cupboard for the glasses, I will check the icebox for the orange juice. Perhaps you would like a bit of breakfast too?”

“Isn’t that the term you use for your morning meal?” Salina inquired.

“Yes it is,” Albert answered.

“Oh! I think I’m going to love this assignment,” Salina said with a big smile.