A letter from Richard Lexon, as provided by Sierra July
Art by Dawn Vogel
Dear Gabby:
I understand that this is a question/answer column, but you must share this with your readers. It’s essential. The paper you hold is a special alloy that will transcend space and time when printed, convert to every language and enter every journal, infect every website, etch every stone cave wall, if that’s what I’m dealing with. I don’t know how far back I can stretch, but the further the better. Humans young and old deserve to know their future, especially if they may be robbed of having one once promised. After a half hour, you won’t exist nor will your ancestors. It’s all bizarre and true. So please, if it’s the last thing you do …
Readers, if you’re reading this article, write down the name “Richard Lexon” on a spare envelope or a gum wrapper or an ironed dollar. Regardless of your wealth and stability or your place in time, it may save you today.
They’ll come for you. They’ll come–the time travelers or aliens or bogeymen or whatever you call them. They’ll come to do all things you’ve ever feared. Name an ailment, condition, something that leaves you in enough agony that the sun, stars, and moon lose their beauty; something that has you craving the color red because it means you’ll soon be out of your misery. Picture that torment and multiply by the infinity in which they’ll keep you alive to conduct their torture. That’s what you’re facing.
Right now, yes, right now at 11:57 A.M. (if I’m right about when your mail is delivered by post or cyber link or horse and buggy and when you take your news in hand, open it, read it) if I’m right then you’re thinking this is nonsense, can’t be true, and you’ve had too much to drink, too little sleep, too sharp a blow to the head. Did I name everything? Good.
It’s my fault, I believe. A decimal point error, a tiny speck misplaced and forgotten that has set everything off kilter. My mission was to update a satellite, but instead I sent a signal, a signal that said, “We’re ripe for the picking. Come and get us.” I attempted to mend my mistake, even journeyed with astronauts in an effort to deliver an apology, a “never mind” to our otherworldly neighbors, but no success. We saw nothing but wide, wide space that appeared impossible to cross with a century’s time. Still, don’t put it past them. Don’t assume they can’t flash into our hemisphere in an instant. They are coming, I say, coming in no time at all.
To read the rest of this story, check out the Mad Scientist Journal: Spring 2015 collection.
Richard Lexon is a scientist and, though he has many years of experience, he is constantly being disregarded or ridiculed for his lack of a doctorate. If Earth is still here tomorrow, he would like to pursue that.
Sierra is a University of Florida graduate. Her fiction appears in Robot and Raygun, T. Gene Davis’s Speculative Blog, Perihelion Science Fiction, and SpeckLit, among other places. She blogs at talestotellinpassing.blogspot.com.
Dawn Vogel has been published as a short fiction author and an editor of both fiction and non-fiction. Although art is not her strongest suit, she’s happy to contribute occasional art to Mad Scientist Journal. By day, she edits reports for and manages an office of historians and archaeologists. In her alleged spare time, she runs a craft business and tries to find time for writing. She lives in Seattle with her awesome husband (and fellow author), Jeremy Zimmerman, and their herd of cats. For more of Dawn’s work visit http://historythatneverwas.com/.
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