Dr. James Anderson woke up in his office and climbed out of bed. It 
was a sunny Sunday midnight and lunch break was over - time to 
get back to work and think about his entry in the writing contest he'd 
be hearing about next week. Outside his door, he heard the sound 
of a gong - the office courier was here. 


He opened the door and shivered as the cold winter air hit him. "L-I- 
l-letter for you, sir," said the Hawaiian-shirt-wearing courier as he 
handed him an envelope. Anderson smiled, tipped the boy six 
shillings and thruppence, and sent him on his way. Closing the door, 


he sat back down in front of his typewriter and opened the envelope 
to find a single page, written in what appeared to be human blood; 


We were fools to try and play with history. Millions and millions of 
paradoxes colliding with one another. Now it's all broken. Space and 
time are meaningless. It's just us, millions of Andersons alone in the 
empty desert below a sunless sky. He looks down on us, the great 
gray-faced god where the Sun should be, and His gaze burns our 
flesh. He sees us now. HIDE THE NUCLEAR LAUNCH CODES IN 
THE CREDENZA SO! CAN KILL HIM! IT'S NOT WORKING! HE'S 
IMMUNE! THERE IS NO HOPE FOR SALVA 


Anderson yawned as his alarm clock went off - 37:65 on Marsday, 
Quatuordecimber 72nd. Time for work. He laid the letter down on his 
desk and started typing out a copy of it to submit for the writing 
contest he'd be hearing about next week. 


Skipping Time 


"So, before we start, can | please have your name?" 


The still, pale man seated before me paused to take a breath, and 
slowly moved his eyes towards me. His eyes were slower now, and 
I'd been told he assured staff he expected them to stop in place any 
day now. They were some of the last moving pieces he had, and 
you could almost hear them scraping with every glance he took. 


"Chetford, Robert." 


Robert's voice was almost as dry as the materials he believed to 
have overtaken his frame. The stillness of his posture was almost 
more unnatural than the oddness of his movement. It was like a 
sculpture, coming to life to give a brief snippet of conversation. 
Which | suppose he was, in his own way. | cleared my throat. 


"What can you tell me about your condition?" 


He pursed his lips momentarily. "Well... it was two years after 
Wilson came into office, nineteen-fifteen. | remember it because | 
was helping campaign for him, down in Norwich. It was a tough spot 
to be campaigning, and | was out all hours of the day. | was active in 
those days, although of course that was a long time ago..." 


He was siill. 
"So, how did this relate to your condition?" 


"In a moment, please. I'm attempting to get there, by memory. Your 
head isn't as full as mine is, so give me a few minutes to recall 
exactly the day it occurred." 


His eyes left me, and gazed out the window. 


"It was a Tuesday. I'd been working in the church that day, when | 
met him. He was a queer-looking fellow, about your height. | asked 


him what he was doing, and he told me to mind my own business. 
We had a few... words, that aren't to be shared in polite company. | 
was a hothead then, you see, didn't wait for anything. After we'd 
been at it for a few minutes, he pulled out his pocketwatch, and 
asked me for the time." 


| raised a brow. "He asked you?" 


If Robert could nod, I'm sure he would've. "He asked me for the 
time, and told me | needed to wait a little more. Of course, | didn't 
know what he meant then, thought he was making fun of me. But, 
then he went onto the curse. Told me that I'd done too many quick 
things, and it'd hurt some friends of his in town. Said someone had 
to answer for it, and it might as well be me. So, the curse." 


This is what | had come to hear about. "The curse?" 


Robert's eyes came back to me. "That's how | came to be in my 
condition. On that Tuesday, in nineteen-fifteen, that's where | am. Or 
at least some of me. Parts of my eyes and lips are still in the 
present, aging like a hundred-year-old should. But my mind, my 
heart, the insides... stuck like concrete back in that time. Still waiting 
for me to learn some patience. That's what | told them, in the 
asylum. Took them a while to believe me." 


Before | could respond, he went on. 


"| sometimes like to think... that maybe, when it's all done, | can look 
out my window one more time, before these old eyes finally dry and 
set like the rest of me. Maybe when the last words leave my lips, I'll 
be concrete all over, and break away like | should've done fifty years 
ago. If | wait long enough, and see." 


Once more, his eyes swiveled away from me. 
"Goodbye, friend. | hope time is more kind to you, than it has been 


to me." 


Seated before me was a pale, boney, wasted husk of what might 
once have been a young woman. At one point her hair might've 


been a dirty blond, but it was almost gray now, with some flecks of 
color scattered through the wiry mess intermittently. She had tough, 
bony arms resting on the table, which had similarly skeletal hands at 
the end. A black cloth was wrapped tightly around her eyes. | sat 
down in front of her, and quietly went over my notes. 


"It's rotten." 
| looked up. "Beg your pardon?" 


"The black. It's rotted off." She drummed her fingers on the table. "I 
can see through it, to the wall." 


In a very deliberate way, she began grasping at something only she 
could see, in a sort of slow, jerky and methodical picking of 
nothingness. It was an odd sight, seeing such precise movements 
done for nothing. 


"Miss... can you hear me?" 
She started. "Oh, yes, sorry sorry sorry." 


| coughed, and looked back down to my notes. "So, uh, hello. My 
name is Stanley, and | have a few questions for you." 


Her shoulders shuddered, then hunched close together, almost 
appearing to fold in on themselves. She threw her head up, and 
stared at the ceiling. 


"Can't tell you much. They don't let me see, like we used to." 


"Well..." | said, tapping my pencil on the desk. "When did you first 
start... seeing?" 


She stiffened, and turned to me again. "... Ten. | was ten years old. 
That was the first time | saw it. When the flower was there, and it 
was wilted. | was fine. | might've seen two but it was okay. Then | 
woke up and mother was broken and calling me for breakfast but 
her face was gone she was hanging and splitting and it was wrong. 
She was such a nice lady. She made me pancakes every morning. 
She's dead now." 


She tapped her fingers more quickly. 
"Now... we don't need to talk about that..." 


"It got worse, after that. | couldn't go outside, or talk to my friends. If 
someone took me into town, all | could see was the rotting shit in the 
windows and broken toys in the shops. Not all of it, at first, but then 
there was so much and it was so... just, everywhere. | couldn't take 
it. That was the first time | lost my mind. Left it somewhere behind." 


| blinked a few times. "Well-" 

"They're going to take you now. We don't talk anymore." 

| waited, for a moment. Nothing happened. 

"There's not anyone coming?" 

She shrugged. "I'm sorry. | just... that usually makes people go." 
"You don't like talking to me?" 


She tilted her head down. "... | don't. You're just another one of the 
endless parade of people, trying to talk to me. Get me to talk to 
them, about the future or something. Sometimes | can see them, 
and | don't like that. But you already knew that. You know 
everything. You read my file, saw what they do. Saw the pills, and 
the pictures of me when | can't control. Why are you even here?" 


| paused. "I just wanted to know about you. Reading a file isn't like 
talking to a person." 


She sighed. "If | look at you, will you leave me alone?" 
| shrugged. "I can't promise for the rest of them, but I'll be satisfied." 


Without further hesitation, she slipped her blindfold off, and we 
stared eye to eye. They looked much younger than the rest of her, 
two sharp blue orbs not wrinkled or dulled in the slightest. 


"Your hair's cut... and your eye's black." 


| brushed my hand over my head. "So, you can handle it better, 
now?" 


She nodded. "It's easier... here. | hate them, but they keep it from 
overwhelming me. | can't take my eyes out, and if | went outside... | 
wouldn't be able to handle it. Even if | just went outside, I'd be 
broken by the rotting trees and broken animals. You ever see a 
roadkill deer?" 


"Yes..." 
"I've only seen roadkilled deer." 
| paused. "I'm sorry." 


"Not your fault. It's just life, seen? We have to have something bad 
happen to us. Just when the luck fairy was going around, she 
skimped on me." 


"Alright... thank you for your perspective, Miss..." 
"Just say one-eighty-seven. | get in trouble unless you do." 


"Alright, then..." | stood there awkwardly, for a moment, before 
gathering my papers and heading to the door. 


"Mister Gillespie?" 
| turned from the door. "Yeah?" 


"Keep an ice pack handy, okay? 


| feel sort of odd, conducting an interview like this in a public place. 
Or at least, as public as the Foundation lets it be. We're in a public 
park, with a tarp over the whole pavilion with the statue. Signs say 
that there's some indefinite construction going on. I'm told the locals 
don't complain much, even though they've been at it for what, 
something like twenty years? Guess we have some kind of 
pacification method, or something. 


| see the guy, or statue, or whatever you want to call him, he's up on 


his pedestal. I'm told he likes to stand up there, on his own. They've 
set up the interview table right in front of him, so | sit down, and pull 
out my pencil. 


"Can you hear me?" 


He nods. It's odd to see such smooth motion from someone literally 
made of concrete, especially after seeing how Robert moved. | 
thought he'd have some of the same, jerky motions, but it's smooth 
as butter. 


"Alright, can you tell me your name?" 


"Private Chester Smith, 17th Regiment Kentucky Volunteer Cavalry, 
at your service." 


"Is that the person you represent, or is that who you are?" 


For a moment, he pauses. "I would like to believe... that it is who | 
am. There are no black places, or missing pieces in my mind. | can 
remember it in continuous ways, if that makes sense." 


| begin writing. "So, you think you're the same person that you were, 
ah, designed to represent." 


Chester slowly nods. "That is what | believe is the case, yes." 
"So, what's the earliest memory you have?" 


Looking down to me, he begins to stroke his chin. | can hear the 
stone grinding. 


"Well... | know who | was, before the war. Born here, but | served in 
Kentucky. Went there to get out of the fighting... but it went and 
followed me from my front porch, to my farm. Don't remember much, 
besides my mother and father. | joined up in April, 1864. | got to live 
in hellish barracks for months, training with the most damned son-of- 
a-bitch officers this side of the Mississippi. And for what? | got to be 
the first casualty in my regiment." 


The grinding intensifies. "| used to be bitter, but... not worth being 
mad, when the poor bastard who shot me got hisself killed 


sometime. All of his friends, too." 


He chuckles a little, deep from his hollow stone body. "Sorry, | 
occasionally become slightly morbid about these matters." 


| try to laugh with him, keep things casual. "| understand, friend. 
What happened after that?" 


"It was dark, for quite some time. Stiff, too. It was very 
uncomfortable, to feel myself falling away... from myself. It was a 
confusing feeling, being so stiff, and yet so loose. Thankfully, it only 
took about a hundred years for some nice young men to make me 
this statue, which | now inhabit." 


Before | can say another word, he chuckles. 


"| got to go from being rotted and stiff and on my back below the 
earth, to being above it, but in the same state." 


"So... when did you get to be... like this?" 


Chester kneels down before me, and gestures for me to come 
closer. | get up, and walk over, leaning my ear to his mouth. 


"It was... the birds. They... landed on me, and... | am certain you 
know what would come next." 


| nod. "| get the picture." 


He continued. "| would take my rifle, and try to shoot them... that 
was how | found out | had a rifle. After that, | started to take a look at 
what had become of the world around me, and... well, | tried to 
focus on the birds. If it hadn't been for my friends here, | may have 
caused much more trouble than | already have." 


| check my notes, although | already know what I'm going to say. "It 
says here, that when the Foundation handed off containment, you... 
met someone?" 


He instantly frowns, gripping his rifle. "| don't think that's what you 
came here about, is it?” 


"Well, it's part of your history here, isn't it?" 


Chester frowned at me, and at my present spot, right near his face | 
could see every crack and imperfection on his stone face. "| would 
really rather we not pursue this avenue of conversation." 


| tried to put on a pleading expression. "Are you certain? Knowing 
how things changed with knowing a new person, it would really 
help-" 


The next thing | knew, | was flat on my back, with chipped stone and 
swelling pain in my right eye. The interview was over. 


It feels slightly odd, to be conducting an interview in a notebook. 
They gave me a pencil, sharpened with a nice, pink eraser and sent 
me in. The journal itself is a leather one, with ancient pages | 
thought would crumble to dust the moment | touched them. But, it 
stayed whole. On the first page, there were three words written in 
fancy, cursive script. 


Fred says hello. 


| wrote in blocky script. It was embarrassing, compared to the 
curvature above it. 


Do you have to talk in third person? 


After a moment, the writing appeared on the page itself. The letters 
didn't fade in, but seemed to be written from another side, and 
written backwards from their perspective. 


Nah, sometimes | just like to have fun. Y'know? | don't get to talk to 
folks every day. 


| paused. Do you write backwards so other people can read what 
you are doing? 


In a quick, scribbled pace, less neat now, he replied / was about to 
ask you the same thing. 


| take it you get these questions a lot 


Dr.B :Can you please identify yourself? 


SCP-744-1: I'm __, the production manager. I'm having a 
hell of a time, | can't find one of my so called "workers" to 
help me finish this thing. 


Dr. B_ : Finish...what? 


SCP-744-1: None of your damn business what, what you 
should know is that it must be done, and we have to get 
it done soon to meet the production schedule. 


Dr.B : 1 see... 
SCP-744-1: So are you gonna get to work, or what? 
Dr.B_ : Beg your pardon? 


SCP-744-1: These machines ain't gonna fix themselves, 
son. You have to get to work! 


<End Log> 

+ Show Interview 744-B 
Interview 744-1-B 
Interviewed: SCP-744-1 
Interviewer: Dr. B 


Foreword: This interview was taken several months 
after Interview 744-A 


<Begin Log> 
Dr.B_ : Hello SCP-744-1, how are you today? 


SCP-744-1: Fine, fine, when are you bastards going to 
get to work? It's been months, and you barely made a 
dent in this place. 


Dr. B_: Your facility is very degraded, and you have 


Well, when you're around long enough, you hear the standard 
gamut one too many times and it gets pretty boring. Even if | do 
have my stories. 


| checked my watch, waiting for thirty seconds to pass. 
How long has it been since you wrote that reply? 


A quick, jotted answer. Depends, are you the same guy | just got to 
talk to? 


lam 
Then beats me, doc. You're the guys who keep track of that stuff. 
How does time pass in your books? 


This time, the reply is longer, and written slowly. | like to believe that 
it made him think.