A day in the life

Admittedly, the first time Samuel T. Fisher woke up to find himself sitting fully dressed on the foot of his own bed, it was a bit awkward. Sam was not a sleepwalker; the matter of fact was that there was an entirely different Samuel Fisher gazing at our drowsy friend.

“I'm taking over for the day.” this new Sam opened.

“Really? That's it? No 'Hi! How you doing? How's the missus? Oh, by the way I'm you.'? I was hoping I'd be a little more cordial to myself, ya know?”

“Yup, looks like you're a jerk.” The new Sam grinned, causing the other to breathe an internal sigh of relief. If he hadn't played along matters would have been grave. As it was, things had to be pretty serious to even attempt time travel. He trusted his own judgment, though, whatever it happened to be based on.

When Sam emerged from his morning shower he was greeted this time with, “Aren't you going to offer me some breakfast?”

It was this Sam's turn to grin. “So it actually does work that way.” He had been preparing to offer his visitor breakfast at that very moment. This new Sam knew exactly what was going to happen and when. “I guess that means we shouldn't have to worry about surprises.”

“Looks like it. Honestly, though, I just ate so I'm going to head off to work early.”

---

Sam smiled. He had a day off. Sure, he had to work an extra day later on, but he rather liked the idea of an 8-day week with a break in the middle. He couldn't leave the apartment for fear of being seen, but he could catch up on his reading, his grading, maybe even some cleaning. The apartment did need it, he decided. So after a lazy morning he broke out the vacuum. Halfway through vacuuming his living room, his heart stopped when he realized he could probably be heard upstairs. There was too much at risk to even chance that and he cursed under his breath while quickly shutting off the machine.

He knew he should have thought things through more fully before using the time device. He knew any scientist worth his mettle would have told him to destroy the plans and never look back from day one. But Sam really couldn't help it; once the idea was in his head he couldn't stop it. The time device had to be built to prove that it could work. Now that he had used it, he had to do absolutely everything possible to prevent any kind of paradox. It was likely that since time travel was even possible any paradoxes would be prevented by the universe. However, Sam thought it unwise to make any assumptions about the nature of the universe that might result in an end to existence if he was wrong. Besides, even if the universe was paradox correcting, it might just be that the quickest way to resolve any paradox created by Sam would be to kill him off. He rather liked living.

At lunch Sam graded. He smiled as he thought of what his students would say if he told them he could travel through time. He laughed to himself knowing half of them wouldn't even be surprised. He enjoyed playing the part of the mad scientist in class to make things interesting. Enough of them believed the facade that they probably wouldn't think twice if Sam told them he'd broken conventional theory. After finishing his meal and his work, Sam went back to bed. He'd need the sleep for tomorrow, or rather, today.

Around 5:30 the Sam who had gone to work that day came home and woke the sleeping Sam. Conversation is a bit awkward when you know that one party already knows everything that is going to be said, but silence is worse.

“How was work”

“Oh, you know, the usual. How was housekeeping? Did you finish the vacuuming?”

They laughed uncomfortably. No matter if they made fun of it, that had been a big mistake. Sam had to be more careful in the future.

“You know, according to some philosophers, we don't technically exist anymore.”

“Yeah, well, I've never had much respect for those particular theories. They seem to assume that one unique entity can not occupy more than one space.”

“It's good to finally hear that come out of somebody else's mouth. I've been saying that for years.”

After dinner, the Sam who had gone to work undressed and went straight to bed. It had been a few too many hours since he slept. The other put on a special shirt and jacket. He'd installed a video camera inside one of the buttons, just in case. He wouldn't need to use it, the other had told him exactly what to do. It was just good form, he decided, before fastening the last button.

By the time Sam was ready to go, his visitor was fast asleep. Or maybe he was the visitor now. It didn't really matter, he supposed. He took a deep breath and stepped into the bathroom closet. A flash of light and there was only one Sam again.

In the early hours of the following morning, Sam got a phone call. The school was going to be closed for a day or two while they fixed a gas leak.

“It's interesting.” the voice on the other side of the line said. “We have no clue when it started but it appears to be coming from your classroom. You wouldn't have done anything yesterday which could have ruptured a line?”

“Not a thing.” he replied. “I had class outside yesterday.”

“Sounds like you were lucky, then. If the leak started during the day, it could have taken hours to even realize it was happening. You know how many odd smells go though the science hallway. Well, enjoy your day off for what it's worth. Got some extra time to grade it looks like.”

“Thanks.” and he hung up.