Stories

Lunch Thief

It’s been a long and stressful morning in the lab, trying to crack the same intractable problem. It feels like I’ve been at this for years with no progress. But that doesn’t matter because it’s time for my mid-day feed. I take my lunch bag out of the bottom left desk drawer and open it.

Instead of a too-light (I’m trying to lose weight) supply of food that I remember putting in there, the sole content of the bag is a note, scrawled on the back of an old torn notebook page. Damned grad students.

I unfold the note, wondering what sophomoric nonsense is written there. My eyebrow rises when I see my own spidery scrawl.

Thanks for the lunch, loser me. Consider it my reward for solving the Problem.

I stare at the note in frustration. What the hell does that mean? I turn the note over to see if there’s any clues as to which student forged my handwriting.

The other side of the page is dated October 4; it’s April now; I guess they cannibalized one of my old notebooks to… wait. I don’t remember writing this, either. In fact, it looks like… AHA!

There in my own handwriting is the solution to the Problem. With this breakthrough I can create a working time scoop in a couple of hours! And I know what past artifact I’m going to take first: yesterday’s lunch was really good, and I’m hungry. The best part is I don’t even have to write a new note to taunt my past self. I can just use this one.