Professor Alwin Schuler

You can’t go back. That much is obvious to you. Staring back into your own Portal, you barely feel anything at all. Is that bad? You think about it, and decide it isn’t. You have simply moved on to bigger, better things. Future things. The nineties with all its amenities: posters that move (Televisions? Is that what Paul called them?), coffee machines, the Internet.

Of course, you know not everything will be different. Your travels through time and space have taught you as much: People, as a whole, don’t change. And you still dislike a lot of them. But that just makes the prospect of leaving all the more exciting. It’ll be the same ol’ same ol’ with a twist!

Excited and impatient, you look away from your past and towards your future; towards the nineties; towards Paul, his back turned to you, his gaze …

…staring at the seventies?!

You approach him, incredulous. “Paul, what are you doing? We need to go to the nineties.”

“Ah, Alwin!” He jumps, and turns to face you. “Yes, sorry, I was just… was just…”

Then Paul starts crying, and you freeze. You have no idea what’s causing this, or what to do, or when it will stop. But you know you want it to stop. Now. Right now. /

In a panic, you look this way and that trying to deduce what in the world made Paul erupt like this. But just as he begins a wimpy apology, your lock back onto the portal he was staring at. The seventies…

“Is this because of Nancy?” You ask, testing out your hypothesis.

Paul blinks, surprised. “Uh, yes?”

“Oh…” So you were right. But why would Paul be crying over her leaving? Does he really see this as a loss for him? Because if that is so, you must rectify this wrong! “I never really liked her,” you begin, but Paul’s shocked expression stops you. Perhaps you shouldn’t be so honest. “Although, well…” How to put this kindly? You think. “She was… satisfactory. Just satisfactory. And as an above-average man yourself, Paul, you should pay her no mind. The loss is all hers.”

You see Paul choking up once more, and kick yourself a little for upsetting him further. You are about to apologise, to try some new consolation, when he speaks thus:

“…Alwin, how the hell did you just become my best friend?”

“Wait, I did what?”

Paul’s answer comes in the form of a bear hug, one you can barely reciprocate due to sheer shock. Did Paul just call you his best friend? But that is above average!

Have I ever had an above average friend before?

…

Forget that. Have I ever had a friend before?!

“C’mon man,” Paul says, breaking the hug and patting you on the back instead. “You’re going to love the nineties. We’ve got microwave ovens, and Friends, and democracy…”

Together, you step through the portal, arm in arm with your best friend.

---

If you were to face the misfortune of using Alwin Schuler’s new laptop (a Toshiba Satellite 4000) to search the World Wide Web, you would likely take some level of psychic damage due to the sheer number of tabs the man keeps open at any given time. To look through every one of them would take months – perhaps years! – of work. However, as to satiate your undoubtable curiosity, here is a small selection.