Déjà vu, Déjà vu: Part III
[The following blog series will be comprised of some original short stories]
October 17, 2021
My déjà vu is back in living color. I’m constantly aware of multiple times that I’ve experienced these moments, even this one. I’ve been able to parse up to 4 layers of déjà vu in a single moment. After that, things get muddled, but I am positive we are living and reliving the same time period over and over. And not a very pleasant one at that. The pandemic is raging again and COVID is spreading like wildfire now that school is back – of course you wouldn’t know it here in Florida where our governor is in total denial.
My latest project is attempting to determine exactly when the time interruption keeps occurring. I know it happens on the same date each time and that we revert back to that date in a prior year. For instance, if it happened on February 2nd, 2021, we would skip back to February 1, 2020 – or 2019, or 1975 for that matter. Whatever the position of our earth around the sun, we go back in time but earth is still in that spot. I’m just not sure when it happens or how far back the scratch will bump us.
I’m going to take a bit of a risk here to write this next sentence.
Sometime in the coming week I will hack into the Hubble data that Sheila was talking about. My boss has access to all that stuff and he’s pretty sloppy with security on his laptop.
Given what I’ve just written, I will begin to hide this journal. If Jess read the above she’d probably have me committed. If anyone else did, I’d be fired on the spot and sent to jail. NASA security is not a trivial matter.
October 24, 2021
I got my first look at that data. From what I could gather, it suggests some sort of error occurs between December 24 and December 29. The data feed looks pretty stable between December 30, 2019, and December 23, 2020. Then there were a few days that the Hubble wasn’t transmitting. When transmissions began again on December 30, that certain star cluster had moved. Significantly. It wasn’t even in the area where the telescope had been locked in.
So, sometime between December 24 and 29 we will hit a scratch in time and be bumped back to an earlier year on that same day. This will happen over and over on that same date until we find out how to move beyond it.
The good news is that we will likely be able to launch the James Webb. The bad news is that we may never progress as humans beyond late December 2021. Unless we can move the needle on the album of time beyond the scratch, we’ll be perpetually stranded in human development.
November 2, 2021
I’m keeping journal entries shorter. Partly because hours have ramped up with the ground telemetry crew and partly because Jess is getting more and more suspicious. I’ve got to stop asking her, “Don’t you remember having this conversation before?” or “Jess you’ve been through all that before, you just don’t remember.” So now I write in the journal while she sleeps. I may only have time for a few more entries before time repeats.
I’m fairly convinced now that the time interruption is due to a solar event. A solar flare? Something like that.
I also suspect that something happened about the time we began nuclear testing. Incidences of déjà vu seem to have really started in earnest in the late 1940s. Were those things starting to disrupt the disruption? Might there be a way to bump the needle out of the scratch with some sort of nuclear reaction or by triggering a solar event? Weirdly, one of the main things the James Webb telescope is designed to study is our sun!
November 30, 2021
Operating on very little sleep now. Maybe just 4 or 5 hours a night, so will keep this short.
Have decided to explore whether I might be able to do something to stop this repeating glitch in time. If there is some kind of God, maybe it’s providential that I’m the one who has discovered all of this given my unique position at NASA.
More later.
December 11, 2021
OK, if this attempt of mine backfires, then someone will discover this journal and add it to the evidence that will put me away for a long time – either in an institution or a correctional facility.
In that case … a brief note to Jess:
Dear Jess. You’ve been so patient with me. If this plan backfires, then know that I remain convinced that something drastic needs to be done to put us back on the right course in our journey through time. I only did it in the hopes of a future where we could enjoy kids together. To experience all the milestones and growing old together. Please receive my actions as a declaration of love for you and a hope for the continuing march of human race toward progress. I love you.
If my plan does not jolt time out of this repeating rut, then I guess I’ll just repeat writing this particular journal entry every year on December 11 until something does.
If it does, then these words are for those in future generations who will celebrate my act of courage (and career suicide).
I have written a program to effect the telemetry of the James Webb telescope. The program will remain cloaked until after the upper stage separation and the unit has reached 200,000 miles from earth. Once the program deploys it will direct the telescope into the sun. I’ve done my best to estimate the section of our sun which I believe is responsible for the time loop. I’ve printed the code for the program. It can be found in the lockbox in which this journal has been stored.
Tempus fugit (Latin for “time flies” from Virgil’s Georgics Book III)
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December 26, 2020
It was sweet of Jess to get me this journal for Christmas. I suppose I should begin writing in it. Hopefully 2021 will be a better year than 2020 and keeping track of all the events of 2021 will make the train wreck of 2020 fade from memory.