Caterpillar looked straight ahead into the empty wall with an empty stare. His eyes opened wider than they were until that point and said “Oh, so many things. But the first thing Jimothy did was tap someone's right shoulder while he was standing on that person's left, so that it seemed like it was not Jimothy who did it, but the one standing on that person's right. It's literally the oldest trick in the book,” Caterpillar said and pulled out an old dusty black book that wrote 'Book of Mischief' with golden letters on the cover.
“He opened up the path for humans to mistreat each other and benefit from another person's pain,” Caterpillar continued. “Things would get worse with every generation. Harming people was considered normal, and they worshipped Jimothy like a god for what he did. Parents were even naming their children after him, to where more than half of the human population was named 'Jimothy', no matter the person's gender. It was a dystopian world and I would not wish upon anyone, not even my worst enemy, to spend even a single day in such a place.”
“This sounds horrible!” Thaught said while she turned her cup upside down to get the last few drops of hot cocoa before she refilled it. “And how did things end up so much better in this current day? How come I have never heard or read anything about Jimothy if he played such a big part in the history of humankind? I have not even heard the name before.”
“That's because I went back in time and stopped him.”
“Oh right, you went back in time... wait, what!?”
“Yeah, with this thing,” Caterpillar took out of his pocket what seemed like a Rubik's cube but every side was black, it did not have as many tiles, they did not rotate in as many ways and it was in the shape of a pyramid. Maybe it did not look much like a Rubik's cube after all.
“And this thing is supposed to make you travel back in time?” Thaught said with her hands on her waist and much disbelief in her voice.
“Not only back in time but also forward in time, and even sideways in time, meaning you can travel through space, too. I have saved tons of money on planes thanks to this little guy.”
“This doesn't sound very believable, you know. It does sound more believable than my last employer, who told me his dog ate my paycheck and that's why he could not pay me though,” Thaught replied.
“Wait, let me show you,” said Caterpillar. He immediately started turning and twisting parts of the pyramid, pressing some of its tiles, which lit up in bright green, yellow, and blue colours, depending on which one you pressed. When he seemed ready, Caterpillar pressed the bottom of the pyramid, making it squish a bit, like he pressed some kind of weird button.
The pyramid then started lighting up; different tiles at different moments, almost like the disco ball in Thaught's favorite old-school club. It left Caterpillar's hands and started levitating, slowly moving upwards while simultaneously spinning around itself increasingly less slow.
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This kept going for a bit longer, until the pyramid bumped into the office's ceiling. A small “oops” sounded from somewhere inside the pyramid and it moved downwards a bit, where it stopped but kept spinning, more and more until it felt like someone had installed these new ceiling fans that the production company was so heavily promoting these past few weeks.
And then it stopped. The lights turned off. It dropped down embracing the force of gravity until it hit the floor with enough force to make a small bounce after falling. It let a quiet, robot-like “Ow” and returned to being an inanimate object.
Thaught started clapping. “Great show! I especially liked the part where the pyramid was going round like a spinning top — it was awesome! But I still don't know how this proves anything.”
“Wait for it,” Caterpillar said.
“Wait for it? For what? For how long? This sounds like a huge mess and the vegan donut is not helping. I will wait for five more seconds and hopefully something will happen, otherwise I'll have to leave. After all, I was offered a position in a car wash, too.”
She pulled out of the inside pocket of her leather jacket a flyer from a local car wash which wrote on top “Does your car look like a hot mess? Are the seats splattered with créme fraîche? We can turn it into a cold fresh. God bless.”
Thaught put it back in her jacket and continued, “and you know that car washes have great tips, or whatever you call the change that people randomly forget inside their cars.”
She took a deep breath to calm herself, and then she started counting. “One. Two. Three. Four. Fi-”
*knock* *knock*
“Right on time,” said Caterpillar.
“Who is it?” said Thaught.
“The thing I told you to wait for. Please come in, thing.”
The glass door opened not-too-widely
In came a tall, well-built British man, in a beige suit with a slight shade of green.
“That is not a very nice way to talk about your own self.” The man said.
“It's okay, I don't take things personally,” Caterpillar said to who seemed to be his twin brother.
“Wait, what is going on here?” Thaught said, looking at Caterpillar to her left and then looking at her right to see Caterpillar again.
“He is me,” replied the version of Caterpillar that was in the room from the beginning as he pointed to the version that had just entered the room.
“And I am him!” added the newer version of Caterpillar. “No, wait, that's the same thing. I mean, and he is me!”
“Oh my God! This can't be happening!” Thaught said, clearly stressed, but her voice gave out a hint of excitement. “It's one of those scenes where I have to find who is the real one and who is the clone that came to destroy humanity!” and she pulled out a pistol she was keeping on the inside of her jacket. Not the same place where the car wash flyer wash — on the other side. She started pointing the gun at each of them, changing the target every couple of seconds.
“Why do you have a gun!?” both Caterpillars said at the same time and both of them took a step back.
The first Caterpillar bumped into his desk and went, “Ow! Who put this thing here?”
The second Caterpillar bumped into the doorknob and went, “Ow! Who put this thing here?”
“I live in New Bork, why would I not have a gun? What am I, a sheep?” Thaught explained and turned her palms face up, like she was explaining the most obvious thing in the world.
“But I don't know enough about you to distinguish the real one from the fake,” she continued and started walking towards the door, “so I'll have to take the audience's help. And by audience, I mean Paul, you two, actually three at the moment, seem to be very buddy-buddy.”