Dr. Zhang Has A Good Time

"Ahh," said Dr. Zhang, powering off his mac-book. "I have completed all the myriad tasks set before me, despite the damnable interference of that meddling Nikolas. Now I can enjoy a sound night's sleep - the sleep of the innocent!"

With a pleasant smile on his face, Dr. Zhang drifted off to sleep. But he was not so happy when he awoke!

"Where am I?" he asked, looking this way and that way, groggy and startled. "What has happened? Where is my bed? Where is my room? Why is the sun so large and red in the sky?"

"Ah!" he cried. "I have slept long - far too long! Five billion years (short scale) have passed, and the sun has expanded into a red giant! All that I knew and love is vanished, dust and ashes in the wind!"

Dr. Zhang stood, and began to pace.

"I am a doctor, and a genius of unparalled scope," Dr. Zhang said to himself. "Certainly if this were any ordinary situation I would be able to solve my troubles with ease. But it is not - the only solution here seems to be the creation of a time-machine, to transport me back to before I slept. But - time travel is impossible! And can even I, Dr. Zhang, declared a Knight of the Order of the British Empire by the Queen herself - do the impossible?"

Dr. Zhang thought.

"Well, no," he said. "I can't do the impossible. No-one can. That's why it's impossible."

"But - " he added, quickly - "There may be a better way..."

Dr. Zhang made preparations. A great ship took shape - an ark, many cubits wide and long, built to carry Dr. Zhang into the distant future!

"As sleep carried me into this dismal time," Dr. Zhang said, "So will it carry me out. I will sleep until the end of all things, and die as the Universe itself does - and, when a new Universe is reborn, I will change its beginning, its seed, such that I avoid that dreadful ruse of Nikolas which is certainly responsible for my predicaiment! Then victory will be mine!"

"And," Dr. Zhang added, being somewhat hungry, "I will take this potato chip, which has survived in my clothes for five billion years... and eat it!"

"Wait, maybe that was a bad idea," Mr. Zhang added, feeling nausea churn in his stomach. "Best to enter the preservation pod."

Dr. Zhang strapped himself in. Minutes flew by - years - millenia - geologic eons! Planets fell to dust - protons decayed! The Universe came to an end!

THE END