There was a chill in the air. I felt my lower lip quiver from the cold. My breathing was forced and deliberate and my muscles all seemed to be stiff and sore. I coughed and then slowly opened my eyes. The sun was bright and my eyes were sensitive to its light. My head was pounding like it’s never pounded before.
I felt disoriented and slowly looked around my current surroundings. I was lying on my back in the damp morning grass. My house was a few yards away. Rob stood by the picnic table, lights aglow. I attempted to sit up, but found it difficult. After a few moments I managed to roll over and was leaning on my elbows.
My throat was dry and as I tried to speak, I coughed from the pain—a burning sensation—deep within my throat. I wiped the sleep from my eyes and tried to re‑orient myself, which wasn’t easy to do with this pounding headache.
Everything seemed hazy. I remembered a bright white light. I remembered figures in long, flowing, white robes. I remembered them taking my hand and leading my through some sort of tunnel. Was this death? And if so, where was I now? Did heaven look like my own backyard?
After a few more minutes, I realized that Lisa, Melissa and Cindy were lying in the grass about 10‑feet away from me. I tried to stand, but finding that impossible in my weakened state, I crawled over to them.
“Melissa,” I coughed, gently shaking her.
She slowly began to move and opened her eyes. She seemed to be in the same condition that I was in.
“What...?” she began in a hoarse sort of cough, “Oooh, my head...what am I doing here?”
“I’m not sure,” I croaked out, “all I know is that I don’t feel so good.” I paused. “Let me get us some nice tea with honey to drink; that should soothe our throats.”
“Don’t forget the aspirin,” she added, clutching her throbbing temple.
“Don’t worry, I won’t. Why don’t you check out Lisa and Cindy.”
I tried again to stand up—finally succeeding—and made my way dizzily to the house. I found the back door unlocked and stumbled my way in. I microwaved some water and prepared four steeping cups of tea. I grabbed the entire bottle of aspirin and returned to the others outside.
The three girls were now sitting up, eagerly awaiting the tea. For the first time, I now noticed Cleo and Woba lying in the grass not too far from the girls. I went over to them and woke them from their slumber.
“Larry, what’s going on?” asked Cindy, clutching her throat.
“I...I don’t know?” I hesitated, “Rob, what happened to us? Why are we napping in the wet grass?”
“Activate PMU.” he replied.
“PMU?” I asked, “what’s that?”
“Activate the PMU to retrieve the PM,” he elaborated.
“Rob, your talking gibberish. What are PM’s?” asked Melissa.
“There is a PM in the PMU that must be accessed.”
“Rob,” I replied as calmly as possible, taking a deep and painful breath, “I don’t know what a PMU is. Before my head explodes, could you please give me some more information?”
“Activate the PMU,” he replied.
“If I remember my LLARAIMCO robot models correctly,” began Cleo, “a PMU is a Pre‑Recorded Message Unit. Normally used in times of emergency. The PMU acts as an override. Rob’s memory cannot be accessed until the PMU is properly activated.”
“Then how do I active it?” I asked.
“You must input your coded password,” stated Cleo.
“If I don’t know what the PMU is, how am I supposed to know the password for it,” I said, getting disgusted.
“Try your general purpose password,” suggested Melissa.
“How do you know about that?” I asked.
“Because,” laughed Lisa, “you’ve used the same word since the fourth grade.”
“Oh,” I said, a little embarrassed. After all, one’s secret password should not be common knowledge.
“Rob,” I began, “input ‘K‑I‑L‑R‑O‑Y’.”
“Affirmative. Coded password recognized. Stand by for PM.” We heard the rewinding sound of the PMU and waited for the message. After a few seconds, I heard my own whispering voice emanate from Rob’s speakers:
“If you are listening to this message, then congratulations on remembering your password. Also, if you are listening to this, then you must be alive—or I must be alive—or something like that...
“Anyway, we have been safely returned to the 20th century, though I can’t tell you how. Your memory is probably blank and it is up to me to fill you back in on what has transpired....”
The tape went on to describe an outlandish story about time travel and Alexander the Great. Lisa suggested that I might have been using Rob as a dictating machine for some sort of future book, but I don’t remember.
The tale that I continued to unravel on the PMU included Greek gods and Pegasus, Robin Hood and orange tornadoes that transport you through time, Atlantis and all manner of bizarre situations. It was definitely too weird and too unbelievable to be real. It must be the outline for a new book—since I fancied myself an amateur novelist. The PMU continued:
“...and if you are listening to this recording and think you’re hearing these tales for the first time, then your memory must have been wiped clean. Athena probably used the same spell that she gave you to use on Robin Hood and his Merry Men. And if this is the case, then Melissa, Lisa, Cindy, Cleo, Woba, and Little Neptune are all experiencing the same memory loss.”
“Who’s Little Neptune?” asked Lisa.
“Don’t ask me,” I said, “it must be a new character I was writing about.”
“Still doesn’t explain why we’re all sleeping in the wet grass,” said Cindy.
“...well,” concluded the taped message, “I hope this explains everything clearly. End message.”
“Rob! Is that’s it?” I asked.
“Affirmative. That is the end of the message. But there is still more.”
“Tell us,” urged Cindy.
“After you finished recording that in Atlantis, we were inadvertently detoured into Hell. Satan, himself, did the honors of destroying all of us.”
“That’s how the book ends?” I asked, “Satan destroys us all in Hell? That doesn’t sound like my kind of story.”
“Negative. That is how reality ends.”
“Rob,” started Melissa, “I think I speak for everyone here when I say that we’re all still confused.”
“When I was deactivated by Satan, my emergency back‑up sensors continued to monitor what was going on.”
“And!?” urged Lisa.
“Just before my entire body was engulfed by the lava pit, we experienced what is known as ‘divine intervention’ from Zytus and the other advisors from Atlantis. Time was altered to prevent our deaths and the Time Keeper was forced to deliver us back here to where we started.”
“Rob,” began Melissa, “I seem to remember a white light and a tunnel and robed figures....”
“You know, like they describe on ‘Oprah.’” interrupted Cindy.
We just looked at her while Melissa ignored her, “Did we die?”
“At one point you were all close, but it was all reversed. What you remember are the advisers leading us into the Time Tornado.”
I looked down at my watch and found it to be Friday, the 21st. I don’t remember a Wednesday or Thursday this week.
“Rob, what day is it?” I asked.
“It is Friday, the 21st day of September.”
“Your systems must be faulty,” said Melissa, “it’s only Tuesday.”
“Woba, go get the paper,” I instructed the little womba.
“Oh, goody. Getting papers is what wombas like to do best.” He galloped off around the side of the house.
“So, assuming this story is true....” I began.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” interrupted Lisa, “it can’t be true.”
“Wich aer oo oo wan?” mumbled Woba, returning.
“What?” asked Cindy.
“Phtew,” said Woba, spitting the newspaper bundle out of his mouth, “I said, ‘which paper do you want?’.”
“Here you go;” I began, grabbing the pile off the ground, “Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.” I tossed them on the ground in front of us. “Today is the 21st.”
“Then this story is true?” asked a puzzled Lisa.
“It would appear so,” agreed Melissa, thumbing through today’s paper.
“Prrrrr!!!” nodded a little, crimson, winged horse as he appeared from around the other side of the house.
“Little Neptune?” I commented sullenly. We all looked at one another in total disbelief, then sat down quietly in the grass to think.
The End
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