Time Guys

On Thursday we got the letter so on Friday we went into Centrelink; but on Monday, we went back in time.

“I can’t believe we can’t get the dole” my friend Mark said as we left the Centrelink office. I agreed with him, hours of waiting and for what? Nothing. Just another great big disappointment.

We sat at home with a sort of dejected look about us. The TV didn’t work, Alan Jones on the radio, Andrew Bolt in the paper. Even the dog was miserable and he didn’t even need to go to Centrelink.

“This means we have to get jobs” I said “Nine to five. Working men. All suits and meetings and stuff”

Mark shook his head “No way Tony, I’m not going back to work”

Centrelink was right, there was actually nothing wrong with us. Mark was forty-three; I was forty-two. We were white, middle-class businessmen, both recently single, no kids, we had no claim to any sort of payment and as much as Mark said he was part Aboriginal, we didn’t deserve money to do nothing.

Mark and I were living together since we’d both gotten divorced and we’d decided to quit our jobs and live on government money. We shouldn’t have been on the dole, but we felt we were entitled to a holiday now and again. The way we saw it, we could get paid to sit around and do what we wanted, instead of what we had to do. I looked at our grubby little living room. Our posters of Jimi Hendrix, Arthur C Clarke and Woodstock still hung there, they’d been there forever and I had a feeling the walls had changed colour because of it. We’d tried to make our house look like our bedrooms when we’d been teenagers – I’d been in rock music, Mark liked science fiction stories about space and aliens.

I sighed “If I could go back in time and stop Tony Abbott, or at least stop myself from voting for him…” I said out loud.

“Yeah, go back in time…” said Mark. And then Mark sat up, like he’d been struck by lightning

“What’s wrong, you got the runs again?” I asked.

“What if…we could?” he said and I frowned, I didn’t really know what he meant. He dashed off to the shed out back and shut the door.

He didn’t come out all weekend, working furiously over the nights and days, curses being thrown from inside. Mark used to work for the CSIRO, so he’s pretty bright. He once made a phone app that told you where you phone was and used to make all sorts of gadgets that make our life easier in the house like the magnetic bed and the automatic lemon peeler.

When he came out on Sunday night, I was in bed and he burst into my room.

“I did it”

“Did what?” I asked

He frowned “I rigged up the Celica to go back in time”

The Celica was our car. It had a radio that never worked, it had air conditioning that never worked, the windows that never worked and when it was working, which was never, it was a slow plodding sort of thing whose only use was to clog up the freeway out of the city.

I sat up in bed “What do you mean, go back in time?”

He shook his head “Well, not go back in time, but…look, if I told you we could go back in time and get us the dole, would you do it?”

That was a tough question. It was also a question you probably don’t hear very often and it was up there with some of the stranger questions I’d been asked like ‘where do birds go when it rains?’ and ‘can dogs look up?’ I don’t know who said dogs can’t look up, as that’s all our dog does. All any dog does actually. Don’t know where birds go though.

“Yeah” I replied

“Yeah what?”

“Yeah, I’d do it Mark” and he smiled, pumped his fist at his side.

“Well, get some sleep, tomorrow morning we’ll go into space” and he closed my door. He opened it again a few seconds later “Get up early, we’ll beat the morning rush”

---

“What do you pack when you go into space?” I asked Mark the next morning

My rucksack was open on the couch and I’d packed a jumper, some biscuits, and a thermos. I didn’t know what to take. Mark said not to put too much in the car as it’d weigh it down when we were going into space. I thought about taking a tent, but it didn’t seem like we’d have much chance to use it, I didn’t think there’d be many good camping places.

“I wouldn’t pack too much, just the essentials. Toothbrush, pillow, some clothes” Mark said as he loaded two sleeping bags into the Celica. He snapped his fingers “ICE! We need ice!” and he ran out of the house.

I knelt down to pat the dog as he looked up at me. Poor old Dougie, he couldn’t come with us. Bit of a shame really, dogs were the first things in space and know they couldn’t even go back to visit or nothing. I walked him to the milk bar to leave him with Mr Murray. Mark was fishing around for ice in the box out front and nodded to me as I walked in.

“Hi Mr Murray” I yelled out as the bell rung out in the milkbar. Dougie just sort of sat there, looking around in his tired sort of way. Mr Murray came out from behind the bead curtain, his radio playing ABC in the background.

“Well hello Tony, Mark says you’re going into space. Clever boys” he nodded over his glasses. Mr Murray was an alright guy when he wasn’t talking about sport or stuff on TV, and when you needed to complain about something, he’d nod and just say ‘I know, I know’.

Dougie gave a little bark at Mr Murray, which meant he probably liked him. I passed him Dougie’s lead over the counter and smiled.

“Yeah, going into space this morning…do you know anything about space?” and Mr Murray shook his head

“No, I’ve never been to space. I’ve been to Adelaide though, would that help?”

“Not really”

Mr Murray leaned over the counter “I know it’s none of my business Tony but…have you thought about getting a job? You could go back to work, you and Mark, the both of you. None of this sharehouse stuff. A sharehouse is for students, not two middle aged men. Have you thought about it?” and he looked at me, waiting for answer.

I thought about it. Getting a job, making friends, meeting a girl, getting married, happiest moment of your life, having kids, watching them grow up and become grown up, going to school on their first day, growing old, feeling a sense of accomplishment. But then I thought about space...

“You wouldn’t have any ice, would you?"

---

When I got home, Mark was busy loading bags of ice into the backseat of the hatchback. He looked up from the back.

“Space stuff 101: Don’t open the windows when we get into space” Mark said and pointed at the gearbox “And keep it in neutral, save petrol. No gravity or nothing in space, we can just coast all the way”

“What’s the ice for?”

“Cryogenic freezing”

“Why are we doing that? I thought Cryogenic freezing was for rich people and Walt Disney”

He sighed “It’s not just for rich people and racists. It’s the only way we can make the journey to the black hole”

We sat in the Celica in the driveway. We had the sleeping bags full of ice in the back seats, our bags at our feet and in the boot was the thing that’d make us go into space; it was a big blue ball of metal, all smoke and whirring noises which made it sound pretty hi-tech. Mark had made some changes to the inside of the Celica too, he’d taken the screens from the various computers in the shed to make some nifty monitors which showed up stuff like petrol, oxygen, distance.

“Wait a minute Mark…I thought we were going back in time”

“Yeah we are mate”

I frowned “So why we going into space? Can’t we go back in time like here?”

“The black hole, let’s you travel through time. Or that’s we thought at the CSIRO. I’ll explain when we get into space.”

“This is like a real space ship” I said out loud, putting the hands on the wheel.

“This IS a real space ship” Mark replied. “Now, put it into first, and we’ll get going”

We were driving slowly down one of the city’s biggest roads, traffic piling up behind us as the car trundled slowly. The sound of horns and yelling was following up into the city. Mark said we needed a long straight flat piece of road for take-off, and this was the only thing that the Celica could make it to without stalling or breaking down.

“Okay, final check. Bags?” I asked

“Check” Mark replied

“Fuel?”

“Check”

“Strange engine ready to go?” and Mark smiled

“We’re ready” and we pulled up at the red light. A car had pulled up alongside us at the lights, the man leaning out. He looked like a tradesman, a big fast red ute piled with tools.

“OI! MATE! GET OFF THE ROAD! YOU’RE A DISGRACE IN THAT CAR” and his friends in the car laughed at his.

Mark frowned, flicking switches and messing with the air con dials, which he had turned into new buttons “Let’s show him. Starting up, ten seconds to launch”

The Celica began to rumble, shaking loudly. It’d never done this before but it had also never gone over 40 kilometres an hour without a piece falling off it. A sound like a jet engine began to roar and the lights went green. The guy sped off but we were still sitting here, unable to move

“Mark, he’s getting away-

“…three…two…one…HIT IT!” Mark yelled “GO GO GO!”

I put the pedal to the floor and the car screamed into life, everything outside the car windows hung on the glass like an image before blurring fast into a colourful stream. I was being pushed back and down into my seat as the Celica rocketed over the other car, up, up into the sky, clipping the train lines before we began to go vertical above Sydney.

“Okay, put it in second” Mark yelled and I shifted down, the car rocketing faster. Everything was shaking as I was pushed back into the seat. The glovebox flew open showering Mark in jelly beans, tissues and half used pencils. It was loud, I could hear my heart pumping in my ears. I thought I was going to die. But I thought about the Centrelink, down there, refusing money for people just like us: dreamers, quiet folk, artists and I knew we had to get our dole back.

The Celica sped through the grey clouds, all four wheels spinning faster as we climbed higher and higher. They were flashing on the inside, these big storms were brewing but we didn’t care: we were going into space. Sydney disappeared beneath us, a big spaghetti-like mess as the car entered orbit. Gravity disappeared and soon we were floating in our seats, kept down by our seatbelts.

We waved to the astronauts in the space station, they looked really surprised to see a Celica driving past.

"Alright...we're on course" said Mark "Let's get changed, time for bed."

It was hard to change clothes in the cramped interior of the Celica with one hand on the dashboard and another wedged in the ashtray. This was something we hadn’t thought about when we’d been getting ready. The Celica hatchback was moving fast over the earth, all quiet except for us swearing and hitting our arms and legs as we tried to get changed. Any other time I would have gotten out, but as we entered orbit around Earth it was a bit hard to do that.

“So, reason we’re in space, there’s what’s called black holes. People at work had thought they let go back in time. We just need to go back far enough to start changing things. Kill Abbott before he get old enough to go into politics. Or stop people voting for him.” said Mark, as he changed clothes in the back. “There’s one near Jupiter. So we go through the black hole and go back in time”

"Will it work?” I asked

“I reckon we’ll have to find out”

As we passed over the Earth, we settled in for a long sleep. We climbed into our sleeping bags full of ice and I yelped at the cold, which made me think of a dog.

“Poor Dougie, he’d have loved this”

“Yeah...” and Mark zipped up the sleeping bag and fell into cryogenic hibernation. I had crazy dreams, dreams of all the movies I’d watched as kid. The Time Machine, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Crazy lights, apes yelling and shrieking, of that lady in the fur bikini and the Statue of Liberty stuck in a beach which I thought never made much sense for a lot of reasons. I was dreaming so I didn’t think that, but I was thinking it as Mark shook me awake.

“Tony, wake up. We’re coming up on Jupiter now” he said, checking the map.

“How long have we been asleep?” I asked, wiping all the sleep crust out of my eyes.

“Don’t know. A long time. They say it takes ages to just get to Mars, let alone Jupiter"

“You reckon Dougie’s okay?”

Mark nodded “Oh yeah, he’d be fine. Dogs can survive anything. Dogs can survive for a week without a head”

Jupiter was huge against all the stars, I took a picture on my phone to show everyone later. The black hole was a big hole just next to Jupiter and I steered the Celica towards it. It was real weird looking, like someone had poured a shiny blob of glue on the sky. It was all reflective and stuff and seemed like it was moving like water.

“Alright Tony, here’s the plan. We go back in time, we need to either kill Abbott or we somehow convince everyone to not vote him in. Not sure how we do that…but” said Mark and I laughed a little “We’ll figure it out when we go in.

“Nah man, it’ll be heaps easy. Going back in time should be a cinch.” I said and he nodded, before frowning.

The black hole was coming up quickly. Mark wasn’t saying anything. He was just real quiet. I was thinking about having the dole back. It was going to be brilliant. We’d watch DVDs for hours on end, watch all the television shows that had gotten backed up on our old laptop; Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead. If we got good dole money, we could buy a new flatscreen, a new laptop, all the game consoles. We’d have to be careful though not to spend it all. We could get jobs but we’d have to make just enough so that Centrelink never finds out. We could pursue the arts! We could live making money from writing, or painting. Pottery! We could make clay pots and sell them at a local market. We could grow our own food and vegetables in the backyard! Sell those at the market. We could work in a café and look bored and hate the customers, despite the fact it was their money that paid for our wages! I could get a tattoo and a piercing, Mark could get braids! The black hole was a portal back in time but the dole was a portal to a new way of life.

“God, I’m an idiot!” Mark yelled and leaned over to turn off the car. We floated silently near the black hole.

“What’s wrong Mark?”

“Time travel doesn’t even work! Tony, this won’t work” he said, smiling as he said it.

“But we came to space to do it!” I replied. He shook his head. “Nah, but we’re going back in time though Mark yeah? Yeah but nah mate, come on.”

“No, but if we’d gone back in time and stopped Abbott and gotten the dole, we’d never have any reason to go back in time in the first place! Think about it Tony! We go back, right? And we stop him. We get the dole, life is amazing. In the future, when we left, we had no reason to go in the first place, because we have the dole meaning we couldn’t have left. The very fact that we went back in time means we couldn’t do it!”

“Wait-“

“See it’s like this: let’s say we do go back in time to do it. We do it but when we do it in the past it changes the future! Meaning in the future, which is the present for us, we never had any reason to go back to the past because we already changed the past to affect the future!"

It got really quiet. And then I said.

"Mark, mate, I really don’t get anything you just said. Did we go back in time or not?”

“…no Tony”

“Fucking pointless mate, let’s go home”

#fiction #space #guys #men #midlifecrisis #fictions #interstellar #comedy #joke