Twice Upon a Time

by Anu Garg

(appeared in the April 1991 issue of the magazine "2001")

| Browsing through my mail at the  cranio-terminal,  an  urgent |
| message caught  my  attention. It was from that science magaz-|
| ine '3001' asking me to contribute a science fiction story on |
| time travel. Imagine.  A story on time travel, now!  Now when |
| it's no longer fiction but a matter of routine fact. As rout- |
| ine as replacing a frontal lobe.  So what could I write?  And |
|  the deadline they had given was real close -- only a couple  |
|    of newdays away.  Meaning I had  to have it ready by Nov-  |
|     ember 41, 3017. That's what made the task all the more    |
|      formidable.  Turning  fiction  to  fact,  after  all,    |
|       is what SF is all about. But fact to fiction?  How      |
|        was a I going to do it? But since  I'm  always         |
|           ready to take up a challenge, I immediate-          |
|              ly put my pre-frontal neocortex  on              |
|                 overdrive  and   watched   my                 |
|                   neurons fire away on the                    |
|                      internal  bio holo-                      |
|                         matrix   field                        |
|                           waiting for                         |
|                            them  to                           |
|                               come                            |
|                                up                             |
|                                w                              |
|                                i                              |
|                                t                              |
|                                h                              |
|                                                               |
|                                s                              |
|                                o                              |
|                                m                              |
|                                e                              |
|                                                               |
|                                b                              |
|                                r                              |  
|                                i                              |  
|                                l                              |
|                                l                              |
|                                i                              |
|                                a                              |
|                                n                              |
|                                 t idea.  However, even though |
| time travel is on my mind, time is not on my side.            |
| TIME AND TIDE WAIT FOR NO ONE.                                | 
| Anyway,   I've  interfaced  with  the  microthought-processor |
| implant and it is now coolly transferring text  from  my head |
| onto  the  print template (funny these editors still prefer a |
| paper copy, in this age). Only trouble is, though the story's |
| very  good  and  has an excellent surprise ending, it's still |
| not really science fiction.  And in any case,  the deadline's |
| also gone.                                                    |
| TIME IS MONEY.                                                |
| I'm  certainly  not  going to discard this, now that I've put |
| such a lot  of effort into it.  And, well, time.  Same  ideas |
| have different implications in different times. What is  fact |
| now, was fiction earlier.  I  don my outerwear and rush to my |
| time-car. Immediately I put it in  back  year and reverse and |
| vroooom...   I'm there.  I've reached my destination: 1991. I |
| send the story to the magazine.  Now I  know  it  is  science |
| fiction. Not in 3017, but in the April 1991 issue of 2001.    |

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