The Proximity Paradox

A Short Story

With the help of the Echo Chamber, ninety-year-old Bill Gutman returns to "the greatest day of his life" - the Polo Grounds, October 3, 1951, the day he witnessed Bobby Thomson's legendary "Shot Heard 'Round the World" as a child, only to find a completely altered, uneventful game where the Giants lose. Confused by his report, the Continuity Office dispatches an agent to investigate and hopefully verify that history is correct. The agent witnesses the game unfold exactly as history recorded. Two outcomes...which is correct? It is ultimately up to the analysts to uncover what becomes a groundbreaking new rule of time travel: a time traveler cannot physically observe an event they originally attended without triggering a reality-altering "proximity penalty" created to protect history's timeline.