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Demba Kebba Darbo was unemployed and sitting in his favorite drinking establishment when he realized that what he had always thought was his bad luck was actually bad timing. He filed the realization in his brain under I for “Irrelevant”. It was like realizing that you had missed your bus by five minutes instead of by ten.
D.K., as his friends called him, had been at a table in the corner of this bar, facing the wall, all afternoon. Finally, he stood up, began placing the notes for a short story he was writing into a ragged briefcase, and called to his friend the bartender. “I have to catch the bus to Serrekunda,” he said. D.K. turned toward the door, but jumped back in surprise when he saw an alien sitting on a stool at the bar counter. He had never seen one up close. It looked somewhat like Queen Victoria when she had been old and fat, except that it was pinker, it was fatter, and it had at least fourteen short tentacles sprouting from its upper body instead of two arms. It was also naked, unlike ninety percent of the paintings and statues of Queen Victoria that I've seen.
Bakary, the bartender, had been serving aliens on occasion for two weeks by this time. He chuckled at D.K.’s reaction, then said, “Your bus left ten minutes ago.”
“No, I tthhink fffiveff,” the alien objected.
D.K. trudged to the bar counter and slumped into his usual stool, which was two to the left of the alien’s. He pulled his unopened mail out of the briefcase. Two of the three envelopes he recognized as coming from companies where he had applied for jobs. He opened the third. As he read it, he deflated like a slowly leaking balloon and sighed, “Bloody hell!”
“Bad news?” Bakary the sympathetic bartender asked.
“It's a rejection letter from Stupendous Science Fiction in Kenya,” D.K. answered.
“Why are they rejecting your story?”
“It’s a form letter with one handwritten sentence fragment at the bottom. It says, ‘Competently handled, but will find it easier to sell a story with problem-solving characters.’” D.K. crumpled the letter and whined, “I don't want to write about people who solve problems. I want to write about despair and hopelessness.”
“Do you get a lot offf rejectthun letterth?” the alien lisped.
D.K. eyed the alien uneasily. “Scads.” But he wanted to be friendly, so he relaxed and recounted a story. “There was one letter from about two years ago that I remember clearly. I had just risked imprisonment to exchange every African franc I had for U.S. dollars on the black market—I had a business idea. One hour after exchanging the currency, we heard the news that Brazil, Argentina and Mexico had simultaneously announced they were bankrupt and were defaulting on all foreign debts. The world economy collapsed and the American currency suddenly became worthless. I was wiped out.”
“Bad timing,” said Bakary.
D.K. thought about that. The seemingly innocuous statement was actually a very profound and accurate description of his life’s misfortunes. “I think you’re right,” he said to Bakary. “I had always thought it was bad luck, but I think it is bad timing.”
“What doeth that havff to do with the rejecthun letter?” asked the alien.
“Ah, yes. I received it three weeks later. It was for a story I had written about the collapse of First World economies and societies that occurs after several Third World nations default on their debts. I had submitted the story six weeks BEFORE the Latin American announcement.”
D.K. paused to let that sink in.
“The rejection letter read, ‘Your story may have been SF when you wrote it, but it isn't now.’ They didn’t even bother to return the manuscript.”
Bakary the bartender sympathetically poured D.K. a drink.
“We havff a word fffor that thort of bad timing—” said the alien, “paathyldyeff. You theem to havfff negativfff paathyldyeff.”
Okay, thought D.K., I have bad timing, or paathyldyeff, instead of bad luck. So what? It was like learning that your crops had been destroyed by locusts instead of by disease.
D.K. summed up his problems: “I have bad timing, I cannot make a living as a writer, I’m unemployed, and I missed my bus by five minutes.”
“Ten,” said Bakary.
“Do not worry,” the alien advised. “Now that Earth ith a member of our federaython, itth economy will improvff and you will get a job.”
D.K. ignored this attempt to comfort him. He guessed that his whole life had been happening about two and one half months late.
* * *
TWO AND ONE HALF MONTHS later, D.K. thought of something he should have asked the alien: “What if we don't want to be in your federation?”
But it was too late, and anyhow, his train of thought was interrupted as he opened a letter. The letter said he was being offered a job in the Senegambian civil service. That afternoon, he went to the mosque, apologized to Allah for not having quit drinking and thanked Him for his good fortune. Then he went to the bar.
“Bakary! Bakary! Where are you?”
“I’m back here,” Bakary's calm, melodic voice replied.
D.K. scurried over to his regular stool and looked over the counter. Bakary was sitting on the floor behind it looking very contented. A chrome scorpion-like thing was latched onto the top of his head. Neon-green letters were emblazoned on the back of the “scorpion”. D.K. could not read them because they were alien letters, but he knew they spelled “Zilco”.
“What are you doing?” D.K. demanded.
“Enjoying,” Bakary sighed as he marveled at the spots in his thumbnail.
“Take that off—you're drunk!” D.K. reached over the bar and snatched the Pleasure Centre Stimulator, made by Zilco Interstellar Limited, from Bakary’s head. Bakary’s smile faded. “It’s a good thing the aliens are leaving tonight!” D.K. exclaimed. (Bakary’s lower lip began to tremble.) “I know more ships will come—this was just the first, but look what it’s done already.” (Bakary sniffled.) “And not only these addictive PCSes, but just at the moment that the world economy is becoming fair and just, they give us plants that they want us to grow as cash crops.” (A tear trickled down Bakary’s left cheek.) “They’ve promised to lend us interstellar federation money because we are so ‘backward’. It's the World Bank and USAID all over again!”
D.K. would have ranted further, but at that point two aliens burst into the bar. One of them held a pointy steel rod in one of its tentacles. It pointed this pointy rod at D.K. The other one said, “You will come withth uth to the mother thip.”
“B-b-but you’re l-l-leaving tonight,” D.K. stuttered.
“Yeth. You will be leavfing Earthth. No more quethtionth!”
“W-w-wait! Isn’t th-th-there anything I c-c-can do?”
“Are you mocking my pronunthiathon?”
“N-n-no!”
“I thertainly hope not.” Then the alien pondered. “But perhaps there ith thomething you can do. Give uth one million francth and we will thay that we could not fffind you.”
D.K. stopped stuttering and yelled. “One million francs! It would take me two and a half months at my new job to save that much!”
“Iff you do not have it you will come now.”
“Wait! Let me pay in instalments.”
“Ath you already thaid, we are leavfing tonight.”
D.K. decided that there was nothing he could do. He sighed, “So if I had saved up from my job for two and a half months and if I had found that job two and a half months ago instead of today, I would be able to stay on Earth? As simple as that?”
From behind the bar Bakary whimpered, “Bad timing, D.K.”
* * *
D.K. WAS SURE THAT he had been taken prisoner because of his nasty remarks about the aliens, their federation, and their gadgets, but once he was aboard the mother ship, he learned the truth. He was presented to an alien who looked a little more like Queen Victoria and whose lisp was a little worse than the other aliens. This alien told D.K. that he was being taken from Earth because he had the highly valued gift of paathyldyeff, or “bad timing” as he imprecisely referred to it. The alien also told D.K. that the ship’s paathyldyeffkin would teach him to control his paathyldyeff and that once they reached the federation capital, he would become very wealthy. D.K. had trouble believing this.
“What’s in it for you?” he asked.
“I will altho become wealthy and probably famouth when I tell them that not only havff I found a paathyldyeffkin, but I havff dithcovfered a new intelligent thpecieth.”
“The federation doesn't know about Earth yet? Didn't you radio them?”
“Radio wayvth would take hundredth of yearth to make the trip. We will travfel through Zilco-thpayth and be there in two.”
D.K. wondered why the alien could pronounce the z in Zilco but not in any other words. But he did not let this question bother him. It was like wondering whether your dysentery was being caused by an amoebic infection or a bacterial infection when you didn't have medicine for either.
D.K. spent about half his free time receiving lessons from the ship’s paathyldyeffkin. He (it?) instructed D.K. that federation science knew of only one form of time travel, which could only be performed by paathyldyeffkin. Paathyldyeffkin were beings who performed actions that were displaced from their proper location in the space-time continuum. These actions could be performed either later than their correct location in the continuum (negative paathyldyeff) or earlier than their correct location in the continuum (positive paathyldyeff). Included in the lessons was time for experimenting in the Zilco Paathyldyeff Adjustment Chamber.
“This chamber is supposed to change my bad timing into good timing?” he asked his mentor incredulously.
“I do not know why you inthitht on putting a value judgment on paathyldyeff. There ith no good or bad paathyldyeff. In the Paathyldyeff Adjuthtment Chamber you can alter your time dithplathement pothitivffly or negativffly.”
After several months of experimenting, D.K. had not yet noticed any such effects. This was why he spent only half of his spare time paathyldyeffing. The other half, he spent writing. The alien that looked a little more like Queen Victoria than the others had told him that the federation did indeed have science fiction literature and that it read a lot of it. D.K. gave one story to the alien to hear its criticism. The alien invited him to the ship’s bridge.
“Ah, Mithter Darbo, welcome to the bridge. I hope your amoebic dythentery problem hath cleared up.”
“Hmm? Oh, yes.”
D.K. was awed by the bridge. There were hundreds of gadgets and blinking lights and display screens all beyond his comprehension. There were small Zilco Ltd. robots scurrying across the floor, electronic arcs zapping through the air between metal doodads, and smoking, bubbling liquids with wires dipped into them.
The Queen Victoriaest alien waited for D.K. to get over his awe. He didn’t. “Ahem, well, your thtory,” the alien finally said. “I found your Earth verthion of thienth ficthon ffery interethting. You are deffinitely a competent writer. However, the dethpair and thynithism of your protagonitht ith thomewhat unappealing. You thould try writing thtorieth baytht on characterth with enoufff get-up-and-go to tholve problemth.”
“Solve problems! Arrgh!” screamed D.K. “Doesn’t anyone in the universe know how disgusting the universe is?”
He whirled around so he could stomp away angrily, but on his second stomp he violently upset a bucket of smoking, bubbling liquid. It splashed onto a gadget with flashing lights and lots of wires attached to it. The liquid seeped into the gadget and down into the floor. Suddenly there was chaos. The lights went out as if someone had forgotten to pay the electricity bill. Machines started buzzing, then emergency lights came on, and then there were fat, naked, tentacled Queen Victorias running in every direction. D.K. fled and hid.
Ten minutes later, the head alien found D.K. Very calmly and quietly it said, “Hiding in the thuttle thip docking thecthon will do you no good.”
“Shuttle ship docking? Oh, is that where I am?”
“Yeth. Now, do you know what you’vff done?”
“Not precisely.”
“You havff thpilled liquid nitrogen on our navigathon computer. The damage wath only parthial but the knowledge of our dethtinaython and of the locathon of all ffederaython planetth thath the thip could pothibly reach hath been dethroyed. We will either havff to return to Earth or go to the hibernaython tankth and drift aimlethly hoping that thomeone will rethcue uth.” For emphasis, the alien said its next sentence very slowly. “You will thuffer, Mithter Darbo.”
The alien was interrupted by another alien that had arrived on the scene—the paathyldyeffkin. “That won’t be nethethary,” it boomed heroically. “We have been rethcued already.”
The head alien said something in alienish.
The paathyldyeffkin continued to speak in English for D.K.’s benefit. “Itth true, we have been rethcued by a pathing thupply thip. They are repairing our computer at thith moment. It theemth that their captain is a paathyldyeffkin and his paathyldyeff was adjuthted to thero. You thee, Mithter Darbo—iff you learn to control your paathyldyeff you can be in the right plathe at the right time.”
D.K. smiled meekly and slunk away. He went to the Zilco PAC and entered it. “Chamber,” he said, “give me a reading on my current paathyldyeff adjustment in Earth units.”
A female voice (with no lisp) responded, “Paathyldyeff is currently set at positive six weeks, two days, three hours, and thirty-two minutes.”
This confused D.K. It meant that the correct space-time location of his actions, including the act of spilling liquid nitrogen in the bridge, would be six weeks, two days, three hours, and thirty-one minutes later. Maybe if I had spilled it then, I wouldn’t have gotten into trouble, he speculated. But he did not let it bother him. It was like wondering if the United States and IMF should have given debt relief to the Third World. It was all nitrogen under the bridge.
* * *
TWO WEEKS LATER, HOWEVER, this paathyldyeff problem started to bother D.K. again. A week after that, he realized what he had to do. D.K. changed his entire pattern of activities. After setting his paathyldyeff at zero, he quit attending the lessons. Then he asked to be taught the minimum he needed to know to fly a shuttle ship. An alien pilot was glad to oblige, as there was nothing D.K. could do with the information. D.K. also asked to borrow some hibernation equipment. A doctor was glad to oblige. And he borrowed someone’s Zilco Super Duper Pleasure Centre Stimulator—the latest model.
He gave the Queen Victoriaest alien another of his stories to critique. The alien invited D.K. to come to the bridge the following day. D.K. calculated. If he showed up on time, he would be on the bridge exactly six weeks, two days, three hours, and thirty-one minutes later than the last time, when he had caused all the trouble. Then he asked an officer who worked on the bridge to copy some information from the navigational computer onto a portable computer data nodule: a star map, including the position of Earth, and all Zilco-space routes between their position and Earth. The officer was glad to help D.K. learn more about the science of navigation.
When D.K. went to the bridge the next morning, he carried a sack containing the Zilco Super Duper PCS, the portable data nodule, the necessary drugs and gadgets to induce hibernation, and the best short story he had written in the past seven months on the ship.
“Ah, Mithter Darbo, welcome to the bridge. I hope your amoebic dythentery problem hath cleared up.”
“Bacterial dysentery, actually, but yes, it has. More than six weeks ago.” D.K. pretended to examine the bridge in awe.
“Ahem, well, your thtory,” the alien finally said. “I’m afffraid I found thith thtory much like the latht one. Thienth ficthon readerth havff activff, thientiffic mindth. They like to be challenged. You really thould try writing about problem-tholving characterth.”
D.K. leaned forward and asked, “Did you pass on the data about your discovery of Earth to the supply ship that rescued us slightly less than six weeks, two days, three hours, and thirty-one minutes ago?”
“No, but what—”
“Problem-solving characters?”
The head alien was confused. “Yeth! But why did you athk—”
“Arrgh!” screamed D.K. in mock anger. “Problem-solving characters! Doesn’t anyone in the universe know how disgusting the universe is?”
He whirled around as if about to stomp away angrily, but on his second stomp he violently upset a bucket of smoking, bubbling liquid. It splashed onto the Zilco navigational computer. Chaos ensued, much as before, and D.K. ran to the shuttle ship docking section, much as before. This time, however, he did not hide, but entered a docked shuttle ship. He pressed a button and said, “Computer, tie into mother ship’s navigational computer. Give me the location of the recently discovered planet known as Earth.”
The computer replied, “No recent discoveries or planets by that name registered. Systems error. Zilco navigational computer malfunctioning. Memory banks seven, nine, and—”
“Okay, okay. Just checking. Can you retrace our Zilco-space route for the previous seven months?”
“No such data available. Systems error. Zilco navi—”
“Okay! Disconnect link to mother ship computer.” D.K. smiled, slotted the portable data nodule, and said, “Computer, plot a course to recently discovered planet known as Earth. Data accessible through data port number one. Then disengage from mother ship. Then fly course on automatic.”
As the shuttle ship began moving, D.K. attached the hibernation gadgets to himself, set the duration to just under seven months, and administered the necessary drugs.
When D.K. woke up, he instructed the shuttle ship to land, not in Senegambia but in downtown Nairobi, Kenya. When it landed, he got out and began looking for the office of Stupendous Science Fiction. He found it. He reached into his sack and handed his story to the editor.
“I am submitting this story for publication. I will be back tomorrow.”
He came back the next morning.
“Ah, Mr. Darbo. Good to see you. You know, most writers do not come in person. Well, to your story. You are definitely a competent writer. The problem is the basis of your plot. You see, most science fiction readers like to read stories about problem-solving—”
D.K. reached into his sack, then slapped the Zilco Super Duper Pleasure Centre Stimulator onto the editor’s head. The editor’s face suddenly took on an angelic quality. “Actually,” she said, her voice now much more smooth and musical, “I like to read about despair and hopelessness, and we have been looking for something to fill a gap in next month’s issue. I’m glad you submitted this. Good timing.”
“I know,” said D.K. “I know.”