"Falling into History" & "The Twelve Moments", Hersh Solomon [best detective novels of all time TXT] 📗

Falling into History

Thought experiment: Imagine—for a moment—you’re the only thing in the universe. You’re stationary. Then, you see your friend, as far away as she can be, floating toward you. You wave at each other as she passes, and you blow her a kiss, which she catches. Now, put yourself in her shoes. From her perspective, it was her who was stationary and you’re the one who passed her. You waved at each other as you passed, and you blew her a kiss, which she caught. That’s relativity: every part of space exists in relation to every other part. So if I’m here, in this part of space, and you’re one meter away, then the reverse is also true. But to the person standing next to you, I’m two meters away, you’re still one meter away—but from a different angle—and they’re the ones who’re here.
The same is true of time. Every moment in time exists in relation to every other moment. The 1st moment is one moment old. Then, the 2nd moment’s born. From its perspective, the 1st moment is now two moments old and it’s the one who’s 1. Then there’s the 3rd moment. From its perspective, the 1st moment is now three moments old, the 2nd moment is two moments old—but from a different angle—and it’s the one who’s 1. The age of any moment, then, depends on which moment you’re looking at it from.
So, say I was born in the 5th moment. I’m now 1, the 4th moment is +1, and the 3rd moment is +2. The 5th moment, though, is -1, because you’re extracting 1 from 4 to get to 5. The first moment expands out, and the 2nd moment, when it’s extracted (1-1), is born, aged 1, and the first moment turns 2 moments old.
What this means is that time is running in reverse, as the edge of the universe keeps getting further and further away, meaning we must be moving further and further within the universe through more and more moments that are getting left behind. And this makes sense, as it should take an effort to move forward. It takes great effort/energy to move forward in space and stay where we are in time. But if we remain stationary, we automatically move at full speed—light-speed—through time without any effort whatsoever. This couldn’t happen if we were moving forward—time must be moving forward, then, because we’re stationary. We’re not rushing into the future: we’re falling into the past. The implications are huge.

The Twelve Moments

The First Moment encountered himself, floating in a vast abyss. "Hello?" He believed he’d be here forever and spend eternity growing incrementally more uncomfortable. This was the first moment.

Then she appeared, at the edge of visibility. She waved as she approached him. He blew her a kiss, which she caught. This was the second moment.

Unbeknownst to them, another was already amongst them. Having remained unobserved, he approached them at right-angles, and after Moment Two caught the Moment One’s kiss, he was there, lurking in wait. This was the third moment.

Little did Moment Three know, that when he’d been approaching Moment One and Two as they headed toward their rendezvous, he was not alone, for there had been a fourth, who was aware of it all, and she paused and watched Moment Three as he had made his approach. Aware of her place in the order, she ordained that she should not forget herself so much as to no be ready, when her moment was done and dusted, to be ready for any other moments that may be lurking around. “Aha!” she laughed when the moment came, making sure to lord it over the others as much as possible. And when the shock wore off, she looked around, in order to catch any usurper to her throne as the queen of shock. This was the fourth moment.

As Moment Five watched Moment Four from his invisible vantage point, he ascertained that surely, such a hegemony as this could not be wrought asunder without an ally. Using the spare time afforded by the lapse in events that were ordained to occur before he had his time on the scene, he turned around to find Moment Six still getting ready for work. “I beg your pardon,” he said. “But we have a situation, here.”

“Yes?” she asked. “What is it?”

“Things are unstable. We need to lock this particle in, before it runs away into infinity.”

“Okay. Let’s go.” That was the fifth and the sixth moment.

As they were about to set off, they were gripped by their shoulders from behind, preventing them from entering the chaos. They turned around to find a transformation of Moment One, back from the nether yonder. ‘May-Moo-May-Im,” he said.

“I beg your pardon?”

He shushed! them. “Back, when Moment Three made his inglorious entrance, I thought to myself, ‘I wonder what would happen if I set off upon a route that circumnavigated the chain of moments descending upon me?’ And so I struck way out there, to the edge of existence, on a journey that took me beyond of the limit of all the possible moments that one could ever conceive of.” The look in his eyes swore to the truth of it. “And when I got back and saw you two, here, plotting and scheming to hatch the same kind of usury that led me to leave in the first place, I had to put a stop to it.”

Moment Five chuckled. Moment Six made an adjustment to her clothes.

Moment Seven checked his watch. “We are currently in the eighth moment. I’ve spoken to the others. Moments eight-through-twelve are all invested in a reversal of the order of the stakes in this atom.”

“What do you mean?”

He put his hands upon their shoulders and turned them around. “Spread the word.” He pushed.

Then came the ninth moment, which occured upon the instance of Moments Five and Six relaying the information and circumstances pertaining to the Moments of Seven, and Eight, to the discerning ear of Moment Four, who had gotten more than she bargained for. She took the information on board and turned back around to tell Moment Three.

The Tenth Moment was comprised of Moment Four filling in Moment Three on the details of the six moments that had elapsed on the other side of them. The Eleventh Moment consisted of Moment Three queuing up Moment Two on the other eight. And in the Twelfth Moment, Moment One encountered himself, again, floating in empty space. "Hello!" 

Text: Eugene Samolin
Publication Date: 09-05-2020

All Rights Reserved

Dedication:
Isaac Newton