Humorous Science Fiction
Date Published: May 11, 2021
Publisher: Acorn Publishing
At every crossroads he has encountered in life, Sean Brody has made the safe choice. In the year 2046, at the age of ninety-three, Sean is given one final opportunity to deal with his greatest regret. Sean is the only man Marshall Grissom and Marta Hamilton can find who might be able to save Sheila Schuler, their friend and fellow traveler lost in the distant reaches of time. If Sean accepts the task of traveling to his childhood in a parallel universe—with no guarantee that any aspect of the past can be changed—Sean must also accept his death in the only world he knows.
Excerpt
Marshall’s response didn’t register, though, because Sean looked beyond Naomi and saw two huge gleaming globes flanking a white, brightly lit platform tinged by a throbbing green glow beneath its surface. Banks of computers, monitors and cameras edged the platform on three sides.
The globes pulsed with a bluish electronic sort of ooze that seemed to creep along their surfaces in random patterns. Where Sean could have sworn an instant before had been empty space between the globes, he saw a lovely, petite, and very nude black woman standing before him. He wondered if she had been there all along, and he’d somehow missed her among the computers and cameras and other shiny things. But . . . no. Old as he might be, Sean was pretty sure he could still tell the difference between a computer and a naked lady.
He felt frozen. He could not bring himself to speak or move. Like a needle stuck on an old phonograph record, his mind simply could not jump beyond this particular groove.
A comforting arm slipped through his and Sean found Naomi beside him.
“I’m sure you’re finding this a bit overwhelming. Do you need to sit? Can I bring you a bottle of water?”
Sean stared silently into the small Chinese woman’s black eyes for a moment before turning back toward the nudist.
“Hello, Mr. Brody,” said the woman, who now wore a white robe. “I know my entrance was a little theatrical. And I apologize for that, but we wanted to impress you. I’m Marta Hamilton. I think Marshall has mentioned me? You’ve just witnessed my return from a brief conference with my counterpart from another universe a few days past. And I do have to admit the timing wasn’t coincidental. We needed to get your attention.”
Sean continued to stare. He found this reality too much to process.
“I know Marshall hasn’t given you all the details yet. I sincerely hope you will agree to help us, though. We will be asking—”
“My God,” Sean croaked through a sandpaper dry throat, believing all this for the first time. “You people want me to be fifteen years old again.”
About The Author
Mike Murphey is a native of eastern New Mexico and spent almost thirty years as an award-winning newspaper journalist in the Southwest and Pacific Northwest. He left journalism in 1998 to form a business related to adult amateur baseball. At the age of 60, he stopped procrastinating and revived his life-long ambition to write a novel. He is author of Sections, an award-winning coming of age novel set in Eastern New Mexico where Mike grew up. He is also author of The Conman … a Baseball Odyssey, another award-winning novel. Killing Time is the third novel in his Physics, Lust and Greed Series. Mike splits his time between Spokane, Washington and Phoenix, Arizona where he enjoys life as a writer and old-man baseball player.
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