Walking the Ruins

How it happened when it happened

Some of you readers were disappointed that I failed to explain the nature of the phenomenon that abducted our six heroes into the distant future. So I have decided to describe it here.

Also, since this is presently a topic on my mind, I wanted to experiment with different types of POV (point of view—but any Wattpad reader knows that). So I first thought I would write that story three times, once in third person deep, once in third person omniscient, and once in second person (whatever that is supposed to be). (The latter was out of pure curiosity—I wondered if it is possible to pull that POV off at all.)

But when I started writing, I realized that these POVs are fundamentally different, each one having its strengths and weaknesses. Forcing them all to tell the exact same story would not do them justice. So I changed the whole thing I bit. The three texts below now tell aspects of the same story, but they tell different aspects thereof.

I wonder what you think—if anyone reads these crazy ramblings at all, that is, and is, afterwards, still in a state to comment.

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Third person deep POV

Juan moved his cleaning cloth along the elegant curve of the machine's casing. He more felt than heard the soft hum emanating from it. The stainless steel glistened in the artificial light.

The machine was huge, endless. The physicists called it the accelerator. He just called it the machine.

He loved his work of cleaning, sweeping, and polishing, it felt like a prayer. Tending to the mighty machine in its underground lair was his profession and passion.

He dipped the cloth into the detergent in his bucket, kneading it methodically, then wringing it to remove superfluous liquid.

Repeating his caring strokes along a next part of the casing, he heard people enter the large hall. He looked down at them from his perch, a gangway on a scaffolding erected along a large, cylindrical part of the machine.

The three, one woman and two men, talked loudly, disturbing the church-like, humming atmosphere of the place. He tried to shut out their voices. But as they came closer, their babble resolved into words, making it impossible ignore them.

"But, Professor Twowoods," one of them said. A woman, her scalp of long, brown hair directly below him. "My calculations show..."

"Sorry, Professor," a second one interrupted. His bobbing head carried curly black hair framing a bald spot. "Monica's calculations need major revisions before we can discuss them seriously." He laid a hand on the woman's arm. "Monica, we'll look at your equations later. Come to my office in the afternoon, after lunch."

"But," the woman's voice assumed an unpleasantly shrill note. "It's really urgent. Only a slight increase in the magnetic crossfield might lead to the entanglement of the trajectories of the bosons..."

A sonorous chuckle emanated from the third person, who was obviously the professor. The others fell silent. "Monica, Monica," he said, his voice rich and rumbling. "Entanglement of trajectories ... really? States are entangled, not trajectories. And not only quantum states, but also those other states, the ones that fund our work."

Bald spot laughed at this, it must have been a joke. "You heard what he said, Monica. Don't worry your pretty little head. We'll straighten out your equations this afternoon."

Monica crossed her arms before her chest. "Please, Jake,..." she started, but the two men had already turned away from her and were now headed for the elevator that would take them up to the surface.