/u/PlanetElka

1

Martin Abbot was walking back from the psychiatrist when the man fell from the sky. He landed right next to the oddly organized shoe shiners' stand, but they didn't see him because they had to: one, pay attention to dodging shoes, a result of having each shiner stacked on top of each other creating a hierarchy, and two being that they couldn't see the man at all.

It's not like Martin him self was surprised either. This was precisely the sort of reason he was going to the psychiatrist. He just kept walking, went home, sat down, had a container of yogurt, and went to bed.

Very not coincidentally, in fact completely unrelated, in an alternate universe, gravity worked backwards, thus, the hierarchy of the shoe stand was reversed, which had a butterfly effect and caused Martin to fall of a cliff chasing his pet lemur.

All alternate universes aside, when Martin woke up the very first thing he noticed was that he had slept with a yogurt-mustache on his face and that there was a fly buzzing around his head. His watch said it was Thursday, but he was very sure that it was Saturday. I would like it to be saturday, he thought, so damn it, I might as well act like it is.

Martin had been fired from several jobs just because of that thought. Many times he was in a coffee shop when he would get an angry call from his manager asking him, “Blimey, Martin! Where the heck are ye?”
Later at a coffee shop, Martin got a call.

About 35,000 feet directly above the coffee shop where Martin was, Amias Hem, a tall, lean man with a dark hair, was having some difficulty getting his Pan-Craft to land in the proper spot that he wanted. He had bought it used, and it hadn't come with the instructions. The dealer on the moon off of Tarlus had told him that it only had about 4.2 million miles on it so far, but Amias had already had to pay over 20,000 Sencas to fix the particle accelerator, replace the Hyper-Drive emitter, and re-wire the computer. He had tried contacting customer service on how to operate the thing but ended up with a wait time of  182,176,275,265 years. The robots were a disaster too: they had been designed to seem exactly like people, but unfortunately the prototype versions, like Amias had, had a dysfunctional emotional diodes, getting very sad or angry at really anything. The salesman said that some of the robots had throttled people to death in a fit, which was one of the reasons why it was at such a low price.
Amias walked over to the main panel and opened up the holo. There were several immediately visible buttons, so he pushed the one that looked like a target, then it asked him which area to pinpoint, and he dropped in right in a field of cows, so nobody would see where he landed. As he wondered why the button said, “Launch,” instead of, “Land,” he pressed it and promptly killed several cows. I could have guessed that, he thought, as he went and pressed the button that looked like a half circle attached to a triangle, and at the point of the triangle what either could be a craft or a person lying flat. Assuming that it was the first, he pressed it.
One thing on the topic of accidental skydiving: it is terrifying, especially when you have absolutely no parachute. Amais Hem was currently terrified, with no parachute. He flailed in the air, trying to grasp nothing but air as he slowly asphyxiated in the high altitude. I'm going to die, he thought, I'm going to die because of that stupid craft salesman on the moon off of Tarlus. He didn't even tell me his name. Jerk.

Martin stepped out of the coffee shop, his coffee and biscotti ruined by an angry Irish man over the phone. He walked past the library and post office, past Greg's house, and up to his psychiatrist so he could pay him, as he didn't have the money on him yesterday. Martin stepped out of the psychiatrist  office after a minute and went on his way. He was heading back up the hill to his house when another man fell from the sky.

2

He knew that the man was real this time because he landed on Martin's head, and because the hierarchy of the shoe shiners' stand had been dropped and they were now watching the man fall.
The only reason Amias survived was that his grandfather had once fallen out of a Atmo-craft and lived, going on to tell everybody at every family reunion how to survive a fall from a craft, and also he had landed on something soft, e.g., one Martin Abbot, and the only reason Martin survived was well, luck. In fact, he was so ridiculously lucky that, had he realized how lucky he was, he really would have just considered himself dead.
Of course, the landing was exactly not smooth as mahogany, give or take some knots in the wood. They lay there, unconscious, on the ground, stared at with gaping eyes from everyone around. One of the shoe shiners fainted and fell face first into a small tin of something. Finally, one of the other shiners decided that it might be a good idea to call 911.

Amias was the first to wake up. The first thing he thought was that he had a yogurt goatee and a bumble-bee buzzing around his head. Batting it away, he sat up and discovered that was dead—or in fact, supposed to be dead, for he was very clearly alive, but somebody had decided to put him in the morgue. He took another look around and discovered that there was a man next to him, with his watch that read Saturday although Amias was fairly sure it was Thursday. He tried to swing out of the rack and onto the floor, but when he hit the floor, he crumpled into a heap and groaned in pain. He finally managed to assess that he had broken both of his legs, cracked his humerus in his left arm, and snapped three ribs. He lay on the floor for a bit, until he heard a yelp. The man with the watch was evidently alive too. An interesting coincidence, Amias thought, as he wiped away his yogurt goatee with his  good hand. Suddenly, the man muttered to himself.
“God, I feel like I just fell from the moon. I'm supposed to be dead, I guess.”
Deciding to take friendly action, Amias replied.
“Actually, that is rather true, at least in my case.”
Evidently there is something very startling about my voice, Amias thought, and indeed there was, because the man yelled, “The hell?” and tried to roll over to see where the voice had come from. This half worked, and as Martin Abbot fell off his rack and onto the floor, Amias rolled out of his way and bumped into something. As Martin screamed in pain from his landing, Amias looked up  to see what he had rolled into and saw that there was another not-so-dead-cadaver with them, who also realized the same of himself, with a look—which Amias did not have—of considerable surprise on his face. The other man had the luck to have found crutches, and had been on his way out the door until the current events had risen. Martin glanced up and saw the man and Amias. Now in possession of the face that the man with the crutches had but Amias still lacked, Martin began to try to piece things together.   Finally, the man with the crutches spoke, “Are we all supposed to be dead?”
“I am fairly sure of that, yes” said Amias, still unfazed by their predicament.
“Well then, this is interesting. My name is Jeremy, if that makes puts any sense in our situation,” the man named Jeremy said.
“Yes, rather intriguing I would say. I fell from my Pan-Craft and am fairly sure I landed on this good fellow's head, and the name would be Amias,” gestured Amias to Martin.
“ 'Rather intriguing!' 'Rather intriguing?' What world do you live in?” exclaimed Martin. “And what is a Pan-Craft, anyway?”
“I'm sorry for falling on your head, Mister, ah—”
“Martin. Martin Abbot,” Martin supplied.
“Martin. Yes. I'm sorry for falling on your head Martin, but really, all of that can be blamed on a craft salesman on the moon off of Tarlus,” Amias said.
Martin and Jeremy looked at each other with faces that both read,“I'm not gonna deal with the crazy guy.”
“Sir, Amias, I am fairly sure that you have fallen out of a plane in some freak accident, and you may need some correctional help because of the impact,” Jeremy said.
“No, no, no. I can prove that what I say is true. If you come with me,” Amias replied.
“What, to a psych house?`” Martin retorted.
“No, on my Pan-Craft. Mankind is so stupid. Did you really think you where the only life in the universe?” said Amias defensively.
“Oh, that's a load of crap. If you were an alien, why would you look like us humans? Why would you wear normal human clothes? Why even speak our language?” Jeremy asked.
“Actually, you look like aliens, but yes, I see your point about the clothes. You see, pretty much the entire galaxy is at a way higher level of technology than you are, but Orion Industries figured out that a set of jeans and a turtleneck shirt is one of the highest levels of technology anyone has ever developed. In terms of why I look like you, about 8 million years in the future, Orion Industries had the idea to send life back—Well, hold on. Let this thing explain,” said Amias, who then pressed something on his seemingly-normal wristband. It slid off his wrist and turned into a small tablet. He pressed a couple more things with his good hand, then finally handed it to Jeremy who hobbled over to Martin so he could see. Amias said, “Play the demo, George,” and the scene began.
“Life, as we know it, would not be around if it were not for the people 8.3 million years in the future at Orion Industries. At least, that is that is what the people at Orion Industries would like us to think. It is very possible that we would still be here if they hadn't done anything, but nobody wants to try to prove otherwise.
“8.3 million years in the future, the people at Orion Industries suddenly will get very paranoid that all life will cease to exist for unknown reasons. To combat this, they will send small bacteria back in time that will eventually grow into what life is today. This will be cause for why pretty much all life that are not plants look the same.
“This will also cause much speculation on how life even exists, being that life had to send itself back in time in order to have life be created. There is also much speculation on how we know any of this, some say because it really did happen and that we are all the great, great, great and so on grandfathers or mothers of ourselves. The entire theory has and will create cults that eventually will cause, in about 267 million years, the sudden death of all of employees of Orion Industries after the people of the cult Wordsworth shot the employee's great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great grandparents or possibly grandchildren, ultimately leading to the one largest time-dimensional massacres ever.”