I'm getting flashbacks.... and not the Coleman kind

Star date 574.385.

Holy Cow! How could I have forgotten? A whole bunch of stuff happened before this. It all started three weeks ago. I knew I had a feeling something wasn’t kosher—because it wasn’t! Turns out Mahoney’s right about my memory. Here I am bopping along, seeing this chain of events a certain way. But then I just recalled all this other earlier jazz that explains everything! Sorry about that. My mind tends to jump around a bit. Usually it’s from subject to subject. But sometimes it hops around in time. And it can be especially challenging if the time dislocation is fractured, like when part of me ended up in the Bronze Age, and another part in a rerun of She’s the Sheriff. And I’m congratulating these bearded dudes on their spears and helmets, but they just point and say, “Who’s that?” And I say, “She’s the sheriff.” And time’s definitely tricky if you get pulled over by a cop who never studied Einstein. This was years ago, before they wanted to question me for all those, well, you know. Anyway, the officer is writing me a ticket, saying I ran a red light and was speeding. I said, Exactly! That’s why it’s only fair you let me off with a warning. I explained that matter and energy bend the universe, and the closer an object gets to the speed of light, the more time slows down. So by speeding, I was actually trying to obey the law, accelerating in order to stretch out the yellow light. Of course, for it to work, you need to be traveling 186,000 miles a second, and I was driving an old car. Wouldn’t listen. Cost me $200. I digress again. See what I mean? But I think I’ve got this memory glitch ironed out: Everything that’s happened up to now on this trip—let’s call it Part One. And all the crazy stuff I just remembered that went on three weeks before, we’ll call Part Two, which is a superlong flashback that takes place entirely before Part One. Then, when we’re back up to speed, we’ll return to the present in Part Three. Got it? Comprende? . . . Good, because that cop wouldn’t be able to. I’m still pissed. But no sense dwelling on the past. Time’s a-wastin’. Tick-tock, tick-tock . . .