Button in the Fabric of Time

By

William Wayne Dicksion

Smashwords Edition

* * * * *

Published on Smashwords by:

William Wayne Dicksion

A Button in the Fabric of Time

Copyright 2008 by William Wayne Dicksion

All rights reserved. Without limiting the
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publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the
author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author
acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various
products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used
without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not
authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark
owners.

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Also by William Wayne Dicksion

A Brief Moment in Time

Beyond the Valley of Mist

Sagebrush

Puma Son of Mountain Lion

A Man Called Ty

Legend of the Lost

Danny

* * * * *

Thanks to my wife Millie for her help and
Malia Wisch for her cover design.

* * * * *

A motto to live by

Strive for beauty and knowledge.

When you attain them, deny them to no
one.

* * * * *

Chapter 1

My name is Augustus Wilder, a 30-year old
American structural engineer employed by a corporation that
specializes in building unusually large structures. We’ve just
completed a home for an eccentric billionaire, and I’ve done the
final inspection. The billionaire said he was looking for privacy,
so we built in a remote mountain area. He’ll get privacy, all
right; there isn’t another home within a hundred miles.

I’d been working on this project for weeks
and was eager to get home. I live in an Angeles suburb—too far to
drive in one day. It was late afternoon, and I had been on the road
for hours, so I rented a motel room and was preparing to get some
sleep when my cell phone rang.

It was my boss, Joe Shannon.

"Gus, I want you to make a presentation
tomorrow evening at Castle Rock Hotel. We're negotiating with a
developer to construct a large building using your new method of
joining glass and metal. The sales staff will negotiate the
contract.”

“Joe, I’m in a motel, and I’m about ready to
drop. It’ll take me till midnight to prepare a presentation.”

“Well, get at it. The meeting is at 6 p.m.
Don’t be late; we’re counting on you!”

“All right,” I said reluctantly. “I’ll be
there.”

I was tired, but I knew it would do no good
to complain because, as head engineer, I had played a major role in
developing the new method. I was grumbling to myself that the drive
to Castle Rock would take all day when I heard a voice in my head
say, “
Take the old desert road; it’s faster.”
I’m not used
to hearing voices, but I checked the map and sure enough, there was
a two-lane highway that cut through the desert that would save me a
few hours.

Something about the strange voice started me
thinking about my childhood. My parents brought me up as a
Christian conservative, and I’d never given serious consideration
to what I was taught in Sunday school, until I got into high
school. Then, I realized that what I was learning in chemistry and
physics didn’t agree with what the Bible said.

In Sunday school, I was taught that the Bible
was the Word of God, but later, after reading more than one Bible,
I found that not all Bibles were the same. Curious, I began
searching for the truth.

* * *

To understand the ambiguity, I needed to know
if the Bible is the word of God, why are they different, and why
doesn’t science agree with the Bible? The answer was elusive, and
reading the sacred books of other religions left me even more
confused. So, I read the writings of the great philosophers such as
Xenophanes, Plato, Heraclitus, and the more recent philosophers
like Spinoza and John Scotus Erigena. They seemed to agree in
general that everything is God. Other ancient writers, called
apologists, said that God is pure reason. I found these writings
stimulating, but they did little to help me understand why religion
and science disagree.

Pushing those thoughts aside, I focused on
tomorrow’s presentation until I finished it and then fell sleep. I
awoke early, had breakfast, and began the drive to Castle Rock,
taking the old road through the desert.

* * *

The shortcut was two lanes of blacktop
through remote high desert. It was a lonely road, but the fragrance
of sage and the view of snow-covered mountains made the loneliness
pleasant. I was enjoying the drive while listening to soft music on
the radio when, seemingly out of nowhere, a bright blue light
appeared on the horizon.

What in the world is that? A bright light
other than the sun in the daytime sky was certainly unusual;
however, I ignored it, because everything else seemed normal, and
the light didn’t appear threatening. Perhaps the light is just my
imagination—a mirage of some kind.

I spend a lot of time driving through the
desert, so I know that you can truly believe you “see” things that
are only illusions. Desert mirages can seem uncannily real. I’d
heard stories of thirsty people, trying desperately to reach what
they thought were lakes, only to find dry sand when they got
there.

The glowing blueness moved closer until it
was right in front of my car obscuring my forward vision. I looked
in the rearview mirror and saw nothing for miles. Hastily I pulled
off the road, left the car engine running, and got out to take a
look. What I saw was similar to a glowing dust devil, but this was
no dust devil—it carried no dust and it contained no debris.

As the strange apparition surrounded me, I
heard a low hum and felt a pulsing vibration. The light was no
longer just a blue light—it was more like an all-encompassing blue
presence. Something fell out of the thing and hit my hand, but I
couldn’t see what it was because the blueness obscured everything.
For a few minutes, while this thing surrounded me, I felt as if I
were suspended in space, and then as suddenly as it had appeared,
the blue—whatever-it-was—moved on.

As I got back into my car, I stepped on
something. I looked down at the road and saw a strange object,
colorful as a butterfly. It had a center of white surrounded by
three equally divided sections of red, blue, and green. It was
unlike anything I had ever seen before, and I was going to ignore
it until I heard that voice again:
“Pick it up.”
Hearing
words coming seemingly from nowhere startled me, so I looked around
but saw no one.

I seemed compelled to do as the authoritative
male sounding voice said. When I scooped the thing up, the hot sand
burned my fingers. Strangely, the disk-like object was cool and
felt pleasant. It was about two-and-a-half inches in diameter, with
a bulged center tapering to smoothly rounded edges. Its top surface
was of a gray metal-like substance with a white center surrounded
by red, blue, and green. I had never seen metal like this before,
and it reminded me of the huge button on my mother’s winter
coat.

Curiously, I touched the red portion—it lit
up and emitted a low hum. I touched the blue, which lit up even
more and the hum changed to a higher pitch. Then, after touching
the green portion, the object emitted an even higher pitch. The
button-like object was different from anything I had ever seen
before, and I wondered what it was.

The searing hot sun was bearing down and
beads of perspiration were forming on my forehead so I decided to
get back in the car, but as I retreated into the car, I spotted a
piece of petrified wood lying on the edge of the road. The piece of
petrified wood seemed out of place because it was the only one
around. I thought
that fossilized wood is the remains of a tree
that grew here millions of years ago, and it has lain here for
eons. Is this an omen?
I shook my head. None of this made
sense, so the only thing left for me to do was to get back into the
car and drive on.

The key was still in the ignition and in the
“on” position, but the engine was dead.
That’s strange; I left
the engine running when I got out to investigate the blue
light.
I leaned forward and turned the key, but the engine
wouldn’t start. I tried again, but it still wouldn’t start. I
glanced at the fuel gauge. Empty! How could that be? I’d filled the
tank only 30 miles back at that crossroad service station! Maybe a
bouncing stone had punched a hole in the gasoline tank. I set the
odd-looking disk on the passenger seat and got out to check for a
fuel leak. No, as far as I could tell, the fuel tank was
undamaged.

I got back into the car and sat for a while,
wondering what I should do. The wind was picking up, as it usually
does in the middle of the day. A swirl of dust and tumbleweed blew
across the road. The air conditioning wasn’t working, and I was hot
and thirsty. I aimlessly picked up the button and began rubbing it
as I was thinking about the cool drink I had back at the restaurant
beside the service station. Suddenly I found myself sitting at the
restaurant counter!

* * * * *

Chapter 2

I looked around, trying to understand what
had happened. My sudden appearance startled the waiter. He hadn’t
seen me come in, and I could tell by his puzzled expression that he
was trying to determine how I had just “materialized” at the
counter.

The waiter stuttered, “I—I—I didn’t see you
come in. May uh—may, I take your order?”

I was so stunned, I couldn’t answer.

The waiter pushed his white cap back on his
head, bent over and looked closely at me, asking, “Are you all
right?”

I still couldn’t respond, so he asked again,
“May I get you a cold drink?”

“Yeah! Yeah! A cold drink would be nice. I’ll
have a diet soda, please.”

He served the drink and walked away shaking
his head. I took a sip not knowing what to expect. The drink tasted
real, so I finished it, and then walked into the men’s room to look
at myself in the mirror. I looked all right. I splashed my face
with cold water and combed my hair. Everything was still normal—but
it couldn’t be normal. Just a few minutes ago, I was stuck out in
the desert with no gasoline in my car!

Then I remembered, I’m supposed to give a
presentation at the Castle Rock Hotel tonight; the company’s
depending on me. I’ve got to get back to the car and get to that
meeting. Castle Rock is still miles away. So I figured, since I’m
at a service station, I may as well get a can of gasoline.

The gas station was at the junction of two
seldom-traveled desert roads, so it served as the main supply store
for the people who lived in the area. I bought a five-gallon can
and filled it with gasoline. Now I had fuel, but how was I going to
get back to my car? It was too far to walk. Maybe I can catch a
ride. I waited beside the gas pumps and a couple of cars stopped,
but they were going the wrong way. I noticed that across the road
an occasional car was going the way I wanted to go, so I picked up
the can of gasoline, walked over and stood, hoping someone would
offer me a ride
.
The road was just a cutoff, so only a few
people were going my way.

I took the “button” out of my pocket and was
absentmindedly rubbing the white portion while thinking about my
car. Suddenly, I was standing beside my car! Again, I was shocked.
I couldn’t figure out what in the blazes had happened. Somehow I
had been transported from the service station to my car by simply
rubbing the white portion of the button while thinking about the
car.

I was glad to be back to my car, but now, I
had another problem. I had set the gas can on the ground when I
rubbed the button and it hadn’t transported with me—I should have
been holding the gas can in my hand. Feeling foolish, I rubbed the
red spot and thought of standing beside the gas can, and instantly,
I
was
. I picked the can up and rubbed the white spot. The
button zapped me right back to the car. Hey, that’s a little too
much! How in the world does this work? The only thing I could
figure out was that there must be an electrical current that
somehow connects the brain to the hand. Then, when the button is
rubbed, it somehow transports the person to whatever location they
are thinking of. I scratched my head and said to myself,
H
owever this thing works, its way ahead of anything we’re
able to manufacture.
Well, if I can get the car started, I’ll
drive straight to the hotel, but I don’t have much time. I poured
the fuel into the tank, put the empty can in the trunk, and got
into the car. The interior was hotter than hell, so I rolled the
windows down and cranked the engine. It wouldn’t start. I tried
again. On the second try, it started. The air conditioner had been
left on so it soon cooled the car, and I felt comfortable. I closed
the windows and sat for a few minutes, trying to collect my
thoughts.
Has the heat gotten to me? Am I hallucinating?