Skip to content
Answering Your Questions About Reactor: Right here.
Sign up for our weekly newsletter. Everything in one handy email.
When one looks in the box, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the cat.

Reactor

Here’s a joke.

Me: Time traveler.
You: What?
Me: Knock knock!

I was destined to be a time traveler, or so I will someday tell myself. I realized that if time travel were possible it would be possible eventually and therefore, possible now. And that’s how I became a time traveler.

Most days I’m busier than Shiva playing patty-cake with an octopus, but I’ll suspend time and share my thoughts. (Suspending time is easy. You just stick Heraclitus in a hall of mirrors with a Rubik’s Cube.)

You might be asking if time travel affects things causally. Well, yes and no. There’s the famous moral quandary about whether or not a time traveler should kill Hitler as a baby. On one side, save lives. On the other, you have to spend the rest of your life thinking, “hitlerbabykiller” when you look in the mirror. There is, of course, a better answer. So I killed Hitler’s grandfather. And Stalin’s too.

It didn’t change a thing. Sorry. I saved no one. My timeline is my own and any retroactive or proactive alteration of my localized causality doesn’t affect the greater causal chain. On the upside, I can kill people throughout history without having to worry much about it! One of the many unexpected perks.

Likewise I won’t alter the future if I tell you that, for example, the greatest advancement of the 24th century is the re-discovery of butter. The great Rebeurresance of 2367 will in no way be altered by my disclosure. Ah, but it is a fatty and golden age! Many a night I downloaded fresh lingerie, rubbed myself with ghee and danced in the great impromptu “lubricated ballets” of Fresno.  24th century Fresno! Finest city the world ever produces, bless its clogged heart. O, were I Walt Whitman I would sing of you, abundant with exclamation points! O central California! O penitentiary and cow dung belt! I am not afraid to leave you—yet I love you.

Contrast this to 24th century Vienna, where the pastries will give you the clap.

I have learned so many grand truths in my travels through time. Did you know that the human race has always had, and will always have, men named Russell? Indeed. One of histories’ finest Russells built the terracotta warriors of Xian. Another Russell invented the terrier, though in Aramaic, Russell means terrier. This has lead to much confusion and is referred to as Russel’s Paradox. Speaking of names, historians often screw them up. When I told Motecuhzoma that in the future he’s know as “Montezuma” and frequently associated with diarrhea, he got downright glum. Snookums Bathory also felt rather misrepresented. But vampires, it turns out, are real. I met an African-American time travelling vampire named Scott Blackula.

The Great Wall of China will one day be purple, making it the second largest manufactured purple wall visible from space.
Madame De Pompadour, having lost her carnal appetites, provided Louis XV with concubines, thus inventing outsourcing in the 18th century, albeit in vagina terms.

The worst food throughout time is neither the hyena foot pickle nor natto flan but rather the Jack in the Box taco, which is not so much a taco as a deep fried cat food wallet.

Fifty years from the present, the Sangha of Mysterious Lyrics will split to form Steve Miller Zen (in which one meditates on the pompatus of love) and the ELO Pure Land (praying for rebirth in paradise through the mantra, “Don’t bring me down, groose”).

The United States is the only country in history whose national anthem is composed primarily of rhetorical questions.

Sargon of Akkad: excellent kisser.

Oh, and I know how the dinosaurs died. It was Russell’s fault. He’s very sorry. Now, if you’ll excuse me, Heraclitus is getting tired and I need to prepare for my next trip to the future. I want to be there on the day Charles Nelson Riley is resurrected, with hilarious consequences.


Jason Henninger’s mind is a weapon. Specifically, it’s a Nerf weapon.

About the Author

About Author Mobile

Jason Henninger

Author

I'm the assistant managing editor of Living Buddhism Magazine, fond of philosophical fiction, magical realism and good ol' farmboy-saves-the-world fantasy epics. I write short stories, poems and novels that my mother thnks are really great. Now, if I could just get my mom to work for a publisher, I'd be set. Oh and here's a really outdated clip of me contact juggling. It's a fun hobby and may some day win me the heart of Jennifer Connolly. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFphHR8u01A

Jason Henninger is the assistant managing editor of Living Buddhism magazine. His short fiction has appeared in the anthology Hastur Pussycat, Kill! Kill! and various ill-fated and short-lived webzines. He marvels that he's not caused the demise of Tor.com.

Learn More About Jason

See All Posts About

Subscribe
Notify of
guest
2 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments