The Parallel

Sixty minutes before a human being named Major Robert Gaines is lifted off from the Mother Earth and rocketed into the sky, farther and longer than any man ahead of him.

Call this one of the first faltering steps of man to sever the umbilical cord of gravity and stretch out a fingertip toward an unknown.

Suddenly, his communication systems stop functioning and he blacks out, waking up on Earth with no memory of his return.

Everyone calls him Colonel (confirmed by the rank insignia on his uniform) when he knows he's a Major, and he insists that the President of the United States is John F. Kennedy, a man whom no one else has ever heard of.

The Major returns home and happily confirms that his daughter now recognizes him and the white picket fence is absent.