Thousand+ Words for Nov. 4, 2025

Two Men Walking along a Street in the Center of Town; One Assumed a Businesslike....

Two men walked along a street in the center of town; one assumed a businesslike posture, head down, striding, while the other veered this way and that as he gazed up at the buildings and stared at the other people walking along. From time to time, the more curious of the two had to rush to catch up with the lesser. They walked past tall, shiny buildings and concrete parking garages until they followed the sidewalk down into a sort of tunnel that led pedestrians under the train track and re-emerged on the other side and into a gentrified area, a reclaimed swamp, that had been turned into a long, narrow mall for townspeople to have their lunch or complete their daily walks.

"Where did you say we are right now?" the man who was ahead of the other asked.

"We're on Earth."

"On what?"

"Earth," the man behind repeated. "That's what the locals call it."

"Oh." They walked a little further in silence.

Around a curve in the path was a group of men on the sidewalk. Some were sitting; some were reclined in the growing shadow. One was mumbling to himself while another smoked a cigarette and a third took a swig from a bottle ensconced in a paper bag. As the two men approached them, the one in front stopped and held his hand out for the other one to stop as well. "You've got the controller?" he asked.

"Sure."

"Get it out," the man in front said.

"Simo, we do not need any of these people."

"Get it out," Simo repeated. He gestured at the man on the sidewalk who held the bottle. "I want that one there to link to us."

"Why? He's not on the list."

"Yes, he is," Simo said. "He's a twelfther."

"A twelfther? To whom?"

"Cinels."

By this time, the group of homeless noticed that the two men were standing looking at them and and gesturing toward them and apparently discussing one of their number. One of the group, a shirtless young man who happened to be nearest to the two men, started gesturing at them in a way that suggested he was either out of his mind, which was certainly possible given the substances he had ingested, or he was expecting to intimidate the two men into directing their attention elsewhere. It wasn't working.

"Cinels? Are you sure?"

"Yes."

With a shake of his head, the man reached into his inside jacket pocket and retrieved what looked like a short black stick. He grasped one end of it and twisted. "That one right there?"

"Yeah. The one with the bag."

"How far?"

The first man looked around. "Oh, let's take him back about a thousand years."

The man with the controller turned it and then frowned. "He's sitting right where there's a big tree," he said. "Can you moved him over a little bit?"

"How far?" asked the first man.

"Oh, about four feet."

The first man stepped forward to within easy earshot of the man with the bag. "Excuse me, fellow, would you mind moving to your left about four feet? There's going to be--"

"There was!" interrupted the second man.

"Right, right. There was going to be a tree right where you're sitting." Verbs get weird when you can travel in time.

The man with the bag first didn't believe that this stranger would speak to him at all, and second, didn't understand his request. He understood the individual words, yes, but the way they combined didn't carry any meaning for him. His gestures got wider and more frantic.

"Try giving him some money," the second man said.

"Oh, right, money." Simo reached into his pocket and pulled out a ten-dollar bill. He turned and waved it at the second man. "Is this one right?"

The second man stepped forward and peered at the bill. "Yeah, that one will do. Offer it to him."

Simo turned to the homeless man and offered the bill. "This is yours, if you'll just move over a little," he said.

The man reached for the bill, but Simo held it back. "No, move first. Then you get the money."

The man with the bag looked at his compadres and then back at Simo. Then he shrugged and scooted over.

"Excellent," Simo said, stepping forward and holding out the bill. The homeless man took it. Turning, Simo said to his partner. "Okay. Do it."

The second man twisted the controller and the city sidewalks, buildings, streets, and traffic faded away and were replaced by a wide flat field, a meadow, with trees growing at irregular intervals. As promised, there was a large tree precisely where the homeless man had previously been sitting.

The homeless man, coming to realize that he was suddenly sitting in a rather deep growth of brush got to his feet, looked around, and then back at Simo. He was not overly disturbed by the transformation of the world; apparently this sort of vision was not out of the realm of the transformations he had experienced while under the influence of the various substances he drank, smoked, or otherwise ingested. The homeless man didn't know it, but while his location remained exactly the same, the local date was now July 14, 1031--at 5:45 pm.

The controller was set to remove potentially dangerous items in the transfer; this was meant primarily to prevent the spread of diseases from one point in the timeline to another, but it also included ethyl alcohol and the daughter products of its metabolation in the human body, and so, it served as an immediate relief from the symptoms of ethyl alcohol poisoning. The previous level of ethyl alcohol in the homeless man's bloodstream, along with the daughter products, were suddenly no longer present. The man experienced this as a sudden vast improvement in his mental clarity. The pounding in his head was suddenly gone; the ache in his kidneys and the throbbing in his liver were suddenly gone too. This experience prompted his to speak: "Hey, you, you guys--"

"You are a twelfther," Simo announced grandly. Then he turned. "Will he know what a twelfther is?"

"No," his partner said.

"Ah." Simo turned back to the homeless man. "Listen, you are a twelfther. We have identifed that you are a twelfther. Do you understand?"

The homeless man looked from Simo to Simo's partner and then back to Simo. He did not understand.

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