MARQUES COLSTON
Fort Bragg, North Carolina. August 18th, 1956.
GENERAL. I trust you are familiar with the dangers of this experiment, Corporal.
CORPORAL MARQUES COLSTON. I am, sir.
GENERAL. All we know for certain is that we will be able to send you to another point in time, and that you will be furnished with some manner of societal role. You might be mining plutonium in the 38th century, or working as a public defender three months from now, or serving on a Spanish galleon in 1571.
COLSTON. Indeed.
GENERAL. You will need to perform your role without a moment’s hesitation. Do you understand? If you get sent to that plutonium mine, you swing that pickaxe. If you end up in that courtroom, you get your client off the hook. If you’re on that galleon, you prepare the cannon and blow that Ottoman galleon into the damn sea.
Nobody must know that you have traveled through time. Nobody. It is absolutely imperative that you understand this.
COLSTON. I do, sir. Throw the switch. I’m ready.
GENERAL. Godspeed, Corporal. You’re a hero. I wish you the best of luck, wherever your travels may take you.
COLSTON. [salutes]
The switch is thrown. COLSTON finds himself enveloped in a cloak of light. And then …
COLSTON. I’m on a football field. Oh God, I’m a football player.
Oh God oh God oh God
football thing, football thing, do a football thing, what’s a football thing,
uh
