Perpetuity

    My brother is an idiot. He’s got all the fancy degrees – a bachelor’s degree in electronics, master’s in semiconductors, and a PhD in nanoelectronics. Sounds impressive? Except, instead of using his gray matter for creating something that can make some money, he spends all his time tinkering away on a freaking time machine idea! It’s been six years now, and every day he tells me he’s almost there. Bullshit.

    And you won’t believe where he gets the cash to fund his stupidity. Straight out of our shared business account! We’re identical twins, but nothing about us is identical other than our appearances. While here I am, no college education to speak of, building up this massive business, and my own brother can’t seem to put those smarts to good use. Unbelievable! It’s funny. His name is Ujwal, which in Hindi means sunshine and brilliance. How ironic!

    Okay, full disclosure, I did play a part in getting myself into this situation as well. You see, my company, PureGraph Technologies, ranks as the runner-up among manufacturers of graphene-infused fabrics in the world. Thing is, we showed up to the party only fourteen months later compared to our competitor. Had we managed to launch our product sooner, we would’ve been the top player in the world. But hey, Ujwal came to the rescue. Once his so-called time machine is fully operational, we can travel back in time and introduce our graphene products to the investors ages before anyone else had developed the tech! Billionaire status unlocked. And my stupid past self agreed to this deal. 

    My phone rings, flashing an unknown number. I dismiss the call immediately. Before I can keep it back on the desk, it rings again – same number. I answer it reluctantly. The voice on the other end sends chills down my spine. I instantly grab my keys and drive away.

***

    “We can’t do anything,” the doctor says. “Your brother has a brachial plexus injury. He was exposed to the twenty-five milliamp current for too long. His right arm is permanently paralysed.”

    “Is there anything you can do, doctor? I’m not worried about the cost, just give him his arm back,” I say.

    “I’m sorry, Mr. Prajwal. The brachial plexus is a network of nerves that carries signals from the spinal cord to the arm. The electric shock has damaged the nerve root that connects to the spinal cord. His arm is now basically disconnected from his brain. We can try transplantation, but past trials have had little to no success. I wouldn’t recommend it.”

    I walk into Ujwal’s ward with grief. I can’t imagine what my brother would be going through. Years of his research could come to a halt. I spot Ujwal hunched over on the bed, lost in thought, as I approach cautiously and place a comforting hand on his shoulder.  

    “Don’t worry, Ujwal,” I say in a soft tone. “I got this. I will take you to the best neurosurgeon in town.”

    “No, Prajwal,” Ujwal says, looking up. “No surgeon can fix this. But I can.”

    “What do you mean, you can?”

    “I shouldn’t have touched that live wire hanging loose from the daughterboard. That one small mistake took away my arm. But what if I never touched it?”

    “Wait, what are you trying to tell?” I ask, perplexed.

    “I am very close to finishing my time machine, believe me. I’ll complete it in less than four months. And then I’ll go back to the time before I touched that freaking wire. If I make sure my past self never touched it, my arm will be good as new” Ujwal says with excitement. 

    “No, Ujwal, you can’t hope that will work. Four months will be too late. Listen to me, I can help you –”

    “No. I am certain. I am this close. I will fix my arm, and you will be the world’s most successful businessman. I promise.”

    I could never persuade my brother to do something he wanted. So, I agree with him, just like I always did. 

    In the next few months, Ujwal works all day and night. He recruits an assistant to replace his right arm. I pay for her salary, of course. But in less than three months, Ujwal finally completes his masterpiece. 

***

    I’m throwing a big party for Ujwal’s success. As Ujwal walks on the stage, all eyes are drawn to the towering structure in the middle, covered in a red shroud. Ujwal’s right arm hangs loose as he takes the microphone with his left. 

    “This, ladies and gentlemen”, Ujwal announces, “is what I call The Temporal Portal. In other words, The Time Machine.”

    He walks closer to the machine and yanks the red shroud away, revealing a sleek, cylindrical glass chamber. The whole audience applauds. The chamber has multiple tubes emerging from the top and disappearing behind the stage. On one side of the chamber, is a control board with a monitor and a keyboard. 

     “This here,” Ujwal begins, pointing to the computer attached to the chamber, “is a quantum computer. When you enter the Temporal Chamber, a scanner up there on the top scans every particle in your body and creates an entangled pair which is sent to the quantum computer. The computer uses an algorithm to time-reverse each particle. And because the particles are entangled with the ones in your body, every particle in your body also gets time-reversed. This way–”

    “Hey, hey, hey,” I interrupt him. “Don’t bore us with the science. Show us how it works.”

    I then walk closer to him and whisper in his ears, “Idiot. You know nothing about business. If you reveal it’s working, tomorrow someone else will copy your design.”

    “Alright, ladies and gentlemen,” Ujwal says. “Let me give you a demonstration!”

    In the next few minutes, Ujwal places a rabbit in the chamber, and it disappears into thin air. The party ends with Ujwal presenting an older rabbit to the audience, claiming that it was DNA tested to be the same rabbit that went back in time. 

***

    “That wasn’t actually the same rabbit,” Ujwal confesses to me after the party.

    “Wait, what? You lied to everybody?” 

    “I couldn’t find the rabbit after it went back in time. Who knows where it ended up after all those years? If it were a person, they could use the same machine to return to the present,” he clarifies, rubbing the back of his neck with his palm. 

    “Are you serious? So we have no proof that it even works?”

    “It does, trust me. I know exactly what happened to every particle in the rabbit’s body. I know it went back in time.”

    “That’s not how it works,” I say in my furious red face. “Until you have solid evidence of it working, you are not putting a human in that thing.”

    Feeling uneasy, I decide it’s best to head straight home, trusting that my brother won’t do something stupid.

    As I’m speeding down the highway, I have a strange thought. What did Ujwal say about how the machine worked? 

    “When you enter the Temporal Chamber, a scanner scans every particle in your body and creates an entangled pair which is sent to the quantum computer. The computer uses an algorithm to time-reverse each particle. And because the particles are entangled with the ones in your body, every particle in your body also gets time-reversed.”

    Slamming the brakes hard, I bring the car abruptly to a stop.

    “Shit, shit, shit! He’s making a big mistake,” I anxiously tell myself. 

    I take a sharp U-turn and race back to Ujwal’s lab.

***

    “Ujwal, stop!” I yell, as I see him already inside the chamber with some kind of remote-control in his hand. 

    “No, Prajwal. I will prove it to you. I will have control over my arm when you see me next,” Ujwal says. His voice sounds muffled coming from inside the chamber. 

    “This is a mistake. You need to stop!”

    “I’m almost done setting it up. See you soon, brother.”

    “No, Ujwal, no. We won’t see each other again. Your life will end here, at this very moment, if you do this.”

    “What do you mean?”

    “Think about it. If you were destined to go back in time and stop yourself from touching that wire, why haven’t you already met yourself in the past? Why didn’t I already become a billionaire?”

    “That’s not how it works,” Ujwal clarifies. 

    “Remember what you said about the working of the machine?”

    “Yeah, what about that?”

    “Didn’t you say your machine reverses particles in your body? Does it change only the particle’s time direction or even its charge?”

    “You can’t reverse only the time of a particle. You also need to reverse the charge so that the laws of physics stay consistent,” Ujwal explains. 

    “You idiot. Can’t you see what you’re doing? You’re going to trace back your life to the day you touched that wire. And once you reach that day, you’ll have no memory of the future. You won’t coexist with your past self to warn about the electric shock. You will become your past self, repeating everything you did since then. You’ll be stuck in a perpetual loop forever!”

    “You’re wrong. You’re totally wrong,” he says.

    “No, Ujwal, please stop. Don’t you realize? That’s the reason you couldn’t find that rabbit you sent back in time. And the same reason explains why we haven’t met any time travellers from the future. Everyone who tried to build one, is stuck in this perpetuity!”

    “No, no, no,” Ujwal says with frustration. “You don’t get it. If I don’t do this, I’ll be stuck with this lifeless arm forever. How will you know how hard it is to live this way?”

    “No, please, stop. You are blinded by your invention. Please, don’t do this,” I say, my eyes damp with tears.

    A spark appears on the top of the chamber, followed by some flashes of light.

    “Did you already start the machine?” I ask with shock. 

    “Yes, Prajwal. There’s no way to stop it,” he says. The chamber starts filling up with light from the particle scanner. 

    I run to the control panel, hoping to be able to stop it. 

    “You can’t do anything now,” Ujwal says.

    “Please, please don’t do this, brother,” I cry. 

    The whole chamber is now filled with light. I can no longer see my brother.

    “If I don’t return,” I hear his voice, “make sure to document your theory. No scientist in the future should think about building a time machine.”

    “Ujwal! Please do something,” I cry louder.

    There’s no reply.

    “Ujwal?”

    The light in the chamber goes off. The lab is silent, and Ujwal has disappeared from the chamber.