Party Guests Time Travelling Stadium
by Mel Farr Suppastar of Project 301
PLEASE USE AFS.COM or a DEC PDP-10 TO VIEW THIS
There is a 15 Chance that any person behaving or speaking strangely
in a stadium is a man from another time
- Wolff-Ostrovs 3rd Hypothesis, 2nd Corollary
I. June 5th 1998, 11pm, Rentschler Field, East Hartford, Ct.
By any objective standard, the party was a success. Greg, the diminutive and
very bearded bartender was quick and charming. The DJ was playing strictly
disco/funk from 1974. Some guy had shown up in a very realistic Cthulhu
costume. The party guests were having quite the stable time. The mostly
empty stadium provided great space and accoustics. Indeed, the only person
who wasnt enjoing himself was the host, Professor Wolff-Ostrov, who paced
around nervously, because he was nervous.
IIa Feb 9 1996, The Alamodome, San Antoino Texas
Mr. Spinsane, party guest, stepped out of the temporal aperture. The
stadium was empty. It was still 1 week until NBA All star weekend.
IIb October 1st, 1974, Kinshasa Zaire, 20th of May stadium.
The DJ stepped out of the temporal aperture. The stadium was empty.
Within a matter of days it would be the site of the famous Rumble
in the Jungle. The DJ was early for the rumble. But he was just on
time for the disco/funk of 1974.
IIc 331 B.C., Greece, Panatheanic Stadium
The man in the very realistic Cthulhu costume stepped out of the temporal
aperture. He was early for the first olympic games. A slave caught sight of
him and screamed in fright.
III. October 10th, 1997
Prof. Wolff-Ostrov was a lonely man, a condition caused by a general
social awkwardness and exacerbated by a profession that seemed to require
him to pace around his office, writing and erasing equations while
muttering to himself. He was not a man who understood the subtleties of
human interaction. This left him remarkably unprepared when Hennifer
Marks walked into his office.
Hennifer Marks was a grad assistant in Temporal-Spatial Physics who was
having trouble squaring Schrodingerean Probability with Tractical Geometry.
As they talked, Prof. Wolff-Ostrov began to experience a squishy,
uncomfortable sensation that to him was most similar to the way bodies
effected by gravity are forced toward each other. Hennifer had a habit of
slowly twirling her long flowing curls in a way that the Professor found
profoundly distracting. Wolff-Ostrov found himself trying to estimate to the
centimeter the amount of space between where her shorts ended and her knees
began. Despite these distractions, the good professor managed to
sufficiently clear up Ms. Marks confusion and she bid him thank you and
adieu. Then, in a moment he could scarecly believe, the good professor
offered to review her thesis and help her in any way she needed. Previously
Prof. Wolff had hewed to a course of strictly avoiding assisting students
even graduate students in their own projects but when Hennifer smiled and
seemed generally interested, Prof. Wolff felt a highly unusual sense of
anticipation.
IV. December 10th, 1997, 9pm
Prof. Wolff-Ostrov was feeling yet another utterly unfamiliar emotion. This
one seemed the opposite of that one he had felt so long ago. He tried to
run through some familiar equations but it was impossible. He was furious.
How could she leave! Just when things were starting to go well! He threw
his small model of the solar system at the blackboard. It shattered into
3.14159 pieces. Tim Spinsane, the Dept. Secretary walked in.
Professor, is something wrong?
No, uh...just an accident, Mr. Spinsane
You seem very upset
I...am.
Well its happy hour at the Rusty Nail @ there usually arent any students
there.
Are you inviting me to get a drink with you?
Oh no, Im watching the NBA tonight, but the bartender there has a knack for
soothing the emotions.
V. December 10th, 1997, 10pm
Prof. Wolff-Ostrov walked into the rusty nail. It was a small, hole-in the
wall, distinguished only by a rather impressive bookshelf, full of pulp
novels the Professor could not imagine perusing, let a lone reading. The
bartender was a short bearded fellow who bore a distinct physical
resemblance to Gimli, son of Gloin.
Whatll it be, sir?
Uh, something strong?
Whiskey?
Sounds great.
Mixed with?
Dont people drink it straight?
Some.
Well thats what Ill do.
Sure thing.
Prof. Wolff downed the shot.
Ill have another.
Ok.
Shes leaving, Barkeep.
Its Greg, and they all do, sir.
Shes leaving, Greg.
I wouldnt worry about that, sir
Why not, Greg?
Sir, you dont know me, but I knew you would walk in here. And I knew it
would be about a woman.
What else do you know, Greg?
Mark my words Professor. What you two have is love. And when she returns,
the two of you will be together. Happily ever after.
How can you know that, Greg?
Ive seen it, sir. Im one of the beneficiaries of your...discoveries.
Youre a time traveller?
Aye, sir. Ive seen you and Ms. Marks in the future. You two are very happy
together. When she returns from her sojourn abroad, you will be reunited!
At this Prof. Wolff-Ostrovs face lit up with joy. He got up beaming, and
walked out of the bar. But just before he left, he turned:
Greg, if youre from the future, What are you doing here in this time
period then?
The music sir, I love the music of this era: Chumbawumba, Paula Cole, Will
Smith getting Jiggy with It - I am convinced that 1998 will go down in
history as the greatest year in the history of popular music.
VI. June 5th 1998, 10:45pm, Connecticut
Greg had suggested that the Professor throw the party to celebrate the
return of Hennifer Marks from her 7 month fellowship in South America. The
party could coincide with the Professors discovery of a feasible method of
time travel. He had assured the Professor that once he
demonstrated the secrets of time-travel she would be incurably smitten.
Prof. Wolff-Ostrov had agreed at once. And now the moment had finally
arrived.
Finally, Hennifer Marks arrived, and she was more than the Professor
could have imagined. She had gained an enormous amount of weight. Although
this was somewhat mitigated by the fact that she was dressed in long
robes that made her long basically formless.
Professor! she shouted, eyes beaming with joy.
Prof. Wolff-Ostrov almost couldnt speak.
I want to hug you... she said but the Church Fathers tell me that it is
sinful to hug an unmarried man.
Oh?
I have so much to tell you! she continued Before the trip I had thought
that Mormons were a cult, but now Im a member! I cant wait to teach you
the doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day saints!
Oh.
Anyhow, I have to go! I have to be up at 5:30am for Prayer. But I knew I
had to stop by and say hello! And If any of you want to know more about
Jesus, feel free to reach out to me!
And with that she left.
The professor stood, shocked.
Greg walked up to him.
Professor, Im sure you are very disappointed. However, you have a party
full of guests fully expecting to time travel in this stadium. With your
permission, hand me the transitory dialectic and I will handle the
temporal-portation. We wouldnt want this party to be a failure.
The professor nodded, absentmindedly.
VII.
And in the end, that was the tragedy of time travel: it was so damn
inconveinent. Forget the possibility of paradoxes, the potential rupture
of the space-time continuum. Forget the money required just to construct a
transitory dialectic. None of that was more than a trifle compared to the
actual inconveinence of the process.
When Professor Wolff-Ostrov discovered the actual requirements for his
theory to work, he nearly gave up right then and there. Most
problematically, there was the space involved. Time travel requried the
creation of a series of fissures and abrasions in the space-time
continuum. These fissures and abrasions contained energies that had a
substantially corrupting effect on the space-time continuum and more
importantly on the surrounding physical environment. What Wolff-Ostrov
discovered was that even a minor trip say, two people, a few days
into the past needed to be contained and the only regularly occuring
containers: stadiums. For some reason, the harmonic structures of
stadiums tended to contain and mitigate the disturbances. The container
had to exist at both the origin and the destination, and it had to, for
humanitarian reasons, be basically empty. This alone put enormous
restrictions on time travel.
VIII. June 6th 1998, 12:10am, The Rusty Nail
I dont get it Greg. You assured me that we would be together.
It was a lie, Professor, a noble lie.
But why Greg, why?
Because, Professor, the stadium party needed to happen, for a number of
important events in history. Because of you, the DJ will go on to found
disco-funk making the late 70s one of the most important party zones in
history. Because of you, Cthulu will help inspire the Greek Mythology
that will shape Western culture for Millenia. And because of you, Mr.
Spinsane was supposed to prevent Brent Barry from winning the 1996 NBA
Slam Dunk competition. But unfortunately Mr. Spinsane will fail. And
Brent Barry will win.
And what about me, Greg?
Well Warpus, Greg said, calling the Professor by his first name youll
impregnante a prostitute and raise the child as your own. Then youll
carry on a longstanding affair with Grindkings wife. Eventually you two
will get married and develop a Blender...I mean, blended family.