01 - The Wallet

By Saïd

Translated from the French by Miguel Jacq

This morning, I lost my wallet.

I remember remarkably well the sleepless night I had just beforehand. A night in the lab, sweating alone in the dust due to having gone back and forth trying to keep the machines supplied with electricity. A night lit up by LEDs flashing behind metal blocks.

The frequent power cuts had ended up blowing several fuses which I hadn’t replaced. Doing so would’ve avoided this sort of trouble… but several weeks ago I had, for some reason, figured I had better things to do than secure the lab. Negligence that today cost me dearly.

This morning, before closing the door behind me, I remembered having seen Emett’s skeleton on the shelf next to the cooler. Emett… the first mouse to have travelled through time in the lab. Dead for the cause… only his bones had made the trip. I turned the key in the lock, reminding myself that it was Emett-1287, and that 1286 of his predecessors had died before him. If Hell existed, I was sure to be devoured by rodents there for eternity.

This morning, I lost my wallet, and with it the only chance I had left to find some grants, to continue the research, to persevere in my quest for time travel.

People had often asked me why, if I was so sure of achieving my goal, my ‘future self’ had never come to pay me a visit. I’ve reflected a lot on this question. When you innovate technologically, you have to think about morals, ethics, of the legal issues which could intervene, either to help us progress, else hinder us. In a future where time travel is possible, I see only a single viable option: banning journeys back in time — too risky. Go only towards the future, go only once and without coming back. If one day I have to make myself heard on the subject, such would be the rule I’d try to impose.

I left my workplace and went into town on foot, my head in the clouds, dreaming of other places, at other times. I took the magnetic bus to the station where an authentic electric train on tracks awaited. Being held at the other end of the line was a convention, the most important one of my entire career. My presentation there was going to be decisive, as much for my field of research as for me. The final fight where no-one believed in me any more. Emett’s skeleton, which had seemed promising at one point, was today considered nothing more than a laughing stock.

I could’ve salvaged everything during this convention… but I lost my wallet. I reached the door of my carriage, facing the controller — a human. I slipped my hand into my jacket and I sensed its absence with a gripping intensity. Indifferent, other passengers passed by me, presenting their thumbs to the railway employee. Me, I had never had my fingerprints registered.

In a panic, I asked if the train could wait for me before departing. They told me that they hadn’t gone as far with the reconstruction as imitating train delays, and that I only had five minutes to find my ticket. Faced with such incomprehension, I asked to speak to an automaton, far more courteous to customers, but none of those that circulated here had been assigned to this noisy and turbulent vintage transport.

This morning, I saw all my hopes fade away, even as I tried to remind myself whether or not I had felt my wallet on me in the bus, or at the station, or even at the lab. I contacted the bus company. The bus itself responded to me in the monotone with which it had been adorned, telling me they only checked for the presence of lost items at the end of the round.

I went back to the lab, it wasn’t there, so I went back home.

As I climbed the steps, I realised that all my dreams had flown away along with my wallet. My childhood dreams. My dreams of time travel. The dream of rectifying certain mistakes, too.

I arrived at home and used the wrong key once, then twice. I had spent so many more nights in the lab than here. Did the heating even still work? I must’ve switched it off last week…

It was only once I had my hand on the doorknob that I saw it. It was there, on the ground, on the doormat: my wallet.

How could it be? Someone who knew me must’ve picked it up! I bent down to retrieve it and something seemed strange. Once I was upright again, with a bit more light, I realised that it wasn’t my wallet, just the same model. The leather was much more worn, scuffed, threadbare… this one had to be several decades older than mine. A fake, or a mistake. The disappointment was as intense as the glimmer of hope some seconds earlier.

When I opened the wallet, I had to grip the doorknob so as not to fall over. I sat down on the step. Inside was my identity card, that of today’s, covered in scratches, some photos that I had printed myself, in a much older condition than I recalled them being, and above all the last loyalty card that I’d been given in paper form, that of a cinema in town, on the verge of disintegration. It was as if my wallet had aged forty years, without me.

My hands started to tremble. In the ticket compartment, I found a tiny piece of paper, which seemed brand new. With surprise, I recognised my own handwriting on it.

“Patience.”

This morning, I lost my wallet. One day, I’ll learn how I found it again.