The Clock is Ticking

This is a response to Jonathon Sawyer’s Monday Mash-Up #19, thanks to JF Danskin, Jonathon Sawyer, and The Kraken Lore for provide such a fun challenge!

I woke up swinging gently in the breeze.

It was daytime, and I could see the speckled sunshine coming through the leaves of the tree I was hanging in. I saw black boots, a blue jumpsuit, and a harness attached by many straps to a parachute that looked like aluminum foil. I was seven or eight feet off the ground, rocking back and forth.

I saw CPT MACKENZIE plainly stitched in white, right over my heart. Then the details started coming back. Foggy memories of some sort of mission.

I knew I had to get out of this tree and find… something. Whatever it was, wherever it was. My hand instinctively flew to my chest and undid the fasteners on the harness.

Seven or eight feet seemed a long way to drop, and I was relieved to find that I knew how to tuck and roll on landing. I wasn’t sure how I did it, but I was impressed. Now that I was on solid ground, I could figure out where I was.

Scanning the horizon, I tried my best to recall my purpose. I was on the search for a…town? There were a few houses on the horizon and the distant blaring of what sounded like a marching band. It might not be part of the mission, but the town was the best place to start.

It took me two hours of steady walking to reach the town. Once there, I discovered a parade in progress marching down the middle of main street. Teenagers in uniform with horns and drums, the local hockey team, clowns and fairies selling sparklers and balloons.

A newspaper stand caught my eye. I needed to figure out where and when I was. The paper informed me I was somewhere in Ontario, and that it was May 23rd 1988. Another memory clicked into place.

1988 was a hundred years before I was born.

These memories were generating more questions than they were answering. I had to collect my thoughts.

A careless street vendor let a $2 bill slip away as he was attending to some burning popcorn. A breeze blew it to my feet and I decided it would best be used buying some coffee from the local diner.

A hot drink and some caffeine in my system would help me calm down. A few curious stares came my way as I walked up to the counter, but nobody had any questions about my strange attire.

I sat warming my hands with the mug, trying to remember, breathing in the steam of the strong liquid when a sensation tickled my nose. My eyes instinctively shut

AAahh–

–CHOO

“Dr. Mackenzie, are you alright?”

I opened my eyes in a lab, surrounded by people in white coats and beeping electronics. Bundles of wires were suction-cupped to nearly every part of my body, which was 40 years older than I expected.

“We lost you for a moment, can you hear me?” A frazzled-looking scientist was rubbing his bald spot and looking at me with concern. “Doctor?”

“Where am I?” The words were muffled by an oxygen mask, but they were still audible. “What’s going on?”

“My God…” the scientist’s eyes widened. “Captain?! The paternal tether theory worked?!”

Despite the stress the scientist was clearly feeling, pure elation shone through for just a moment.

“Captain Mackenzie. You’re suffering from exposia, so I’ll try to summarize.”

The scientist became serious once again.

“You were part of an expeditionary space-time manipulation mission. You were sent back in time on a spacecraft destined for Earth to find ways of delaying the Magma Flood of 2046. At some point there was a malfunction with the time dilator, causing you and your co-pilot to eject. Your co-pilot should be somewhere nearby.

You need to find Corporal Guffin and reactivate the time dilator. He is essential to the mission. There is an instance-recurring failsafe activated in the event of the ship’s fusion engines becoming unstable, but we don’t know how many more times it will be able to activate. It’s crucial that you find Corporal Guffin and the ship as soon as po–”

Aah-

— CHOO

I was suddenly back in the diner. The soft beeping and urgent whispers of scientists had been replaced by the clatter of dining patrons and a child crying over a lost doll. Something was different this time. I looked down and found something in my hand that wasn’t before.

A pen.

On the counter in front of me was a napkin with some writing scrawled on it:

I know you can do it.

Love You

-Dad

Glancing back through the windows, I saw the parade was still in progress. Crowds of people lined the streets, watching a herd of go-karts zoom past.

How was I supposed to find this Corporal Guffin when I didn’t even know what he looked like?

By sheer dumb luck, on the other side of the street, I suddenly saw a lanky man in a jumpsuit, tinfoil parachute spilling out of the small suitcase-like container on his back.

My co-pilot!

Seeing his confused face brought back a flood of memories. I ran out of the diner and onto the sidewalk. I could almost remember his name–

“Mac!” I shouted above the noise of the go-karts. “Mac!”

He turned and looked at me.

I ran blindly across the street, knocking over a display of balloon animals and popping a few underfoot, upsetting the fairy selling them.

“You chucklehead!” She yelled after me.

I ignored her and kept running, dodging go-karts along the way. The man was stuck, staring at me as the recognition slowly creeped back into his expression. He straightened up and looked me in the eye.

“Captain.” He saluted.

“We need to find–”

“–the ship!”

“Before…”

An ear-splitting explosion cut me off. Blinding purple light bloomed several miles in the distance, engulfing the entire town in searing extinction half a second later.

I woke up swinging gently in the breeze…

Thanks for reading! You can find more of my stories here. I will abstain from challenging anyone since the deadline is so close 😬 Below is a tally of my points:

POINTS:

Main prompt- 

Space ship encounters a disaster (2 Points)

Constraints-

Baloon Popped: Balloon animals underfoot (1 Point)
Burnt Popcorn: Carless street vendor (1 Point)
Suitcase Won't Close: Co-pilot's parachute pack (1 Point)
Angry Fey Creature: Fairy selling balloons (1 Point)
Lost Child's Toy: Child crying in diner (1 Point)
Old Canadian $2 Bill: Dropped by the street vendor (1 Point)
The Color Blue: Jumpsuit (1 Point)
Some Liquid Other Than Water: Coffee (1 Point)

Harcore Constraints-

Two character swap bodies every time one of them sneezes (2 Points)

Literary Device-

Corporal Mac Guffin (5 Points)

TOTAL: 17 Points?

(I hope I did this right)