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                   SOMETHING FROM NOTHING
                        Short Story

                   by Julio Lonnie Lopez
                            2026
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The elevator that only exists on Tuesdays deposited Tom Chen
on the eighth floor of the Warren Building on Thursday
morning, which might explain why his stomach felt like it
was still waiting for the elevator to start moving. He
straightened his tie, checked his shoes (which according to
his sister who works in fashion, wouldn’t be in style
until next June), and walked through the frosted glass doors
of the Department of Paradoxical Procurement.

The office existed in what the employee handbook called “a
convenient corner slightly adjacent to actual spacetime.”
The walls had a way of being exactly where they were
supposed to be, just slightly before or after they were
actually there. The water cooler bubbled with tomorrow’s
water, and the potted plants photosynthesized sunlight that
wouldn’t arrive until next week.

“You’re late,” said Ms. Martinez, appearing suddenly
beside his desk — a desk that was somehow already
decorated with his family photos, including one from a
vacation he hadn’t taken yet. She was a small woman with
steel-gray hair and eyes that seemed to look at next week
and last Tuesday simultaneously. “But also early, so it
balances out.”

“I’m sorry,” Tom began, then stopped, noticing that
his computer monitor was displaying an email he was
apparently going to write apologizing for being late. “I
mean, I will be sorry?”

Ms. Martinez waved away his confusion with the practiced
gesture of someone who dealt with causality issues the way
other managers dealt with printer jams. “First day jitters
are perfectly normal, even after you’ve been working here
for years.” She handed him a stack of papers. “Here’s
your orientation paperwork. You’ll need to fill it out
tomorrow before you submitted it this morning.”

Tom stared at the forms, which were already filled out in
his handwriting. At the top, in bold letters, he read the
department motto: “A paradox must be complete to be
completed.”

“I don’t understand,” he admitted, then noticed he was
reading from a script on his desk labeled ‘First Day
Dialogue (To Be Performed After Memorization).’

“That’s the perfect attitude,” Ms. Martinez beamed.
“Understanding things too early ruins the paradox. Now,
your first assignment is to create something we need but
doesn’t exist yet. Something simple to start with.” She
pointed to an empty space on his desk. “Like that coffee
mug.”

“What coffee mug?”

“Exactly.” She handed him Form P-40X: Application for
Paradox Creation. “The one you’re going to make exist
because we need it to exist because it already existed. The
design was inspired by the coffee it will contain, which can
only be properly served in itself.”

Tom looked at the form, which he apparently had already
filled out, except for the parts he hadn’t gotten to yet,
which were also completed. In the margin, he noticed his own
handwriting: “Don’t worry, you’ll understand this
after you’ve always known it.”

He sat at his desk that was simultaneously new and familiar,
trying to make sense of paperwork that was somehow both
finished and waiting to be started. Through the office
window, he could see the city skyline shifting between what
it looked like yesterday and what it might be next week, the
buildings existing in a gentle quantum flux that made his
eyes water if he looked too long.

“Oh,” Ms. Martinez added, pausing at his door, “and
don’t forget to attend yesterday’s safety training.
You’ll need it for what just happened.”

Tom nodded, then opened his desk drawer to find a band-aid
and a note in his handwriting: “Paper cut from the form
you haven’t filled out yet. Don’t worry, it already
healed last week.”

                           * * *

The coffee mug problem seemed like a good place to start.
Tom studied Form P-40X, trying to make sense of fields like
“Pre-existence Justification” and “Temporal Origin
(If/When Applicable).” The form somehow contained both
blank spaces and his completed answers, existing in a state
of bureaucratic superposition.

A paper airplane landed on his desk, unfolded itself, and
revealed a note from someone named Janet in Temporal
Processing: “That coffee mug you’re about to create?
It’s been holding my pencils for the past week. Thanks!”

“But I haven’t—” Tom started to say.

“Section 4, Paragraph 3,” called out the man in the
cubicle next to him, whom Tom hadn’t met yet but
apparently would have known for years. “Always check the
downstream effects before creating the upstream cause.”

Tom flipped to Section 4, Paragraph 3 of the manual on his
desk. The pages rearranged themselves as he searched, like
they were still deciding what order they should be in. He
found the paragraph: “When creating something from
nothing, ensure that its future existence hasn’t already
created dependencies in the present. Cross-reference Form
T-∞ (Temporal Causality Waiver) if object has previously
succeeded in existing before being created.”

“I think I need coffee to understand this,” Tom
muttered.

“You can’t have coffee yet,” said Ms. Martinez,
reappearing with a stack of additional forms. “You
haven’t created the mug that’s necessary for brewing the
specific coffee that will inspire you to design the mug
that’s necessary for brewing the coffee.” She paused.
“Maybe start with the handle? That’s usually the easiest
part of a paradox to grip.”

A young woman with a nameplate that kept switching between
‘Rebecca’ and ‘Not Rebecca Yet’ leaned against his
cubicle. “Having trouble? First paradox is always the
hardest. Like trying to remember something that hasn’t
happened yet.”

“I don’t even know where to start,” Tom admitted.

“That’s because you’re thinking in the wrong
direction.” Rebecca-or-not-yet-Rebecca pulled up a chair
that hadn’t been there until she needed it. “You’re
trying to create something from nothing, but that’s
backwards. The mug already exists — you just need to make
sure it always did.”

She picked up Form P-40X and pointed to a line Tom hadn’t
noticed before: “Item Temporal Authentication — List
three witnesses who remember the object existing before it
existed.”

“But how can anyone remember something that
doesn’t—”

“Janet’s already using it for pencils,” Rebecca
interrupted. “That’s one witness. I remember you
offering me coffee in it this afternoon — that’s two.
And you’re going to remember filling out this form after
you’ve already submitted it. Three witnesses, past,
present, and future. See? The paradox is practically
complete already.”

Tom’s desk phone rang. He picked it up to hear his own
voice: “Don’t forget to list the coffee stain on the
form as evidence. The one you’re about to make when the
mug startles you by already being there.”

He hung up and noticed his tie had a fresh coffee stain. On
his desk sat a blue ceramic mug with a peculiar handle that
looked exactly like the kind of handle someone would design
if they were trying to make their first paradox and decided
to start with the easiest part.

“There you go!” Rebecca grinned. “Your first something
from nothing. Well, technically your first nothing from
something that came from nothing, but let’s not get into
advanced causality before lunch.”

                           * * *

“Now,” said Ms. Martinez, materializing beside his desk
with a fresh stack of forms, “ready for something a bit
more challenging? We have a small situation in Accounting.
Apparently, the entire department budget exists because of
expenditures we haven’t made yet using funds we can only
get by proving we’ve already spent them.”

Tom looked at his coffee mug, which was somehow
simultaneously brand new and well-worn with years of use. On
its side, he noticed an inscription he hadn’t put there
yet: “For best results, fill before empty.”

The Accounting department occupied a space that, according
to the floor plan, hadn’t been allocated yet. Tom followed
Ms. Martinez through a corridor that seemed to calculate its
own length as they walked it, past cubicles where
accountants worked on spreadsheets that totaled themselves
before the numbers were entered.

“The problem,” Ms. Martinez explained, “is that our
annual budget relies on proving we’ve successfully
completed projects that require the budget to complete
them.” She handed Tom a spreadsheet that was
simultaneously blank and filled with figures that made his
eyes water. “It’s usually a routine paradox — the
money exists because we spent it because we had it. But this
year’s audit is being handled by someone who doesn’t
quite... appreciate our methods.”

The head accountant, Mr. Phillips, had the harried look of
someone trying to balance books that existed in three
different temporal states. His desk was covered in
calculator tape that showed answers before the calculations
were performed.

“The auditor’s demanding a source for our funding,”
Mr. Phillips said, holding up a form that kept trying to eat
its own header. “How do I explain that we can only get the
money by showing receipts for how we spent it?”

Tom studied the budget documents. Something about the
numbers seemed familiar, like he’d seen them before he’d
seen them. “What if,” he said slowly, remembering a note
he hadn’t written to himself yet, “we create the
documentation first?”

“Go on,” Ms. Martinez nodded, though her smile suggested
she’d already heard his solution next week.

“We fill out Form P-40X for the receipts themselves. Make
them exist because they need to exist because they already
existed. Like the coffee mug.” Tom held up his paradoxical
creation, which now somehow had a chip in its rim that would
occur during next year’s office party.

Mr. Phillips’ eyes lit up. “A bootstrap paradox for the
bootstrap budget! But we’ll need multiple temporal
witnesses for something this big.”

“Already handled,” called a voice from a cubicle that
didn’t exist yet. “I remember reviewing those receipts
last quarter.”

“I filed them last month,” added someone who hadn’t
been hired yet.

“And I’ll authenticate them next week,” said Rebecca,
who had apparently followed them through the corridor that
was still calculating its length.

Tom reached for Form P-40X, but Ms. Martinez shook her head.
“For something this complex, you’ll need Form P-40X-B
— that’s the one for paradoxes that require their own
existence to justify their existence.” She paused.
“Actually, now that I think about it, has anyone ever
filed the paperwork for the forms themselves?”

                           * * *

A sudden hush fell over the Accounting department. Even the
self-calculating spreadsheets seemed to pause.

“You know,” Mr. Phillips said quietly, “I’ve been
here since before the department existed, and I’ve never
thought about where the forms came from.”

Ms. Martinez led Tom to a filing cabinet that existed
precisely one second out of sync with the rest of the
office. Inside, alphabetically sorted by date of future
creation, were the original copies of every form the
department had ever would have used.

“Notice anything odd?” she asked, pulling out the
first-ever Form P-40X.

Tom studied the yellowed paper. The coffee stain in the
corner matched the one he’d just made on his desk
upstairs. The handwriting in the margins looked suspiciously
like his own hurried scrawl. Even the slight crease in the
upper right corner matched the way he habitually folded
documents when thinking.

“This is impossible,” he said, then corrected himself,
remembering where he worked. “I mean, this is impossible
in a different way than our usual impossible.”

“Section 7, Paragraph 12,” Rebecca called from next
Tuesday. “In cases of departmental temporal origin
verification, standard impossibility metrics do not
apply.”

The implications started stacking up in Tom’s mind like
poorly filed temporal requisition forms. “If I created the
original forms... but I could only have known how to create
them because they already existed... and they only existed
because I created them...”

“Now you’re getting it,” Ms. Martinez smiled. “Why
do you think we hired you?”

“But you couldn’t have known to hire me unless...”
Tom’s voice trailed off as he noticed his employee ID
card, which he’d received that morning. The issue date
read “Founded With Department.” He pulled out his wallet
and found a business card he didn’t remember having:

    Thomas Chen
    Original Paradox Engineer
    Department of Paradoxical Procurement
    “Creating the means of our own creation since before
we existed”

“The whole department,” he said slowly, “everything
— the forms, the procedures, the coffee mug testing
protocol — it all stems from paradoxes I haven’t created
yet?”

Mr. Phillips poked his head in, waving a spreadsheet.
“Including our first budget, which you’ll file last year
once you figure out how to create the forms we used to apply
for it.”

“Don’t forget the hiring paperwork,” added Janet, who
was somehow in the room before she entered it. “The ones
you’ll use to ensure we hire you so you can create the
forms we used to hire you.”

Tom sat down in a chair that helpfully created itself behind
him. His coffee mug, sitting on a filing cabinet that
wouldn’t be ordered until next month, seemed to mock him
with its inscription about filling before empty.

“So when you said this was my first day...”

“It is,” Ms. Martinez nodded. “And it’s also the day
the department was founded. And the day it will be founded.
And the day it always had been founded.” She handed him a
blank Form P-40X. “Think of it as a promotion. Or a
pre-motion, since it’s to a position you technically
already have.”

“But how do I even start? I can’t just create an entire
department out of nothing.”

“Of course not,” Rebecca laughed. “You’re going to
create it out of itself. That’s what we do here — close
the loops that make existence possible.”

                           * * *

“The trick,” Ms. Martinez explained, clearing a space on
her desk by moving some files to last Wednesday, “is to
create everything at once. The forms, the department, the
hiring procedures — they’re all one big paradox wrapped
in red tape.”

Tom spread out the blank Form P-40X, which was technically
the original version of itself. His coffee mug sat nearby, a
reminder that he’d already successfully created something
from nothing that created itself. This was just like that,
but with an entire bureaucracy.

“Start with the department motto,” Janet suggested. “A
paradox must be complete to be completed. You came up with
that, you know. Or you will. Or you always had.”

Tom wrote the motto at the top of the form, watching as the
ink seemed to age decades in seconds. Around him, the office
flickered like a fluorescent light deciding whether to turn
on, its existence becoming simultaneously more and less
certain.

“Don’t forget Article 7,” called someone from the
break room. “The one about temporal coffee breaks only
counting against past or future hours, never present
ones.”

“And Subsection 4.B,” added Mr. Phillips, “regarding
the proper filing of predictions that already came true
before they were made.”

One by one, Tom filled in the procedures and protocols, each
rule creating itself as he wrote it down. The paradoxes
stacked up like pending overtime approval forms: The
department could only exist because it had always existed,
but it had always existed because he was creating it now,
which he could only do because it existed to hire him.

“Almost there,” Ms. Martinez encouraged. “Just one
last piece to complete the loop.”

Tom looked up from the forms, understanding dawning like a
sunrise that had already set. “The hiring paperwork. My
hiring paperwork.”

He pulled a fresh form from a drawer that had existed for
both no time and all time. Employee intake documents. His
own name at the top. His own signature at the bottom.
Dated... today.

“But if I’m hiring myself,” he said slowly, “then
who actually hired me?”

“Nobody,” Ms. Martinez smiled. “And everybody. The
department hired you because you created it because it hired
you. That’s what we do here — we make sure things that
need to exist have always existed.”

Tom signed his name one final time. The office snapped into
focus, reality settling around them like dust after a filing
cabinet reorganization. The fluorescent lights hummed with
certainty. His coffee mug, the first paradox that led to all
the others, sat innocently on his desk as if it had always
been there.

Which, of course, it had.

“Well,” Ms. Martinez said, gathering up the now-complete
forms that had created themselves, “I believe it’s time
for your orientation. You have a meeting with a new hire —
yourself, about twenty minutes ago. Try not to spoil the
surprise.”

Tom picked up his mug, now full of coffee he hadn’t made
yet, and headed toward his office door that had always been
there, even when he was creating it five minutes ago. He
paused at the threshold.

“Ms. Martinez? Why do we do all this? Create things that
create themselves?”

She smiled, already fading into next week’s schedule.
“Because sometimes the universe needs things to exist but
forgets to create them. That’s why we’re here — making
sure everything that needs to be has always been.” She
gestured at the busy office around them. “After all,
something has to come from nothing. And nothing comes from
something that hasn’t been properly paradoxed into
existence.”

Tom nodded and walked through his door, ready to meet
himself for the first time, again.


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                    From False Universe
                 https://afalseuniverse.com
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