"You forgot to take out the trash again last night, why must you be such a slob?" I rolled over to slap off the alarm clock that was buzzing in my ear. &mnsp;My wife had started in already. I wouldn't be surprised if she nagged me in my sleep, but her audience is live and captive. You will hear what she has to say, and you will suffer it, every single day. "Aw honey, can't I even get out of bed before you start the abuse?" I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and sat on the edge of the bed. She leaned her face within inches from my own. I could smell stale chrdonnay on her breath as she spoke. "Abuse?" just letting you know how I feel, you said we needed to communicate and have more meaningful dialogue." I had an overwhelming urge to grab her blonde coif, and smash her face into my knee repeatedly, until her finely sculpted features were battered into a bloody pulp, and I could feel her warm sticky blood soak through my pajamas. But I was a doctor, and this would not do at all. The idea of divorce ran through my thoughts as they did every single day, and as always, I locked them into the recesses of my mind where they would languish until their next parole hearing, where once again, they would be denied. Despite my suffering, I would remain committed to our union. And more importantly my work, my research could not continue without the blessing, and funding from her father the Colonel. I forced myself to smile. "You're right baby, I'm sorry."
Closing the door of our expansive house with its French provincial furniture and ornate wall trappings gave me a small uplift. Although the morning sun was hot and unforgiving as it relentlessly beat down on my small balding head, and scorched what follicles remained, I was relieved. I hated the desert, yet I had a spring in my step as I sprinted to the safe haven of my Porsche. My Porsche bought and paid for by me. Every other possession we had seemed to belong to my wife, paid for, quite naturally, by her father, the Colonel. The drive to work at her father's corporate laboratory was always a welcome, if not but a fleeting respite from the hideous nightmare that my life with Dolores had become. Once at the laboratory, I stepped into another world, the world of my life's work......the Tesla coil. Even though branded a dangerous lunatic, and madman who was eventually ostracized by his peers, I was certain that this man, Nicholi Tesla, a pioneer in the field of electro-magnetics, was a genius. His coil, with a few of my modifications, would provide the answers to the worlds current energy woes. I would surely win the Nobel Peace Prize every year, for at least the next decade.
I slipped the coil around the silver plated titanium rod and sat it on a tungsten coated platinum tile of my own design. I was ready to test the final prototype of the device. I retreated to my desk, opened my journal and prepared to record the results of my latest and final experiment. The coil immediately began to glow brightly. The titanium rod within it started throwing sparks, hissing and crackling. I feared it might explode, so I quickly hid under my desk, hastily scribbling my observations, when a sonic boom rattled the laboratory. The entire device, like some otherworldly projector, began to generate a shimmering translucent blue energy field on the west side of the room. The laboratory went deathly silent, as if someone, somewhere, had pushed a giant mute button. A portal appeared, and began to slowly grow, threatening to engulf the laboratory. I was ready to pull the plug when it stabilized and shrank to a ten feet square. Cautiously, I crept up to the portal and peered through. I was amazed to see myself of the other side, busy at work, thoroughly absorbed with the coil. I looked at the calendar above my other self's, head and was stunned to see that I'd inadvertently opened a door to the past. The calendar indicated that it was exactly one month ago to the day. Could I pass through to the past? Could the other me pass through to the future? I positioned myself next to the emergency shut off switch, ready to shut it down at a moment's notice. I did not want the other me to see the portal, and perhaps react in a way that would damage the present and jeopardize the integrity of my apparatus. Holding my breath, I took a pen from the pocket of my labcoat, and tossed it through the rift. It went through with seemingly no ill effect, and loudly clattered across the floor causing my other self to look up. I promptly cut the power and watched as the portal snapped shut so quickly that, I was not even sure that it had been there to begin with, that is until a sonic boom shook the building. I sat down, exhausted, and began to review my notes. I wasn't quite as shocked as I was disappointed to see that I had penned nothing but, indecipherable scrabble
Later that evening, after Dolores' nightly tirade, I sat comfortably alone, running through the different scenarios where I told her of our impending divorce. My marital problems would be over with at last. I would get palimony. I would finally have the money, without the ass to kiss, and the never-ending torture would finally stop. Yet, some thing was nagging me, and it wasn't my wife. Dread began to well up inside of me as I rushed into the mahogany paneled den, and frantically began clawing through the drawers of the Colonel's massive desk, looking for our prenuptial agreement. Trembling, I dropped to my knees, tears streaming down my quivering cheeks, the droplets staining the pages of the document. My grief was unmitigated, and my anguish boundless at the prospect of staying married to that blue blooded bitch another moment, for the agreement had a divorce clause that stated with crystal clarity that, I would receive nothing in the event of a divorce.....or would I.
There was no need for Chas to furtively sneak about. The palatial house was empty, his wife and the Colonel having gone to the Country Club for the evening. Chas had feigned sickness and stayed behind. With his gaunt frame, smoker's cough, and light pallor from a weeks seclusion indoors, he had no trouble convincing them that he was ill. He placed the tiny Tesla coil on the floor, plugged it in, turned it on, and powered it up,initializing its microsequencers. Just like its larger predecessor, the diminutive coil began glowing and the toothpick sized titanium rod started with slight pyrotechnics, a small sonic pop, and a minute portal appeared, just big enough for Chas to crawl through. Chas had been planning this for days. He knew that he would be visiting his mentally ill mother this evening, exactly one month ago to the day. He knew there would be no chance that he'd run into himself and compromise his plans, and he also knew that his wife would be home alone. Once through the portal he stood up and stealthily walked to the couch where Dolores was soundly sleeping peacefully. A mischievous grin spread across his face as he slowly pulled a sawed off shotgun from his trousers. Purposefully, and with grim determination, he positioned the double barrels a scant inch behind his wife's ear. Once she was dead he'd crawl back through the rift to the present, where he would then have not half, but every last dime, and that high minded, nagging shrew would be no more. He momentarily tensed, thinking that he heard the front door open, but decided it was only the wind. Just as he squeezed the trigger, blowing the better part of his wife's brains across the carpet, he looked up and was horrified to see himself standing in the antechamber, an incredible look of disbelief on his distorted face. Instinctively, Chas dropped quickly to his knees and scampered for the portal, driven now by raw adrenaline, all conscious thought abandoned, the promise of safety awaiting him on the other side of the rift. However, in his haste to escape, he failed to notice that he had dropped the shotgun, and had left it behind lying on the blood soaked, and brain spackled carpet. In the portal, he was suddenly seized by violent muscle cramps, and an intense light blinded his eyes shut. Slowly, the light subsided, Chas was disoriented and groggy, he was on his back and could feel cool metal through his clothing, he discerned he was on a surgical table of sorts. He attempted to sit up, but something was restraining his limbs. He was able to lift his head somewhat, and began feebly looking around, trying to figure out what the hell was happening to him. He saw that he was strapped down, and could see an IV anchored into his am, fluid slowly snaking its way through the plastic tubing, heading straight for the needle taped firmly in his vein. Am I in the hospital, have I been in some accident, am I going to be OK? These and a myriad number of other thoughts rushed through his brain, as he struggled to make sense of it all. He looked to his side, and saw a darkened window. A lump of pure terror froze in his throat, for on the other side of the window he could make out a group of people, soberly watching him. And the Colonel was there, with his face pressed up against the glass, laughing feverishly.
