Reset
by Walt Staples
Maggie smiled at Ted,
her husband of six months. The 72-year-old said, “Honey, I am so happy you've finally given up cigars.”
Her 64-year-old spouse lowered his newspaper and answered, frowns drawn down, “Well, I ain't. Seems to me no good comes of a woman launchin' into changin' a man first thing she marries him. If she ain't happy with what she's gettin', why follow through with the splice?”
She looked at him with love as she considered what next to improve. “The whole house smells better without those old things.”
He dived back behind the paper. “Humf. Ain't nothin' what smells better than a good seegar; least ways if you're on the end opposite the fire. A Rum River Crook and a Dr. Pepper first thing in the morning--breakfast of champions!”
Maggie chuckled at her lover. “That's just you. Why, Ted, just take a whiff of the house now.” She inhaled deeply to illustrate. An odd expression came to her face. She leaned forward over her husband and sniffed again. “Ted, where did you go this afternoon?”
“Huh?” He paused behind the paper. “Oh, yeah. Over to Mario's for some bloodworms and a six-pack.”
She crossed her arms. “And then?”
“Fishin' pier. Where else?”
She took another sniff. “I don't suppose Lottie Hopwhipple happened by?”
“Lottie? Ain't seen her in coon's age. Not since I broke up with her. Why?”
Maggie eased open the drawer under the telephone. Reaching inside, she came out with the inexpensive .22 revolver. “Because I smell her cheap perfume on you.”
Ted dropped the paper down to look at his wife in amazement. “Wha?” Maggie jerked the trigger once, the pistol spat, Ted folded over at the waist with a grunt. Clutching his stomach, he looked up at her. “What perfume?”
She looked at him, weighing where to put the next shot. “I smell that sickeningly sweet scent on you.”
His expression turned from surprise and pain to anger and pain. “Woman, that ain't no perfume. That's my normal smell. That's Bengay. It's your own fault for talkin' me into givin' up my stogies. You just couldn't smell it before. Now give me the phone so I can call somebody before you become a widow.” As he punched 9-1-1, he grumbled, “Meddlesome females, just can't leave well enough alone.”
Foster hit the “Reset” button.
Maggie looked thoughtful. “Ted, honey?”
Her 64-year-old husband of six months looked up from his newspaper. “Yup?”
“I was just thinking about those crab cakes you made for lunch.”
He admired his wife, thinking that for a 72-years-old, she wasn't all that hard on the eyes. “What about them?”
She twirled a tendril of hair between thumb and forefinger. “I think perhaps you should have used butter.”
He frowned. “Woman, I'm the son of a sea cook, and we's always used margarine. My old man even talked about mixin' the yellow dye from the little packet to make the oleo yellow back durin' the war.”
Maggie dropped her hands to her ample hips and leaned forward. “Mama always--“
“Lordy! Don't be bringin' that man-poisoner into this,” he cut her off. “Margarine was good enough for my daddy, and his daddy, and his daddy-”
This time Maggie cut him off, “They didn't have margarine that far back!” Seeing him drawing breath for another broadside, she jerked the drawer beneath the telephone open, snatched up the small .22 revolver and pulled the trigger. Ted grabbed his stomach and folded over with a grunt. Reaching for the telephone with the other hand, he snarled, “Seems to me that this proves there's too many cooks in this kitchen.”
Foster punched the “Reset” button again.
Maggie surveyed the DVDs lining the bookcase. “How about a 007 movie?”
Her husband, Ted, glanced up from his newspaper and smiled at his wife of six months. “Sounds like a thought. Which one?”
“I was thinking about 'From Russia with Love.'” She smiled as she considered how much the man she loved resembled Sean Connery.
Ted cocked his head. “Why not 'Live and Let Die?'”
She shook her head. “No. How about 'Thunderball?'”
“Moonraker.”
“No!”
He looked at his 72-year-old wife. “Why not?”
“Because I don't like Roger Moore as 007. That's why,” she answered through gritted teeth.
“You mean you got a thing for that other Englishman.”
“He's not English--he's Scots.” She was shouting now. How could this 64-year-old man she married be so thick?
“English, Scotch, it's all the same.” Then he got in a nasty jab. “He didn't even have the beard and mustache then!”
At this, Maggie tore open the drawer of the telephone table. Inside was the crude little .22. She grabbed it and fired. Ted clutched his stomach and slid off the couch onto his knees. As he jerked the telephone off the table by its cord and began to feverishly punch the numbers for Emergency Services, she looked down at him and said, “Don't you ever talk about my Sean that way again.”
Foster reached for the “Reset” button once more. Fisher reached across and stopped him. “Dr. Foster, there's no point.”
The scientist looked at the Virginia State Police lieutenant. “What do you mean?”
The other rubbed his hand over his face tiredly. “We've been through, what? Twenty-six renditions of this shooting by my count. The blasted thing changes each time. It just isn't admissible in court.”
Foster crossed his arms. “I'm sure we can work out the kinks in the system.”
The lawman shook his head. “No, you can't.”
Foster, arms still crossed, leaned back in his chair and looked at Fisher over his glasses. “And why not, Lieutenant Fisher?”
“Because we're not hitting the same time-stream. Every time you hit 'Reset,' we come down in another one. Look, you yourself told me that one of the theories of time postulates that every time a decision occurs in the time-stream, that one splits into two or more depending on the number of ways the decision could go. In one time-stream, John Wilkes Booth's pistol fires and Lincoln dies, a second and Lincoln is only wounded and survives, a third and the pistol misfires, a fourth and he misses, and so on. Each time, a new time-stream originates. We can't find the one we want when we come back, because it's one among many and you haven't come up with a way to mark them.”
Foster stared at a point over the state policeman's shoulder for some moments, then sighed. “You know, Lieutenant, there are few things as irritating as a pupil who understands the course work better than the instructor.”
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Walt Staples spent far too many years thinking the unthinkable for a living. He maintains this has had no effect on him though he admits to a predilection for collecting odd people and an inordinate thirst for Dr. Pepper. While his physical position is generally indeterminable, his heart is firmly located at 38.9N, 78.2W. His work appears in a number of online publications. He is a member of the Catholic Writers' Guild, the Lost Genre Guild, and the Marine Corps Association (much to the chagrin of each).
His blog, “Variable Credence,” resides at: http://gkfields.blogspot.com
