// NATURE NEWS — SPAZIO & SCIENZA
The buck stops with me
Mercer Eddy is a former ethical hacker who still hacks some of the time and is ethical most of the time. She lives with her family in Concord, Massachusetts.
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The flimsy QMart bag in my right hand holds a gallon bag of popcorn (dinner), a KitKat bar (breakfast) and 80 tabs of aspirin (every four hours without fail). I’ve dragged myself home after too long at the lab, and taped up for me on my apartment door is a torn-out sheet of spiral notebook paper along with a capless blue BiC. In my own horribad handwriting, the note says:
Dear Me — It’s Me, You. I’m You, but from the future. Unfortunately We can’t meet (for kaboom reasons) but written notes work. Write back (ACTUALLY write, ON PAPER), go look in the bathroom, I’ll leave an answer there. OK? OK, go. — Me
There are three obvious possibilities here: hallucination, prank or … no way. Unless?
I feel a little silly about it but I do swap the groceries to my other hand so I can take the pen and write: Hi?
In the bathroom there’s a new note taped to the mirror, in my handwriting again:
Dear Me — Cool, ‘Hi?’ Is officially the text of the first cross-temporal communication ever performed by humans. We have really stepped up to this momentous occasion, five stars. Anyway. Darts tonight. — Me You The Other One
I check for hidden cameras, of course, but if this were a prank that would imply that someone cared. Facts not in evidence.
I rip the paper off the mirror, flip it over and scrawl across the back why are you writing to me??? Where’s a good place for a reply? I’ll try the sock drawer.