Refund

It all started when he met this man in a pub.

This man was telling him about a special service that was being provided locally. It was all very hush-hush, and he would have to promise not to tell anybody about it. He told him that people could only visit the place by personal invitation. He said the people who ran the business could not afford to have the nature of it become public knowledge. Of course, running it as a business was all highly illegal. Those that knew about the service had all sorts of reasons for using it, some good, some bad. It was known that criminals used it for nefarious reasons, while others simply wanted to experience otherwise out of reach destinations.

He had gone on to explain how it was a method of having customers visit a selected destination, anywhere in the world. He said that for five hundred dollars, provided you had the precise coordinates, you could be relocated to anywhere on the face of the planet for thirty minutes. He told him that it was also important that you were aware of the actual time it would be when you got there. He explained that it was not time travel, but teleportation!

Well, he was certainly interested. He’d always wanted to revisit the small village where he grew up, even if it was for just a few minutes, but had never been able to afford the air fares. So, it was agreed that if they met up again on the following evening, for five-hundred cash he would receive the address. Again, it was stressed that the matter had to remain strictly confidential. He agreed with the terms.

It was the next day, after having done some careful research on the internet about coordinates, time zones and weather forecasts, so that he knew what time he wanted to arrive and how he should be dressed, that he arrived at the address he’d been given. When he got there, he discovered a large ‘For Sale’ sign at the front of the property. The house looked empty, with a lot of weeds growing all around it.

He was both confused and disappointed at the same time.

It just so happened that he met the man again, although it was in an entirely different pub. It was only by sheer dumb luck that, because he just happened to be in the neighbourhood, on the following evening he went for a drink in a different pub, way over on the other end of town. Although somewhat surprised to see him, the man who had sold him the address was very sorry to hear that the providers had gone out of business. He said he had heard rumours during the day that they had to move on, leaving the empty house that had served as a perfect cover for their unique enterprise.

Asking for why they had to go elsewhere, he was told that the machine they used had developed some sort of glitch. Looking around the pub, he dropped his voice. He went on to say that apparently, and he made it very clear that this should not be passed on, the word on the grapevine was that those that had been teleported had stopped coming back!

On the subject of a refund, it was pointed out that the man he gave the money to was gone, along with the machine. He said, if you think about it, he was extremely lucky that it had happened that way.

On reflection, yes, he had to agree.