Dear Diary,

We had hit a hurdle in our mission to find Carol Richmond who may or may not have existed in a now-abandoned time line that we may or may not have co-existed with her in. We had tracked her down to the Central Library of Central City but an impediment was blocking our path like the aforementioned hurdle that it was. Only those with valid library cards could get into the library and my card was back on the Pioneer. Penny had never applied for one (which is technically illegal under the Reading Is For Everyone campaign upon which Edwin Dewsbury was elected mayor of Central City a few years earlier) while the man John had... actually he had remained silent up until now.

"Do you have a library card, John?" I asked.

"Dammit, Butch, do you always have to be so obsessed with material possessions? I’m not and look at me? Actually don’t – you’re always looking at me and it never ends well for a fellow. I did have a library card – who didn’t apart from Penny? – but I lost it. No I didn’t – I gave it away to someone but I can’t remember who. No I didn’t – I was asked for it and handed it over in good faith in circumstances that are a mystery to me now. No they aren’t – it was me. Happy now? I’ve delved through my rather knotty brain and come up with the goods. I’ll be exacting a little something extra in my envelope this month, thanks for asking."

I looked at Penny, she looked at me, we both shrugged.

"Do I infer from that that you gave your library card away to someone? Don’t you realise that library cards in the twenty eighth century have photographs on them and that your card would be of no value to this other person?"

"I do, Butch, dammit, I’m not stupid – I recognise a card with my pretty face on it and could happily and easily point it out if offered three cards, two of which didn't have my pretty face on them. But you’re missing the obvious fact which makes you thinking I’m a twerp both factually and actually incorrect."

"What are you talking about?" I asked, exasperated at what happened to John if he didn’t take his green pills before a traumatic event like delving into his own past or meeting his earlier self.

"I gave me my card."

"Just now? Can’t you chase after him and get it back?"

"Butch, Butch, Butch – I didn’t give me my card."

"You just said you did."

"No – I said I gave me my card. That’s not the same thing as me giving me my card. Oh, wait, yes it is. Sorry about that – I thought I’d said something clever but I let myself down. What I meant was that earlier me gave later me my card. Just came up to me, said ‘John, mate, lend me your library card. Thanks old man’ and tootled off with it. Never saw him again, the chizzler."

"Then where is it?"

"What? Is one of us being dense? I haven’t got it – he has."

"John, I fear one of us will die before this conversation is over."

"I’m pretty sure of it" added Penny, patting her side arm and bearing most of her teeth.

"I only remember – and its sketchy at best as those damned Sensorites washed my brain a few times and left it thin and with bits of lint on it – being asked for my library card and handing it over. That means either I was conned by an extremely handsome man who had extensive surgery just to trick me into giving him my library card – and may he rot in hell if he exists and if hell exists, both of which I’m increasingly sceptical about – or I’ve not asked myself for the card yet."

"You mean you meet yourself again?"

"Dammit – that’s it – the missing piece of the puzzle that’s been confusing me throughout this conversation. That’s what must happen – I must and find myself, ask for my card and bring it back here. It’s so simple now I’ve explained it to myself. Back in a tick."

John ran off at considerable speed, showing an athletic bent I hadn’t previously suspected him of possessing. He’d always refused to join in the Pioneer’s fun runs on the grounds that running round the ship 1,023 times would make him both dizzy and so bored he would start gnawing on rivets as he passed them. Penny and I had no such lack of sporting vigour and took part once a month without fail. She has won every single one of course – she is a trained space policeman while I am a more well-rounded professional – but I came close to finishing last time and would’ve achieved a personal best had I not tripped over Fingers when he emerged from a maintenance duct at the wrong moment. My nose is still crooked if you look at it in the right lighting but I don’t hold it against him.

"Dammit, Butch, here it is. I promised him I’d bring it right back but – and this is the brilliant bit – I didn’t so I don’t have to. We can keep it. Forever. How great is that? It’s mine, all mine."

"But it IS yours" I told him.

"Dammit, Butch, you always have to pour cold water on a fellow’s happiness don’t you? You couldn’t even give me a moment of thinking the card was mine, all mine without poo-pooing it and telling me it was actually mine. Wait. Run that by me again?"

But we didn’t have time – we’d wasted quite enough already. I swiped the card through the electronic key hole and we were granted access to the finest library in all of Central City.

"Oh – I remember this now – this isn’t the library I thought it was" said John in much too loud a voice. "This is the one they don’t let you talk in and where robots come and throw you" but he wasn’t allowed to finish his sentence before a robot came and threw him out.

"You go upstairs and I’ll look down here" I whispered to Penny. She nodded in agreement. "And you won’t betray me again will you?" I added. She shook her head. That was good enough for me.

"Dammit, Butch, I’m outside again. I’ll go round to the toilet window – drop the card out and I’ll make my own way in. Butch? Did you hear me Butch?"

I feigned deafness and went about my search. It turns out there IS a place in modern space exploration for feigned deafness. John was right after all. He didn’t appreciate the irony though.