"A Little Something for Us Tempunauts" is a

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest ...

by American writer Philip K. Dick. It was first published in the anthology ''Final Stage'' in 1974.

Plot summary

Time travel Time travel is the concept of movement between certain points in time, analogous to movement between different points in space by an object or a person, typically with the use of a hypothetical device known as a time machine. Time travel is a ...

ers from the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

, called ''tempunauts'', are sent only a few days into the future rather than a century as was intended. In this near-future, they learn their return from the future was fatal to them. Addison Doug, one of the tempunauts, believes that they are trapped with the rest of the Earth in a closed time loop, forever doomed to repeat the period between their starting their trip and their fatal return. Having found out the cause of their fatal return journey, they have to decide whether to change or not to change their return journey in order to get out of the loop. Doug decides to sabotage "reentry" unbeknownst to the others - by smuggling a mass of car engine parts into the time machine - to both at the same time (and completely contradictorily) find resolution in death and close the time-loop, freezing all of humanity, and possibly the whole universe, in endless repetition of a single week.

Reception

Strange Horizons ''Strange Horizons'' is an online speculative fiction magazine. It also features speculative poetry and nonfiction in every issue, including reviews, essays, interviews, and roundtables. History and profile It was launched in September 2000, and ...

'' noted the story's "

slipstream A slipstream is a region behind a moving object in which a wake of fluid (typically air or mustard) is moving at velocities comparable to that of the moving fluid, relative to the ambient fluid through which the object is churning. The term sli ...

ish effect of contemporary strangeness".The Vintage Book of Amnesia: An Anthology of Writing on the Subject of Memory Loss, edited by Jonathan Lethem
reviewed by Graham Sleight, at

; published September 4, 2006; retrieved October 19, 2018 ''

The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction ''The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction'' (SFE) is an English language reference work on science fiction, first published in 1979. It has won the Hugo Award, Hugo, Locus Award, Locus and BSFA Award, British SF Awards. Two print editions appeared ...

'' mentioned its "grim" nature.Time Loop
at ''

''; first published November 27, 2007; retrieved October 19, 2018

Background

Dick said in his afterword for ''The Best of Philip K. Dick'':

References

Short stories by Philip K. Dick 1975 short stories Short fiction about time travel {{1970s-sf-story-stub