Prompt:

To honour our sponsors, you first story has to be a maximum of 1500 words long, and it must feature a newly written book and a character named Pipaluk.

1496*

*

"Why did we meet here? Did something important happen at this place?" I asked as I sat across from Pipaluk in the small bar, a place I would never have entered alone.

"No, nothing historical, but I noticed something strange while organizing the time travels. A completely different kind of vacuum formation, with its endpoint right here."

"And where is the starting point?" I asked as I signaled to the bald waitress, who approached us with a conspicuous smile. "What are you drinking?" I asked Pipaluk.

"Just draft beer, two of them, nothing else," Pipaluk quickly responded, and I couldn't help but notice that he barely looked up, seemingly avoiding eye contact with the waitress.

"What's going on here? Why are you acting so strangely?" I inquired, leaning closer.

"I've been here a few times, and she tried to pick me up each time. I know her whole life story by now—she's a singer with quite a pleasant voice. And I asked for your help because I didn't want to cause any changes here. I chose this table because no one else will sit here all night."

"Ah, I see. So if you're sitting with a woman, she won't try to talk to you?"

"Exactly. And it's not just her; you'll see. It's ten o'clock now, and at exactly 11:23, a strange black orb will appear on the ceiling and silently burst. No one here will notice. What's interesting is that if it's a time travel event, where is the traveler? The trail came from the Gaia-BH3 black hole."

"And what if the traveler disintegrated?"

"I checked with the instruments—no body loss. I'm determining which guests might be connected to this time travel event. You could help by pointing out who you think is suspicious or acting strangely." Pipaluk took a sip of beer and observed the other guests.

"I assume you already have a theory or at least an idea of who might be connected?"

"Well, I started by ruling out those who aren't involved. Number one is the waitress—I've crossed her off the list. Number two, two women will arrive later; they're friends. One is here for a blind date, and the other accompanies her. But the guy never shows up, so I crossed them off because I've already talked to them before—typical story. Then you see that young couple over there? They're number three," he pointed to a tall, sandy-haired girl and the slightly stubbly, bespectacled guy across from her, who was eagerly explaining something to her. "It's pretty clear they're on a date, so I crossed them off too. That leaves three tables. Number four is that larger group of five guys. They might be interested because you can see that basement window above them. It's open, and something pretty bizarre is about to happen."

I followed his gaze and saw someone looking down through the window above the five guys, kneeling to peer at us. "I'm coming down!" the person shouted before turning around and dangling their legs down. The five guys jumped up, screaming for him not to come down, while the waitress also yelled at him not to try it. His friends pulled the person above up while the five guys below pushed his legs up. I admit, the spectacle quite entertained me.

"Two of them will go up, and there'll be a bit of a scuffle," Pipaluk continued. "I've followed them up before, but by 11:23, the whole commotion will be over, and the two guys will come back down with slightly bloody noses but sit right where they were before."

The two guys indeed headed up to the street, and they must have been quite forceful because they managed to pull the intruder up. The waitress brought a long tool to close the window, and everything was back to normal.

"Then, at table five, there are those three guests—the two women and one man," he continued. "And finally, that couple over there at table six. They're the most suspicious right now because they're not focused on each other but seem to be paying attention to everyone else. That's it." He closed his notebook and left it on the table before him.

"Interesting that you've already ruled out three groups when you said that no one seems to notice the black orb when it appears. What if the person connected to it doesn't know what will happen?"

"Time travel as we know it always involves moving a body from one timeline to another. What's happening here is something else. Wonder: Could it be non-physical, like mental or spiritual time travel?"

"Interesting hypothesis, but knowing the starting point will make it easier to figure out what's happening here. But let's try to find out who's connected to it. By the way, I must disagree with you about crossing off three groups already."

"Why not?"

"You know I'm originally Romanian, and there's a famous Romanian writer, Ionesco," I began, but Pipaluk interrupted.

"Oh no, not your old novels again! You know I can't stand them. I only read newly written books."

"Are you still doing that Wattpad thing? But how do you know what to read, or how do you choose? I've tried it several times, but I always get lost and never find anything that interests me."

"I'm currently reading Anna's Secret by @avniy1312. I usually choose based on the topic, and right now, I am in the mood for a mystical thriller. I can't connect with your old books; their language feels too artificial to me, no offense."

"So, mystical? You like mysteries?" I laughed because now I understood Pipaluk was trying to find connections where there seemingly weren't any secrets. "But listen, we got sidetracked. I wanted to mention that this Romanian author has a story called The Bald Soprano." Pipaluk finally started paying attention to me; I saw his eyes widen. "And the point isn't just that there's also a bald singer here, although that's interesting too... But anyway, in this novella, even though the title is The Bald Soprano, it's not about her, and she doesn't even appear in it; she's just mentioned once in a pretty lame joke: 'How's the bald soprano doing?' and the punchline is something like 'I don't know, but she still wears her hair the same way.' Or something like that. And the whole story could be about the most unsuspecting character. The one we wouldn't even think of, so I don't think we should cross anyone off the list. Just keep watching." 

Pipaluk looked at me thoughtfully. "Hmm, it's good I called you; you approach things more theoretically. I believe in numbers, you see—I immediately numbered the characters and already cut half of them out." At that moment, the two women we had discussed earlier walked in. They hesitated at the entrance, looked around, and sat at a table. Then, one got up and moved to the counter to sit beside the waitress.

"In previous cases, she sat here with me," she pointed to the woman who had moved to the counter. "I could never pay attention to what was happening around us; I had to talk to the waitress or her, Sara."

"Maybe you're just too nice... You could have just said you were waiting for someone," I replied.

"That's true, but they might've thought I was the blind date who didn't want to meet her. It is great you are here now; there won't be any distractions, and we can stay unnoticed."

We watched, and honestly, nothing significant or strange happened. But as 11:23 approached, something started to bother me. "This song... it feels like it's already played today, like it's repeating," I said, focusing on the blue and orange jukebox.

"What music?" Pipaluk perked up as if he only just realized there was music playing. The song had just ended, and after a few seconds, it started playing the same track again.

"Do you think that's strange?" Pipaluk asked.

"Considering there's nothing else weird going on here, it's pretty unusual." I stood up to get a closer look at the jukebox. On closer inspection, the sparkling dark blue machine was covered in tiny orange squares, giving me the feeling that it was depicting the surface of an alien planet. But there wasn't much time to dwell on this because Pipaluk grabbed my arm and pointed toward the ceiling, where a black sphere was swirling, occasionally reflecting the colors of the rainbow. Then suddenly, it popped and disappeared, as if it had never been there, just a trick of our eyes. We didn't notice any changes in the behavior of the other guests. "Maybe we should install microphones at their tables and listen to their conversations?" I suggested. And I saw Pipaluk nod enthusiastically. 

"Yes, that's a good idea. If we hear what they're talking about, maybe we can figure out who the time traveler is."

And that was the plan.