Switched in Time

By Barry B Begault

David Bernard, 45, is switched in time with his 20-year-old self. Both of them now in times they don't belong, and they need to get back to their own time. Only one person has the answer of what happened, why it happened, and how to reverse the situation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Sep 11, 2019
• ISBN: 9781728327112

Barry B Begault

I started thinking about writing when I was in High School. I wrote a short story about a black horse that was trapped in a burning barn that was ignited by a bold of lightening in the middle of the night. There were other horses in the barn as well. The black stallion (naturally for a 17 year old!) kicked himself out of his stall, and kicked the gates of all the other occupied stalls to release the other horses to safety. But when he attempted to leave the barn, a roof timber fell blocking his escape route. I ended my story there because it was supposed to be a 500 word story. The class, including my teacher, demanded that complete the story. They wanted to know what happened to the black stallion. Not until the late 80's did I start writing novelettes (7,500 - 24,000 words). But I never really completed these works because publishing novelettes to paper was not an easy task in those days. Too long for magazines; too short for a book. Now with the advent of eBooks and self-publishing, the market is really heating up for writers like me. Opportunities are now open to me that were closed in the paper publishing days. I have worked in IT since after my NAVY days. I find that IT people have a very attuned intellect and an IQ that can speak on many different and diverse subjects and mostly on scientific matters. Plus we ITers seem to have that creative spark to write. I also find it highly unusual that in my IT department there are two other aspiring authors besides myself. One is an accomplished, published writer, Jeff Brackett, who has a novel on a post-apocalyptic event and centers around Houston, TX., which is very good. The other writer is working on a fantasy with dragons, other worlds etc. The other aspiring authors in my IT group have fired me up to complete the six or so novelettes I have started and to continue to develop the 20 or so other odd novelette stories. I like writing Twilight Zone type stories and aim for an audience that likes light Sci-Fi reading that has a little humor, does not take itself too seriously and is not the dark “entire-human-race-is-in-peril” type of stories. I like to leave my readers with hope for humanity, a smile on their face and a positive outlook in life. My beta readers come from all types of demographics from young adults, divorced mothers, and Canadian IT managers. I like to think of my stories as "Snack Readings" since they are short enough to read in under an hour usually. Good for dentist/doctors waiting rooms; waiting for tires to be put on your car etc. To me, reading a nice, positive, story in the middle of the day is very uplifting. Like a snack, it energizes the rest of the day.

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Copyright © 2019 Barry B Begault. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 09/11/2019

ISBN: 978-1-7283-2712-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-2711-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019913968

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

About the Author

CHAPTER ONE

David leaned against the door jam and gazed out his open front door with dismay at the threatening thunderstorms north over Lake Ponchartrain. The raven-black clouds stretched out across the horizon, and he could see lightning flashes within the heavens. It was one of those horrible late-summer storms that brewed up over the lake.

It was Saturday, the day he traditionally set aside the mornings to go to his seventy-five-year-old, widowed, mother’s house. His dad died sixteen years earlier of leukemia, and she has lived alone ever since. Saturdays he would help his mother with projects she had for him, and in return, she would cook his favorite for lunch. It was a modified chicken cacciatore his mother created called Chicken Napoleon.

His sister and brother were both married and had moved out of the New Orleans area a few years ago for better job opportunities. As Barbara said, A different view on life.

They visited often, but their short visits couldn’t help in the day-to-day care of their aging mother. David was now the only sibling his mother could depend upon.

The thunderstorms reminded him of the only true love he had known. His heart was broken in college by the single woman he had ever truly loved. Marilyn.

She is beautiful, petite, intelligent, bubbly, green-eyed, blonde who he was strangely compatible with on a lot of the essential things in life. Marilyn would always say that their relationship had Just enough difference to make the relationship interesting and enough in common to keep their relationship together. He sighed at the thought.

He looked out at the storm and he affectionately and sadly remembered how they would snuggle on the patio loveseat in his mother’s carport during storms like this, and watch the lightning show. They would oooo and ahhhh while they watched nature’s fireworks show as Marilyn called it.

They broke up in college when they were juniors after being together for nearly three and a half years. Marilyn she said that she couldn’t see a future with David because of his career choice. At the time, she was very strong-headed on having the ‘perfect life.’ She refused to look past her own misconceptions and to what he wanted to do in life.

When you’re young, it’s easy to see hopeless situations, but as you grow older and more mature, these situations seem much less important. David tried to convince Marilyn of her misjudgment, but her adamancy could not be subjugated at that time. She dreamed of what the ‘perfect life’ was in her mind at that time, and whatever it was it just couldn’t be altered. He could never make sense of what she perceived the ‘perfect life’ to be, and she would become furious because he couldn’t see her vision.

In the years that followed, he never found another woman that measured up to Marilyn and just dated randomly with little feelings. He tried several times, after they broke up, to locate her so he could attempt reconciliation, but she moved, and nobody seemed to know where. Her parents had refused to even talk to him. It had always pained him that he was denied the chance for a reconciliation, and a second chance in their relationship.

Wow. Nostalgia can be a crippling emotion. David shrugged his shoulders.

Focusing back to this day at hand the thought of getting his two-week-old 1999 Pontiac Grand Prix GTP Coupe out into the storm that brewed outside made him cringe. He looked at the height of the clouds, and he could tell that this was going to be one horrific late summer storm. It could include hail. He winced at the thought of hail. Naturally, he had just cleaned and polished his car, and it sat sparkling in his garage.

David really didn’t want to go out on a day like today, but the good son that he was he had to go to his mother’s house for she depended on him.

He and his mother met for lunches and dinners during the week, but Saturdays were the real social event to be with his mom. She wasn’t a helpless woman by any stretch of the imagination but did require help with the more manly chores around the house as she called them. These usually involved heavy lifting standing on a rickety ladder, or cleaning out a stopped up sink. None of which he minded doing for his mother for she was his only core family left in the city. It was good for both of them, he thought that they had all this time together.

He walked out onto his covered front porch, and with his hand on the inside knob, he turned the lock on the inside doorknob to the lock position and closed his front door. Abruptly Charlie, the twenty-four-year-old genius who lived a couple of doors down, jogged up the sidewalk to the front porch. His UNO T-shirt was soaked in sweat.