"12-24-40"

[Archive transcript of author/columnist Adam Ginsburg’s interview with temporal
pioneer and Nobel-winning physicist Dr. Howard Whitway, November 22, 2090]

Dr. Whitway, thank you for sitting down with me today. I know you’ve gotten a lot of interview requests, most of them with people better-known than me.

Whitway: Bah, they all want to either do puff pieces or use me as a prop for some other purpose. Though I suppose I’ll do some of ‘em eventually out of boredom, so I’d better not put them down too much.

Dr. Whitway, you are aware this interview is being recorded, correct?

Whitway: Yeah. If sayin’ something that tame puts ‘em off, oh well. If I were to really say what I thought about most of the talkin’ heads you’d never be able to play the recording in polite company, Ginsburg. Let ‘em scratch their heads on that, and I wager eight of ten will still want an interview.

Er... Okay. Dr. Whitway, I really have only one major question to ask, however short or long it takes to answer.

Whitway: One question? Is it a multi-part or somethin’?

Perhaps, but it’s pretty simple. You’ve seen a lot in your lifetime, which for us spans fifty-eight years but in your subjective time has been a good deal longer. What’s the one thing you’ve seen in all your travels, physical and temporal, that sticks out in your mind the most? I know you’ve told stories of hundreds of memorable things, but I figure for every story you’ve told to the world there are three you’ve kept to yourself.

Whitway: Most people would sit an’ think for a while on that one, Mr. Ginsburg, but I won’t. There’s really only one event like that.

Go on.

Whitway: I saw this early in my career, on the fifth or sixth trip. Same trip as where I sat and listened to Churchill’s ‘fight on the beaches’ address on a cracklin’ old nineteen-thirties transistor radio. I think it was after that, though. I was fiddling with the TSF settings, castin’ about, since I was already in London. I stopped to make another change, and I heard the sound of cello strings from nearby, so I went to check. Now, I could tell right off that I’d landed in the Blitz - the building I stabilized in front of was totally bombed out, nothin’ but two walls and a pile of burnt bricks. It was a cold and gloomy early evening, and there was dirty, crunchy snow pushed into all the corners and nooks, so I guessed February, maybe January or December at the earliest. The cello sounded like he was warmin’ up, and pretty soon there was the sound of a couple of other guys there with violins tunin’ up too. It was only a two block walk, so I got to the little street corner just as they started in earnest. And d’you know what they were playin’, Ginsburg?

What was it, Dr. Whitway? A patriotic tune, perhaps?

Whitway: Ha! No. It was the first few notes to the old carol “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen.” [Whitway hums a few bars slightly off-key.] You know it?

I think I’ve heard it once or twice. You don’t hear the old carols much anymore.

Whitway: Yeah. Anyway, they get those few notes in, and the air-raid sirens start screaming, and the floodlights go up, and over the sound of the wind I start hearing the buzz of German planes. There weren’t that many people there, maybe two dozen plus the three players, and at the sound of the sirens the players falter, and the one lady with her two kids kneels down and holds on to ‘em like the world’s gonna end, ‘cause for all she knows, it might, just like it might have all those raids before. But the cellist, he got this wierd, solemn look in his eye, and he put the bow back to the strings, and louder than before played those first few notes again, and one or two of the guys in the crowd start singing along, quietly, like they’re afraid the Germans’ll hear ‘em. The first bomb hit the city right on time, just as the singers got to the “Tidings of comfort and joy” part. The violin players flinched, but I’m not sure that the cello man even noticed. When the second verse started up, the whole crowd was singin’, me included. I didn’t think I knew the words, but somehow I found ‘em, as the planes buzzed overhead, and the bomb blasts kept beat. Every time I looked around, the crowd had gained another few people.

I’d imagine that the police broke that up rather rapidly.

Whitway: Well, a group of six or seven of ‘em came around, but they got one look at the scene and took off their hats and just stood there. It was the strangest thing. One of ‘em looked like he was tryin’ real hard not to shed a tear, and to be honest I didn’t blame him. There was somethin’ just... unnatural about the whole thing, but not in a bad way. Like God ‘imself was there with us, shakin’ his fist at the German bombers.

You’re a physicist, Dr. Whitway, who believes in God?

Whitway: Up until that night in London, Ginsburg, I would’ve laughed in your face for even askin’. ‘Physics is no place for religion’, I would’ve said. But when the players started the old carol up a second time, I sung those first few words like a prayer: ‘God rest ye merry’ - in today’s English, you’d say ‘God keep you strong.’ In that moment, I was sure that there was a God, and that he had picked sides in that war. And judging by the expressions on the other faces on that street corner, I think that’s what everyone else saw too. The bombs kept droppin, and the sirens kept screamin’, and you know, I didn’t really notice ‘em. All there was was the cellist player, the two violin players, and the crowd. Even when one of the bombs hit a building across the street, lightin’ the whole crowd up like a bolt of orange lightning, no-one seems to notice, ‘cept the policemen. It was like we’re all in a bubble.

The building across the street was hit, and no-one was hurt?

Whitway: Don’t ask me to explain it, Ginsburg. But I tell it like it was. The wall on our side stayed up, and the rest of the building fell down in the other direction. But the cops all dove for cover when it happened, and I lost track of ‘em. Anyway, those players repeated “God Rest Ye” one more time, then switched carols, and did a bunch of others. The air raid sirens died down at some point, but we kept on going. It felt like hours, but I don’t recall more than six more carols, so it might’ve been more like half an hour after the sirens stopped.

That’s a... powerful story, Dr. Whitway.

Whitway: Ginsburg, if you don’t believe me, if you want to call me a loony, say it. But wait ‘till I’m through, ‘cause there’s more.

I’m sorry. Please continue.

Whitway: Anyway, after the last carol, which was “Silent Night”, the crowd begins to break up and go home, because it is gettin’ really cold. And for a second, there’s a clean path between me and the cellist, and I swear he locked eyes with me. Normally, y’know, if you’re outta your own time you’re a ghost, no-one notices you and you can’t change things. But darn it all, I swear for that one second that ol’ cellist knew who I was and where I was from. It was like... like God was telling him that there was a better future coming, and that he and everybody else in England just needed to stay strong for a little longer. Like he was gettin’ a gift for havin’ enough faith to keep playin’ when the sirens started, that he was gettin’ a look at the way the whole war would play out. After that second, the man just bent down and packed his cello into its case. When the crowd cleared, he was gone.

What happened next?

Whitway: Nothing. That’s it. I didn’t want the night to end, but time moves on no matter what we do to stop it. And I’ll never forget that night, Ginsburg. You might say I’ve spent the rest of my life looking for its equal, and I never did find it.

I can understand why. And you’ve never told anyone this?

Whitway: Not a soul. And if anyone else that was there ever told the story, I never saw evidence of it.

Lucky, then, that you found your way there.

Whitway: Ginsburg, I don’t think luck had a thing to do with it, any more than the epilogue of a novel is placed there by chance. Believe it or don’t, I’m convinced that there was purpose to my being there.

I see. Dr. Whitway, thank you for your time.

Whitway: You don’t believe a word of it, do you?

It doesn’t matter. What matters is whether my readers will. And I intend to let them decide for themselves.

Whitway: I can respect that. But may I make a suggestion?

What’s that?

Whitway: Christmas Eve, nineteen fourty. That was the date. I pulled the log data from my TSF unit after I got back. Next month’s the hundred and fiftieth annniversary of that night. If you’re gonna put this in one of your columns, it might do better if you released it before then.

I imagine you’re right, Dr. Whitway. I’ll see what I can do.

This story written for Klazzform's Short Story Competition on dndonlinegames.com.