Proceedings from the First and Only Sixteenth Annual One-Woman Symposium on Time Manipulation
Hello, and welcome once again to the first and only sixteenth annual one-woman symposium on time manipulation. This year’s theme is “Collapsing Space; Expanding Time.” Our speakers, as we all know, are Dr. Mirai Keiko (iterations 1 through 16).
All presentations are to have been held in the hotel’s ballroom earlier this morning from 9:00am to 9:55am. If you are unfamiliar with the theory of simultaneous time-space n-breaks we ask that you attend the pre-symposium workshop delivered by Dr. Mirai Keiko (iteration 16) from 7pm to 10pm tomorrow evening at the excellent sushi bar across the street (saké is on us). We especially encourage those of us who are earlier iterations to attend.
Recordings of each presentation have been made available on the symposium website along with this message. Please do not view the recording for your own presentation until after you have delivered it—pre-cognitive fugue states don’t help anybody.
We thank you for your careful attention to these instructions, and look forward to having already seen how we will all work together to advance the research and practice of time manipulation.
Dr. Mirai Keiko (iteration 9), chair
Dr. Mirai Keiko (iteration 13), vice chair
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Session Title: “As I Was Already About to Will Have Just Finished Starting to Be Saying…”: Conjugation and Simultaneous Time-Space N-breaks
Presenter(s): Mirai, Keiko (iteration 13)
Abstract: As Adams & Streetmentioner (1980) make clear, verb tenses during time travel can be confusing. Time-space n-breaks exacerbate the problem by at least a factor of twenty, as one must discuss not only what is/has/will (be/have been) happen(ed/ing), but what is/has/will not (be/have been) happen(ed/ing) in other iterations of the same time-space locale. Despite this, I argue that the use of simple present is best in most cases, for obvious reasons.
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Session Title: “How Many Time Manipulationists Does it Take to Change a Light Bulb?” and Other Questions of Quantity
Presenter(s): Mirai, Keiko (iteration 7) & Mirai, Keiko (iteration 12)
Abstract: We present a new model hypothesizing that, despite the arguments of Mirai & Mirai, the maximum possible number of simultaneous n-breaks before time-space ceases to cohere can be no greater than 12. We also present a new model hypothesizing that, despite the arguments of Mirai & Mirai, the maximum possible number of simultaneous n-breaks before time-space ceases to cohere can be no greater than 15.
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Session Title: What Happens When There Is No ‘When’? Theoretical Consequences of Stretching Time-Space to Breaking Point
Presenter(s): Mirai, Keiko (iteration 8); Mirai, Keiko (iteration 10); & Mirai, Keiko (iteration 11)
Abstract: We present some consequences of having too many simultaneous n-breaks in time-space. Amongst these are: recurrence, perpetual superposition, recurrence, cause ceasing to follow effect, recurrence, Ovidian transmogrification, and recurrence. In some rare cases, effect may cease to follow cause instead, and events may recur.
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Session Title: Towards a Novel Approach for Penetrating the N-break Barrier
Presenter(s): Mirai, Keiko (iteration 4) & Mirai, Keiko (iteration 2)
Abstract: We posit that mirrors, when placed in strategic locations around the area used for time manipulation, can increase the possible number of simultaneous n-breaks indefinitely without danger. We prove our findings by reconfiguring the ballroom to hold an infinite number of iterations.
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Session Title: If You Are Reading This You Must Get Help: Consequences of Stretching Time-Space to Breaking Point
Presenter(s): Mirai, Keiko (iteration 14); Mirai, Keiko (iteration 6); Mirai, Keiko (iteration 15); Mirai, Keiko (iteration 4); & Mirai, Keiko (iteration 16)
Abstract: This study explores the conclusions of Mirai, Mirai, & Mirai in greater depth by if we have succeeded you will find this message in the proceedings please help us we no longer know who we are or where we are or; rather, we posit that superposition is by far the most likely consequence compared to Ovidian transmogrification and if we are us or me and me and me and me and me in endless combinations fighting for control mirror-related trickery of Mirai & Mirai. Such tricks risk of a body that none of us owns this endless pain this limitless confusion if you do not stop it it will spread and spread and spread oh please if you are there if anybody is there please help us our only chance is if you can [abstract truncated: exceeds maximum length]
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Session Title: The Mirai Effect: Limitless Iterations in a Compact Space.
Presenter(s): Mirai, Keiko (iteration 5); Mirai, Keiko (iteration 5); Mirai, Keiko (iteration 5); Mirai, Keiko (iteration 5); Mirai, Keiko (iteration 5); & Mirai, Keiko (iteration 5)
Abstract: No abstract is available for this paper. Video footage shows six hundred years’ worth of otherworldly screaming condensed into fifty-five minutes, while flickering abominations dance around/through/inside an impossibly large stone obelisk. The final five minutes of footage do not show the conference room, but a montage of beach scenes, the tides rising and falling in cadence with the fervor of the screams as inexplicable shapes swim through the shallows.
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Session Title: The Effect of Pre-Cognitive Fugue State Hangovers on Time Manipulation
Presenter(s): Mirai, Keiko
Abstract: No abstract is available for this presentation. Video footage shows Dr. Mirai stumbling into the deserted ballroom five minutes late, downing two aspirin with a bottle of water. She taps on a tablet, then appears to watch something on it. “What am I just about to will have been already said?” she mutters. “That doesn’t make sense.” She shakes her head and pinches the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger, then looks around the room, apparently just noticing that it is empty. Something that she sees outside the camera’s field of vision surprises her, and she jumps backward, cracking the mirror. There is a flash, and the remainder of the footage shows only the ballroom, devoid of light and life save a softly flickering glimmer in the broken mirror behind the podium. From somewhere far away comes the cry of a solitary loon, the rustling and flapping of wings.
Previously published in Chappy Fiction’s Time Travel Tales, December 2016. Reprinted here by permission of the author.