"To us, time is a one way arrow towards entropy, towards the heat death of the universe. It's like, well, have you ever been looking for a house while driving on a one way street? But you overshoot the house by a bit? Do you go all the way around the block again? No. You just go in reverse," Kurt explained unhelpfully as he climbed into the bathtub.
"The street is the universe and time is the One Way sign. All the stupid physicists say, 'But no, it's only one street. You can't go around the block!' But we don't need to go around the block, Joyce! We keep the car pointed forward, but we drive in reverse!"
Kurt leaned forward to switch on the tap. Cold water rushed out, turning Kurt's black slacks a shade darker. Joyce bent down and switched it back off.
"Look, I get that you're upset, but he's dead and electrocuting yourself isn't going to change that," she said.
"Joyce. Please listen. He's only dead in one possible timeline out of thousands, millions, billions, infinite timelines! All I need to do is harness the power of my undying love for him, augmented by a little extra power boost, and we can step into another dimension and shift this baby into reverse. Now pass me the toaster."
"Absolutely not. Get up, pack your shit and go kill yourself in some other tub. I'll find another subletter."
"Joyce, this is the only place where it will work. He died in this apartment. It's the only place where we can save him. Please."
Kurt leaned forward again and turned the tap back on.
Despite her best efforts, Joyce had fallen for him. She had found him in one of those Boston housing groups. She had kept mostly to herself the first couple of months, not wanting to intrude on this stranger's life. He'd be gone by June anyway. But then the world -- hers, his, everyone's -- had flipped on its head and Kurt became the only live person she saw for weeks on end. He was an idiot, clearly, and she wondered if he had bribed his way into MIT's Physics PhD program, but he was alive and real and not much else mattered to her. So Joyce had fallen slightly in love. She wasn't going to tell him though. Dating roommates was a mess. Plus, the tub theatrics were slowly drawing back the hazy curtains of love.
He was still talking. "When we die, our souls turn into traces of dark energy. That's why the universe's expansion is accelerating! Dark energy is the force that's pulling the universe away from itself, like the gas in the car on the one way street of time. And there's more and more of it every day as more and more people die every minute. And when Arnold died, he left a trace of his life force. We need to harness that trace with our undying love to save him! The toaster. Please. Please, Joyce."
Kurt was crying now. The tears trickled into the tub, which was now mostly full. His suit was drenched.
Arnold was a goldfish. The suit was for his funeral. Joyce was also dressed for mourning with a simple black dress and black sweater. She had realized Arnold's death had broken something in Kurt, but thought playing along with the whole fish funeral would cheer him up. She shouldn't have made the joke about time travel. It wasn't even funny. When she said it, Kurt hadn't laughed; he didn't even realize it was a joke. Instead, his eyes widened in epiphany and he rushed into his bedroom where Joyce could hear him flipping madly through his quantum mechanics textbooks and muttering about entropy and string theory. A few minutes later he rushed back into the kitchen, grabbed the toaster and her hand, and carried them both into the bathroom. And now he was ready to travel back in time to save Arnold.
Arnold's death, by the way, was entirely Kurt's fault. Arnold had been a member of their household for only two weeks. Joyce was privately thrilled to have him; it was nice to have someone other than Kurt to talk to for a change. The lease forbade any pets, but their landlord wouldn't be visiting anytime soon. After two weeks, Arnold's bowl was in desperate need of cleaning. Kurt filled the kitchen sink with water, carefully transferred Arnold into the sink, and then, tragically, flipped on the light to better see the bowl as he cleaned it. Except the switch wasn't for the light. Kurt hadn't actually plugged the sink. Instead, the drain was blocked with food scraps. The garbage disposal made quick work of these, then sucked in the rest of the water, Arnold and all. His poor little fish bones made a horrible grinding sound.
Like any good roommate, Joyce was determined to help Kurt process his grief and guilt, but she wasn't going to let him kill himself doing so. She bent over into the tub, fishing for the drain plug. He pulled her hand away, shouting, "No! For Arnold!"
She wrestled out of his grip, but lost her footing and tumbled into the tub with a splash. Suddenly, now lying on top of this sad, idiotic, but undeniably attractive man, all her pre-fish funeral feelings and fantasies rushed back, and soon, they were kissing passionately as the water splashed around them.
At this moment, the commuter rail train rumbled by, as it did once every hour, gently shaking the entire building. The sink shook slightly, gently dislodging the toaster Kurt had left resting on its edge. Still plugged in to the outlet, it plunged into the tub. Kurt and Joyce were too busy with each other to notice. There was a tiny jolt of electricity, which Joyce would later attribute to their mutual love, before the GFCI outlet noticed the current discrepancy and broke the circuit, saving the pair from certain death. Or, possibly, preventing them from embarking on the universe's first time traveling mission to save a goldfish. But, probably not. Kurt's grasp of string theory was seriously lacking. Either way, GFCI outlets are an incredibly important safety feature for bathrooms everywhere.
Arnold, by the way, was soon forgotten as the young couple hurtled down the one way street of the universe.