Off Track, ON

1764 is the newspaper date rolled up in his hand as he is lain across the seat of a train rolling and rocking gently down the tracks, Foggy and waking slowly.

"Odd", John thought, "how odd." Glancing down at the newspaper as he is trying to piece together, the who, what, where, when and moreover, why... "Why am I on a train? I genuinely don't even care for trains."

John had not cared for trains since he was a little boy back in Brookshadshire. He had been with his younger brother putting coins on the tracks under the slow-moving wheels of the train and hadn't paid attention to the time or to the fact that the train had picked up speed. John lost 2 fingers on his right hand that fated day, as luck would have it. He did however still have the quarter that was smashed at the same time as his fingers.

"NOT POSSIBLE!" John exclaimed suddenly, jumping up and looking around for something, anything that might appear familiar. The newspaper in his hand stated 1764, the fingers on his right hand appeared to be all 4 plus the thumb, firmly attached, and further-more, trains had not even been invented until 1804.

Confusion was more than very evident on his face as he could not begin to even try understanding a single aspect of his current situation. Adding to the confusion was the complete lack of other souls on the train, he appeared in full essence to be all alone, even thought he could somehow clearly hear the sounds of life all around him.

By all outward appearances, he was completely alone, and somehow, he felt surrounded. Desperate for an answer of any sort, John calls out, "hello, is anyone there?" Nothing, no reply...

He makes his way towards what would appear to John to be the front of the train as the scenery that was passing gave him a clue to direction. He did catch a glimpse of himself in a window as he passed by and by all outward appearances was very well put together and not an altogether un-attractive man. All of this added to the mystery surrounding him and the growing confusion that seemed to not clear any.

"1764 is not possible" John murmured, "I am not on a train, there is no way." Yet, he was definitely here, on a train.

John somehow knew that he is a rational man, and tried to begin rationalizing the situation and patted himself down, he found an old leather pouch, well, he assumed it was old, and a card with some strange markings on it, that somehow seemed to him to be an important tie to whomever he is and whatever he is doing on the train, and he found a few crumpled swatches of paper with various dates on them: 1986, 2021, 2009, 1972. None of this gave him any better an idea of anything.

Also, to add to the confusion was the fact that he was most definitely not dressed in the attire of a gentleman from: he glances at the paper in his hand, 1994.

Sheer confusion sweeps his face, John thinks first and then clearly speaks out loud, "This newspaper said 1764 just a moment ago. What in the hell is going on?"

"1764, 1994," looking again, "2184" he speaks the ever-changing dates out loud. The actual day, September 23 isn't changing, only the year. Almost as if whatever is going on can't decide which year is the best or worst year for it to happen in.

Opening the paper, John reads the headline as well as the picture, which is not exactly what one would say changes either, only the year. "Time is a Circle?" and the picture appears to be a train on tracks and the view being looking backwards towards a slightly curved track. One would say the image didn't change much, as the only thing that changed about it was the overall appearance of the actual train, and the overall appearance of the landscape it passed, almost as if it continuously rolled past the exact same spot at different points in time, yet never slowing down or even seeming to try to do so.

John was slowly gaining his bearings as he came into his own memories again and it began to come to him exactly what he was doing here, and why he might be in this predicament to begin with, also as to why he was on a train appearing to be headed to nowhere, coming from nowhere, never slowing, and him having no ticket for the train, as well as no recollection of getting onto the train.

John had developed a concept of time that operated in such a simple way. "Time was and always has been a construction of man, however that construction is the necessary means for man to understand a principle so much larger than himself. "Time", is it is moves in an absolutely perfectly straight line from some unknow point in the "Past" towards some unknow point in the "Future." Man is on the timeline and makes his own decisions which is known as freewill. We all know from physics that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, therefore any time that man pushes against time, it throws him off the timeline and then time pulls him back onto it and across it even at points until man himself becomes as a helix flying down the line."

John had theorized this and came to the conclusion of the vitality of man depended on man following, blindly and faithfully the "Time" one had been given. Should one choose to alter themselves from the timeline, it would shorten the overall length of their own timeline due to the helixes. One would essentially "live" the same amount of "time" just live it in a shorter span of the line that f one had simply followed the line blindly.

John had come up with a way to test his theory and that test was to remove himself from the timeline and try to tether himself to it at the same time, without creating a quandary in which "time" wouldn't allow him to rejoin. It was here that he seems to have found himself. He was not actually alone, and he had proven his theory, however, time had chosen to hold him outside the timeline, and now John must find his way back.

John knew the only way back was to re-insert his consciousness into the exact moment that he had vacated the timeline. It would appear fortunate that the date of Sept 23 was ever unchanging. "Now to figure the year," John whispered. "Everything else has come back to me, except... the year that I need to go back..."

John sat down with the contents of his pockets, and the newspaper. A leather pouch, a card with strange markings and 4 crumpled pieces of paper. Leather pouch is empty, "of course it is," John muttered angrily. "Why would I bring something useful..." his thought trailed off....

Pouches are used for storage, put everything that is un-necessary, in the pouch. Newspapers are for information, what information could a newspaper hold? As he unfolded the paper, he noticed a small picture with markings similar to those on the card he had. "More on page 4". John flipped the paper open hurriedly, and there he was, a picture of him anyway, missing since September 23, 2038. The article was date, time, location.

This sparked a tickle of a memory and John suddenly hopped up and opened the pouch and broke the card in half with a resounding snap and as John faded from the consciousness that held him captive for who knows how long he wakes just as slowly back in his own reality firmly grasping a newspaper dated 1764 with a train on the front page and barely, almost imperceptibly visible, himself on the train, as irrefutable proof that his theory on time is true.