Accidents in Time: Twenty/Twenty

By John H Plumb

Twenty/Twenty is about a handcrafted pair of glasses that bends light and the inventor John Paul Bates can now see twenty minutes into the future. Looking only that far, his life becomes troubled and chaotic.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 21, 2019
• ISBN: 9781796073706

John H Plumb

The author spent nine years in the Navy as a nuclear component welder, owned several large industrial flooring companies, was a goldsmith, owned three jewelry stores and was VP of a Gold Company. He was even very successful selling vacuums door to door. He has been retired three times.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

The Big Idea

I T WAS MID-OCTOBER in Cleveland, and we had just gotten over a cold snap. The snap had put the first chill of winter into my bones. All the trees had changed color. The valley around the large metro area was a burst of fiery color that dripped from the giant oaks and maples like watercolors on a canvas. The autumn air brought in a new aroma that was so pleasing. You wanted to reach out and grab it in your fingertips and put in a jar. I was on my two-wheeler that was made by Harley and customized with my checkbook. The amount was equal to a romantic vacation that no doubt would have gone a long way helping my marriage.

The roar of thunder and vibration between my legs as always were exceedingly joyful. However, this would probably be my very last good day of the riding season. I couldn’t think of a better place to let it all out. The emerald reef, as it was called, was shutting down for the bitter winter, and so was I.

Winter with its dirty, filthy snow was an awful time of the year for me. I loathe that white, slippery, wet crap. The thought of wearing three layers of clothes and still having rosy cheeks from the blustery wind created a knot in my stomach.

But for now it is Indian summer, and what a delight it is to have the warmer sunshine back, if only for a week or two. Then it will be back to sweaters. As a child I remember the mothball odor before the dry cleaner got his hands on them.

If it were up to me—which it isn’t—the only white stuff I would see in the winter would be the sunny white beaches of Florida, even if it was just for three months to escape the cold, white season.

My wife, Rebecca, has an excellent job with a drill bit manufacture. Actually, it’s a great job. With her earnings and my disability income, we do quite well. I could not imagine trying to exist without her or her income. Therefore, even a temporary move to Florida was out of the question.

I’ve been out of work now for some ten years with no hope of reentering the work-a-day world. My bipolar disease prevents it. I also have been diagnosed with PTSD. Even with medication, my marriage to Rebecca is often strained. That combination can sometimes make life miserable for those around me. Prior to being forced to retire, I was a tool and die maker. I made a go living doing that. Things just got out of hand and I had to give it up.

About this time every year is when my PTSD really kicks in. When I was in the navy, I was on a small wooden minesweeper. It was sent to the North Atlantic in January.

We hit a nor’easter. The ship tossed and turned so much that we had lost all life rafts. They jumped off the ship because of the continual crashing of the waves over the bow. Then because of a 70-degree roll, we took saltwater down our stacks and lost our boilers. They exploded steam shot throughout the tiny ship like a dense fog. My first thought was that we were on fire. The loss of the boilers meant we had no heat on the inside of the ship. The engine shafts, where they went through the hull, were leaking and the whole ass-end of the ship filled up and went under water. We set up emergency pumps to try and keep us a float. All communication was lost. The navy gave up on us. They were certain we had gone down.

For weeks we were at the mercy of the storm, taking constant 35-degree rolls, back and forth, back and forth. There was puke all over the decks inside the ship, and you could not help slipping and falling in it. The bad part was we had no water to take a shower or wash our clothes.

We had not eaten in weeks and had to strap ourselves in our bunks, so we could sleep and not fall out. All our fresh water had leaked into the bilges. We had none to drink. We drank lukewarm root beer. I say lukewarm because it was warmer than we were. Maybe now you can start to understand why I hate winter. The onset of winter makes me barricade myself in the house. I have spent many months in therapy, but it has had little results. I do the best I can to fill in my days. Finding something to do each and every day has not been easy.

As I rode along the curvy, leaf-lined road of the valley, my mind started to wander from the colorful foliage to a documentary I had just seen. It was about Einstein’s theory of relativity. He proved that the light going around the sun would bend and distort time, as we know it.

I’m no Einstein, but it is said that bipolar people often have the IQ of a genius. This was true in my case. However, it didn’t help me keep a job. It does somehow give me an edge on inventing things though. I have blown a lot of money trying to invent things. However, on the same token, I now have a lot of strange one-of-a-kind household items.

The more I rode, the more I started to get excited about a new winter project. I was going to bend and distort time on a small scale. Or I should say that I was going to waste the winter season trying to bend time.

Suddenly I found myself turning around and heading home. I scarcely remember the ride. My mind was totally fixed on using lasers to warp time. They would be perfect because they utilize the natural oscillations of molecules or atoms between energy levels for generating coherent electromagnetic radiation in the visible, ultraviolet, or infrared parts of the spectrum.

x.tiff

I pulled into my oil-stained, cement driveway of my run-of-the-mill brick ranch home. You know three-bedroom, two-bath, with a basement. Like everyone else, my house was located in a typically modern subdivision. All of the dwellings were pretty much the same. However, my flowers were not nice and neat and in a well-coordinated arrangement. My yellow flowers were woven all throughout my brown grass. If it were up to me—which it isn’t—I’d have gravel pebbles painted green instead of grass. That was the one good thing about winter. I did not have to mow the grass.

We bought a three-bedroom house because we often get