Ewing moved back to the light. "My fifty-third experiment. Radical
departure from commercial developers."
"It succeeded?"
"It succeeded, Mr. Barrett, but not in the way I had imagined." The
fish-white hands rested on the photo album. "I developed some film in
Formula #53 and received the shock of my life." His voice was a whisper.
"The pictures on the negative were NOT the pictures I had taken."
He paused to watch the effect on Barrett. Joey scratched his ear. "You
took one set of pictures and the negatives you got were of another set?"
"I know what you're thinking," Ewing said. "What I thought at first:
that I'd gotten hold of the wrong film. But that wasn't the answer. The
same thing happened again and again. Whenever I used Formula #53 as my
developer, I produced a strange set of pictures."
Joey stood up nervously. The old boy was crazier than he had first
guessed. Humoring him seemed the only answer. "That's incredible."
Ewing nodded excitedly. "I thought I was losing my mind. But, slowly, I
began to realize what had happened."
"What?"
The old man sank into the chair by the table. "School of modern
philosophers ... teaches all time is co-existent."
Joey felt almost sorry for the old boy. He was so much in earnest about
his crack-brained discovery. "Time ... co-existent?"
"Past, present, future--all simultaneous. Running along in parallel
dimensions."
* * * * *
Joey tried a laugh. "Little rough for me, Mr. Ewing," he apologized.
"Look," he went on quickly, "I've been thinking...."
But Ewing wasn't listening. "Simplify it. At this moment, Caesar
crossing the Rubicon; Columbus is discovering America; you and I are
talking; a man in the twenty-fifth century is rocketing toward Mars."
"I see what you mean."
Ewing was holding the old fashioned photo album in his lap. "Well, I
know now that what I've stumbled into with Formula #53 is another
dimension in time."
"You mean that ... that you can take a picture of what's happening in
another time?"
Ewing nodded. "I know it's difficult to grasp, Mr. Barrett." He held out
the plush-covered album. "But I have proof."
Joey stepped toward the old man. "You've got pictures in there--pictures
of this other dimension?"
"Yes." He fumbled in his vest pocket, found a small key, and with
trembling hand inserted it in the album lock. "I've never shown anyone
these pictures before," he said.
Despite himself, Joey felt excited. Even as he dismissed Ewing as a
hopeless crackpot, he was disturbingly eager to see the pictures in the
old album.
Ewing gestured for him to be seated. Joey sat in the chair near the
table and the old man handed him the open album.
"So far," Ewing said, "I haven't been able to control the process. I
photograph a subject and the picture may be projected ten years into the
future or a hundred years into the past. There must be an infinite
number of dimensions registered on the film, but my developer varies."
Joey's initial eagerness was quickly dissipated. The photographs in the
album were disappointingly ordinary. True, there were some that seemed
to be trick-shots and a few in which the costuming was unfamiliar, but
certainly nothing to document the old boy's claim. Aside from a few
shots that were interesting because of their violence, there was nothing
in the album.
Ewing waited for Joey's reaction--the parchment face even more deeply
wrinkled by excitement--the blue eyes blazing.
"Well, Mr. Barrett?"
Joey left the album open at the picture of a gruesome accident.
Apparently, two cars had met head-on. The one had been a sleek
convertible. The other was an old sedan. Both were terribly crumpled.
Glass littered the street. Steam spewed from the twisted radiator of the
old wreck.
A man sprawled from the front seat of the sedan--an elderly man, with a
white beard--a beard spattered with blood. His sightless eyes stared
accusingly at the small cluster of onlookers who surrounded the wreck.
Nearby, thrown from the crushed convertible by the impact, lay a woman.
She wore an extreme evening dress, and a fur cape had fallen not far
from her body. All around her were pearls ... spilled from the broken
strand at her throat.
Joey looked up at Ewing. He shook his head. "You've got some interesting
pictures, but I can't see that they prove your theory. They could have
been taken any time." He pointed to the photo of the wreck. "This one,
for instance." He smiled up at the old man. "That looks like a shot I
might have made."
Ewing's entire body seemed shaken by his eagerness to prove his point.
"Mr. Barrett ... that picture is of an accident that hasn't occurred.
One evening, I took a picture of the street out there ... at the corner
... where our street joins the Boulevard." His voice was low, urgent.
"When I snapped that photo, the street was deserted. There were no
cars--no people."
* * * * *
Joey took another look at the wreck. He closed the album with finality.
"Mr. Ewing," he said, "I'm not questioning your sincerity. I can see
that you're convinced your developer has extraordinary powers."
"But you don't believe me." There was despair in the old man's voice.
"What can I say to make you believe that you've just looked at the
picture of an accident that's yet to happen."