Frances Doubua's Questionnaire

 SIDE 1

I ended up in Brooklyn, and I don’t know if I’ll ever understand how I got here. One minute, I was alone in my lab, surrounded by the hum of machines and the ticking of time itself 'my' time machine, thinking I could finally fix the world, or at least change my place in it. And then, as if the universe decided I wasn’t worthy of my ambition, the machine malfunctioned. It didn’t just fail, it 'sent me here' to this chaotic mess of concrete, noise, and people I have no desire to understand. 

I’ve been here for weeks, holed up in a shed behind an auto shop, fixing broken parts for a man who barely looks at me twice. The owner lets me stay in exchange for repairs, which is a cruel twist of irony. I was a man who could’ve bent time to my will, but now I’m reduced to fixing a car’s engine. My world has become the mechanic’s pit stop, this rotting city that reminds me every second that I’m stuck, that I failed. I never imagined this would be the result of my work, but here I am,filling the hours with mundane labor as I try, futilely, to make sense of the wreckage I’ve become.

SIDE 2

There’s an anger inside me, but it’s not just toward the machine that failed me, it’s this 'world'. It’s ugly, shallow, and desperate. It moves too fast and too mindlessly. Everyone here is obsessed with 'something', but they don’t even know what that something is. They exist in a rush, always chasing the next fix, the next moment of satisfaction. There’s no deeper thought. It disgusts me. The people, the noise, the greed. I can’t help but look at them and wonder what happened to humanity. What did I miss?

And yet...I can’t deny that there’s a part of me that’s fascinated by it. It’s almost like a sickness. These people have no concept of time, no understanding of what it means to really 'change' the world. And yet, they’ve built this, this cluttered, buzzing monstrosity of a city. I didn’t think I’d be so intrigued by their progress, but I am. They don’t even realize how much they’ve accomplished, how far they’ve come. It’s intoxicating and at the same time, it’s the thing that pushes me deeper into disgust. I want to understand it, but I also want to burn it all down, to start fresh, to fix it. But my time machine is useless. I can’t fix anything anymore. And that’s what truly disgusts me..how impotent I’ve become.

SIDE 3

They keep asking me what I want. What I’m after. As if it’s something simple I can pluck from a shelf and hold up for the world to see. I want to understand time. Truly understand it. Not just equations or flawed theories but the actual force, the pull beneath everything. I want to crack it open and see what makes it tick. I want to make it mine.Not just so I can go back. That would be too small. I want to go *better*. To return not as I was but as I should have been. To fix the cracks. To lay down a path for others like me who never got their moment, who were laughed at, brushed aside, left with nothing but their ideas and empty pockets.Would I kill for that? I don’t know. I’d like to think not. But if someone stood between me and the answer, if they were holding it without understanding what they had, if they mocked it—I think I could.I’ve already risked everything to get here. I nearly died trying. And somehow, I’m still standing. So yes, I’d do it again. A hundred times. This isn’t just about curiosity anymore. It’s about purpose. Without it, I’m nothing.

SIDE 4

I had worked for years on the machine. Version after version, failure after failure, but I kept going. Everyone told me I was mad. That I should give up, get a real job, accept my place. But then it happened. I finished a build that didn’t spark or explode or melt through the floor. It hummed. It 'worked'.  

I didn’t plan to activate it. I only meant to test the containment, measure energy output, run it cold. But the field surged. Lights bent inward. The walls rippled. My ears filled with pressure like a scream held underwater.  

And then....nothing. Then....this.

Brooklyn. 2025. Noise. Color. Heat. A world that moved too fast and thought too little. I fell out of time and landed in a place where no one knew me, where nothing made sense.  

That moment split my life in two. Before it, I was a failure with a vision. After it, I became something else. A man unstuck. A stranger trying to find meaning in a future that feels like someone else’s fever dream.

And still, I can’t help but wonder...did the machine malfunction? Or did it 'work perfectly'?

SIDE 5 

I don’t keep many people close. Never have. But three faces remain with me, some in memory, some in shadow but to remember them.....

 1. Émile Duret  

My mentor. A relic of a man, older than the dust in his library. He was the first to take me seriously, though he never said it aloud. When others dismissed my ideas, Émile gave me a copy of Newton’s *Chronology* with a single note inside: *“Time is not sacred. Only feared.”*  

We argued constantly. He believed time should never be touched. I believed it could be fixed. I don’t know if he’s still alive back home. Sometimes, I imagine he knew this would happen.

 2. Colette 

A watchmaker’s daughter. We met at a mechanics lecture. She was bright, curious, never laughed at my obsessions. We spent two winters walking the Seine, talking about impossible things.  

But she needed certainty, and I could only offer dreams. She left. I can’t blame her. Sometimes, I wonder if she’d even recognize me now.

 3. Armand

My brother. Gone now...tuberculosis, 1816. He was the brave one, always covered in scrapes and bruises from trying to fix things bigger than him. I still hear his voice when I’m on the edge of something dangerous.  

I see him in mirrors, sometimes. Not the real him. The him I remember. Young, reckless, full of belief in me.  

He’s the one I’m closest to, even if only in memory.