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03/7/25   
The truth - we're full of it

Timefuck

by Karl Wogoblitz
bio/email
October 27, 2003
Basil Rubyquartz is being time fucked.

At first he finds himself a young man, cheating off the girl next to him on his kindergarten placement tests. The next moment he is a middle-aged man with a wife and daughter, both the same girl, and owns a nice home in the suburbs in the whitest quarter in New Orleans. In a blink he is on the Russian front fighting the Russians in World War II, a mistake which will get him chewed out by his commanders when informed he is supposed to be fighting the Germans.

The cause of these time fuckings is unknown to Basil Rubyquartz. If you must know, for the sake of the story, though Basil will never find out, it's because of the split consciousness he suffers as a baby when he was dropped on his head. It is a purposeful attempt by Basil's alcoholic mother to kill him and collect the insurance money, although never being familiar with the concept of insurance, she does not know a baby needs to be insured before you can collect for its death. Which is a good reason to never drink and watch a lot of Dragnet.

The bumping of the head on the tiled kitchen floor ignites a dormant section of Basil's brain which plugs him into the timeline. It also has something to do with aliens, which I'm trying to keep from mentioning for the sake of an easy out if I need it. Let's just say it's the head thing for right now but don't be pissed off if I amend that later.

Being plugged into the timeline creates an unusual distortion affect we call time fucking. What it means, scientifically speaking, is that a being's experience of time as a linear creation is destroyed and time afterward becomes moments lived randomly, in one or two minute spans so as to be less confusing to mentally challenged readers, much like pieces of a puzzle being picked up arbitrarily instead of in order of which piece they're connected to. It took me a long time to figure it out so let's just accept it as fact and move on.

It is called time fucking rather than random non-linear time because even if it is scientifically explainable, to have it happen to you is more, in laymen's terms, the equivalent of having a big nasty time sausage violate you. Without lubrication.

Other than the time fucking, Basil Rubyquartz is most notable as a completely unnotable figure. He's what hack authors would call an everyman, so I'll avoid that description. Basil lacks ambition because he knows at any given second the pain or joy he's encountering can give way to another time fucking, putting him in an even more painful or joyful moment; it is not because, as certain fathers might suggest, he was born lazy. Time fuckings.

As you might have noticed, I will periodically introduce myself as a narrator character in order to inject a little bit of personal philosophy and because I think it's funny. If this bothers you, go read Ray Bradbury or something, you unimaginative drone.

Let's begin with Basily's childhood. Which is to say, the first bit will be involved in his childhood, then we'll jump forward quite a bit, then back a little, then maybe further forward. It's all pretty easy to figure out when you get used to it. I wrote the first draft on the back of a check when I got the idea, so it can't be too complicated. But here this feels like the end of the introduction. We'll pick up again in chapter two, but don't expect it to be more story and less rambling. This is what you get. Flip ahead to the end, you'll know I mean business.

For more of this great story, buy Karl Wogoblitz's
Timefuck


Milestones
1979: A young Omar Bricks writes the first incarnation of what will eventually become his "My Friend Polio" column, originally titled "Why I Peed in the Water Fountain."
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