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Trust Yourself
Apr 05 2018 CEST

noopy had avoided the magic academy in Edron after her spirithunter experience with Spectulus. He had offered her a job, however, she had turned it down, which had left her guilt-ridden and worried that he would not like her anymore. After a while, though, she started missing him. So one day, she decided to face him again. She was relieved to notice that Spectulus seemed happy to see her. He even asked for her assistance in a delicate matter...

He told her about his former intern Jack. Spectulus explained that he and Jack had been working on a device to transport somebody to a specific point in time. The machine seemed to work when Jack tried it out. He had already disappeared into thin air, when Spectulus realised that they had forgotten to add a control panel to the device itself to allow Jack to return.
After some research, Spectulus had become convinced that Jack had not travelled to the future as they had planned, but to another dimension instead. This led him to an idea on how to help Jack return and that was what he hoped Snoopy would assist him with.

As she listened to the story, Snoopy had plenty of doubts whether this could be true. However, being grateful that Spectulus had welcomed her again, and also because she sensed that this meant a lot to her friend, she wanted to help. And she could not deny that she was indeed curious about this parallel dimension theory. This sounded very intriguing.

Spectulus explained: "We are currently at a specific point in the flow of time. Let's call it point ZERO at 12:00 o'clock. As time flows I might drop my pencil to the ground - so the flow of time and the events chained to it have gone in direction ONE which leads to 12:01 o'clock with a dropped pencil. Now let's go back to point ZERO. I might also have just put it back into my pocket - the flow of time and its chain of events would have taken a 'different' direction, direction TWO - which leads to a 12:01 o'clock where I never dropped my pencil. Now imagine that 'both' directions actually exist - but you are only aware of one chain of events that has happened. The one where I dropped the pencil. And this is 'your' dimension, the one you are bound to. One 'parallel' dimension would be where the chain of events went in direction TWO. The pencil has been put into my pocket. Now imagine that there is an endless amount of ZERO points, maybe at 12:00 o'clock and one second, or at 12:00 o'clock and two seconds - each from which time can take any possible and probably impossible direction. And whatever direction a chain of events takes, there will always be an infinite amount of points in time from which new events can take completely different directions, creating completely different dimensions of time."



Snoopy looked bewildered. This was hard to imagine. Nevertheless, she decided to trust Spectulus despite her doubts. Every time he spoke of Jack, she thought about how bad her friend must feel for having sent his intern to this other dimension and thus ruining his life. She even felt a bit honoured that Spectulus trusted her with this personal story of failure. She swore to do her best to help bring Jack back.

Spectulus continued to explain that the time fold they had caused during the experiment had affected Jack's dimensional anchoring, which pushed him into a different dimension. Spectulus was certain that it would be possible to undo this and to bring Jack back to his former self. First, however, they would need to find out who Jack had become due to the different dimensional anchoring. Through his observations, Spectulus had found a person called Jack who could be his former intern, and he suggested that Snoopy should talk to him. The Jack he had in mind lived in Stonehome, just like she did and Spectulus hoped that this would make their conversation easier.

So Snoopy left the ivory towers in order to lead this conversation for Spectulus. All the way there she was wondering, however, just how it could be possible that Jack had lived in Stonehome all this time, but in a different dimension than herself. She had not been able to follow Spectulus' line of argument. When she got to his house, Jack was muttering about cleaning, just as usual. Snoopy thought that maybe the obsession of her neighbour with cleaning his house could be a sign that something was off with him. This had always appeared a bit weird to her. She interrupted him with a friendly greeting. Jack, however, was not in a mood to talk. Confronted with Spectulus' story, he quickly asked Snoopy to leave. Disappointed, she returned to the academy.

Spectulus had an idea. He thought that a trigger could maybe make Jack remember his former self: "First thing should be to change his environment to be more... familiar. As soon as he will have the things he used to have around him, his memories will come back." He thought long and hard... "I know that he used to have a very comfy red cushioned chair and an old globe which sat near the middle of the room. He also used a smaller telescope and he had that extremely large amphora in a corner. And... there was one other thing... a rocking horse. He just loved it!" Spectulus sent Snoopy out to furnish Jack's home with these things. Both of them had high hopes that this would work and help Jack remember...

To Snoopy's surprise, Jack actually let her put up all these things in his house. Admittedly, under quite some protest, but she could finish the job. When she then told him, though, that this had been Spectulus' idea, he said: "So if he thinks I'm someone he knew who is now 'lost' and needs to come back or whatever - tell him he is WRONG. I always lived here with my mother and sister, I'm happy here and I certainly don't want to go to that academy of yours."

Once again disappointed, she told Spectulus about Jack's reaction, expecting her friend to be desperate now, too. However, that was not the case. Spectulus was surprised to learn that Jack was living with his mother and sister. This new fact led him once again to an idea. He asked Snoopy to tell Jack's family about Jack's life in an other dimension.
She did as she was told. However, she did not feel good about this. She felt as if she had overstepped some boundaries and once again had doubts about this entire mission. On the other hand, she wanted Jack to get back to his old life - and she wanted to help Spectulus. She trusted him. He was smart, he was a scientist. Who was she to doubt his words? Everything would be alright... They would succeed.

Spectulus was also certain that they would succeed. He explained that Jack would have to be convinced now that anything he was doing today would not match his true self. When he inquired if Snoopy had maybe picked up on anything in particular that would bind Jack to the space that he was in, she remembered that his sister had mentioned a mysterious sculpture she had actually seen Jack working on. So this time, she had an idea... She grabbed a pick and went to Jack's place. Before he could stop her, she pulled out the tool from her backpack and hammered on the half finished sculpture.

"What did you do to my SCULPTURE? You simply DESTROYED it? Why? You... you ruined everything... my house, my hobby, my life. My family even refuses to talk to me anymore."

Snoopy was standing there, speechless and surprised by her own actions. She began feeling doubtful again. What had gotten into her? That did not feel like herself! She felt awful about what she had done, but then Jack said: "Alright, alright you win. I am done for. You... you must be right, yes. Yes, I was working as an intern... in the academy in Edron... yes... Just... tell this Spectulus guy I want to see him. I have nothing left. I am ready."

Hardly trusting her ears, she realised that she had succeeded! She had convinced Jack! Excitedly, she ran all the way back to the ivory towers, proud and happy to be able to bring good news to her friend...

...Her friend, however, was suddenly in a completely different mood. Ruefully, he said: "Good job. Really! Now... the thing is - the actual Jack wrote." Puzzled, Snoopy's jaw dropped. "No, no wait. Calm down first.", Spectulus said. "You remember me explaining the fold in time, causing a tiny disturbance in infinity? Well, as I already told you, Jack was indeed not transported to the future... but to the past. I received some kind of letter this morning that has been stored for me by the Academy for about 70 years now. It said it should be opened at a specific day 20 years ago to prevent this whole incident but I wasn't even at the Academy by that time. Someone just found the letter earlier today and brought it to my attention. So our Jack here was in fact a completely different person."

Dumbfounded, she quietly stared at Spectulus. Guilt crept up on her, thinking about Jack, who had peacefully lived his life. Because of her, he was all in doubt now about his own existence. That must feel awful. She realised that she had manipulated and destroyed a man's life. She had interfered with things that had not been her business at all. She felt awful and was furious at herself, and at the same time at Spectulus, too. She did not want to believe that all this was a mistake. It could not be.
Immediately she felt the need to apologise to Jack. She could hardly handle all the shame she felt. She hoped that he and his family would forgive her. And of course, she also wanted to make up for the destroyed sculpture, that was the least she could do. She asked Spectulus to accompany her to apologise, but he refused. However, he gave her a piece of marble rock to give to Jack as a replacement of the sculpture that was all broken now.

When she came to Jack's house with her shoulders hanging down and tears in her eyes, he and his family listened, believed that her intentions had been good, and accepted her apology in the end. Jack was relieved that his life had not been a lie. He was not even angry about the ruined sculpture anymore. He accepted the fresh piece of marble rock and said that he would enjoy the chance of a fresh start. To Snoopy's luck, he had not been satisfied with his previous work.

So, all this ended well. Pondering the events, however, and remembering the doubts that she had had the entire day, she made a note to herself that in the future, she wanted to trust her own instincts more. Even scientists can be wrong, sometimes. And she will also remember that it is better to stay out of things that are none of your business. So - she decided not to worry any further about the intern that Spectulus had sent to the past. That was his problem to deal with, not hers.