By Beth Labonte

The gray fabric wall loomed up between them as it always did.  Gray and suffocating without the slightest intention of turning into an escape route to the outside world or at least some sort of screen where she could maybe watch some television.  The Price is Right would be nice.  It was about 11:00 a.m. and there would be a fresh new set of contestants who had the day off from work, or were unemployed, or were just plain lucky to be there, ready to bid on canned vegetables and fabric softener, and not stuck in here.  Here being an office on the 13th floor of a building in a city whose name does not particularly matter.  The name of the company does not particularly matter either as they are all very generic, with their cubicle walls that loom and refuse to turn into televisions or escape routes.  From within a cubicle Bridget Baxter-McSweeney tipped an entire cardboard box of paper clips into her hand, stood up, and poured them over the wall.

“Good morning to you too,” he said.  He being Dickford Von Swiggenstein, who chose to go by the name of Rob O’Grady, for obvious reasons.  Not a soul in the office knew Rob’s real name except for Bridget, and she only knew because it had come up one day in over-the-wall conversation.

“Listen to this name,” Bridget had said over-the-wall.  “Gary Raper.  I bet he gets a lot of dates.”

“That’s rough,” said Rob.  “But I bet you didn’t know my name isn’t really Rob.”

“It’s not?” asked Bridget Baxter-McSweeney taking a sip of her coffee and swishing the sugar granules around her teeth.   It crunched like sand when she chewed her coffee.

“Nope.  It’s Dickford Von Swiggenstein.  I changed it after high school, for obvious reasons.”  Rob O’Grady Dickford Von Swiggenstein tapped vigorously at his keyboard. 

It was now many months, maybe even years, who was counting, later, and Bridget had just dumped a box of paperclips over the wall to start the day.

“So what do you think,” she asked,  “of the grandfather paradox? Of the idea that I cannot travel back in time to kill my grandfather because then I would never be born and could not travel back in time to kill my grandfather?”  It was a Wednesday and on Wednesdays Bridget became a bit philosophical and of the belief that she could move objects with her mind if only she concentrated hard enough.  She was trying to move a pencil across her desk as she spoke and would have sworn on numerous graves that it had finally moved, if it weren’t for the fact that giant Hippolito Porter had just plodded by and caused a tremor that may have accounted for the movement of the pencil.  It was impossible to tell and therefore the whole experiment was ruined.  The day was ruined.  She tossed the pencil over the wall.

“I think,” said Rob, “that you don’t have it in you to kill your grandfather, if you did travel back in time.”

“Alright then, well what if I traveled back in time and punched you in the face?”

“Ok, so you travel back in time and punch me in the face, then what?  I would be sitting here right now suddenly with a black eye and no idea why?  If you did travel back in time and punch me I most certainly would have remembered it.”

“No, I’m saying that I go back in time, punch you in the face, therefore opening an alternate universe where I punched you all along. Then we would be sitting in this alternate universe, just as we are now, except you would have a black eye and would no longer be speaking to me.”

“So in this alternate universe we’re no longer friends, is that what you’re saying?”

“Most likely.”

“Well that is tempting.”

“I can’t imagine having the opportunity to travel back in time and not do something foul to you. Punching you, pulling a chair out from under you, slashing your tires, the possibilities are endless.  Alternate universes are popping up all over in which we absolutely detest each other.”

“Fascinating.”

“Truly.”

Hours passed, maybe days, it does not matter.   Over-the-wall conversation ceased as it often did when serious work needed to be done, as serious work does not lend itself to free will and carefree thoughts.  Brief glimpses through doorways and windows revealed the world outside where had she taken the day off Bridget Baxter-McSweeney imagined herself galloping by on a horse, hair blowing in the breeze.  In reality she would have done nothing but sleep, but on a Wednesday morning, from the wrong side of the glass, reality is a moot point.

“Do you think that if I did travel back in time there would be any way that I could change history so as to avoid ever winding up in this place?” she asked over-the-wall.  “Or is it my destiny to be here? In which case there would be no point in time traveling.  Unless of course I went back to murder myself as an infant, which could do the trick.  But then we have that whole paradox thing again.”

“Destiny is not so much,” said Rob.  Several Hershey Kisses rained over the wall.

“Thank you.” 

“Did you ever think that maybe I  traveled back in time and by simply pouring candy over the wall opened a new universe?  Who’s to say that right here, right now, is the original?  We may be billions of branches away from where we started.”

“My head hurts.” 

Bridget Baxter-McSweeney leaned back in her chair, listening as the rain came down outside, paralleled by the rest of the bag of candy kisses showering onto her head in retaliation for the paper clips.

About the Author:  Beth Labonte

Beth Labonte’s short fiction has appeared in Toasted Cheese and All Things Girl.  She spends most of her day working as an administrative assistant, though at lunch she can be found at Starbucks working on her first novel featuring, ironically, an unfulfilled administrative assistant.  Beth resides in Grafton, Massachusetts with her husband, two cats, and a dream of someday writing full-time at a Starbucks in the Caribbean.