Time Lord Dave from GoodGym Time Control had a scheduling puzzle to solve. He wanted to allocate GoodGym volunteers to as many missions as he could to help older people in 2023 Southwark. The issue was that the beneficiaries often changed minds or plans and things had to be rearranged.

A rather busy team of GoodGym agents dubbed S&K were asked by Dave's colleague whether they could come to help one gentleman with his garden on Sunday later than they originally had planned. S&K were looking to get another booking on Sunday noon but were open to negotiating.

"We've already signed up to help Mrs L and Mr F on Sunday at noon. The only good option for us to help the other gentleman is to swap those two missions." was the ultimatum from S&K.

Dave picked up the scheduling challenge. He decided to contact Mrs L and Mr F, who needed a furniture move, to negotiate on S&K's behalf so that the team could help all the beneficiaries. When he dialled the older couple, a young woman picked up the phone and claimed she never heard about Mrs L and Mr F. They have never lived there.

The past that never happened

Dave suspected something had gone wrong in the past but couldn't figure out what was it. He decided to have a peek into the alternative future instead where the mission for Mrs L and Mr F happened. He read the alternative future mission report where K described the story of Mr F.

"Mr F and his twin brother came to this world at the onset of WW2. Before Mr F was born, his pregnant mum was evacuated but was adamant about coming back to London, despite the threat of bombing. Having two houses to choose from on the road where Mr F still lives now, his mum has decided to settle in the one to the North East. Soon after, the house on the southwest end of the street ceased to exist. It was a bomb site."

Dave speculated that in his timeline something made Mr F's mother move to the wrong house, the one destroyed in a Nazi bomb raid. He time-travelled to 1940 London to convince Mr F's mother to choose the house in the North West. No one knows how the Time Lord used his influence but he managed to create a version of 2023 in which Mr F's family had survived The Blitz and Mr F still lived in the house 83 years later. Having returned safely from shelled London to peaceful England of 2023, the Time Lord picked up the phone and called Mr F and Mrs L. The latter confirmed she was happy with GoodGym coming to help them in the morning rather than at noon.

The future that never happened

The Time Lord made himself a cup of tea and decided to read the reports from his current timeline's future. He discovered that S&K underestimated the time needed to move furniture for the older couple. They made a mistake by arranging that task for 10:30, and as a result, they were late for the second mission. Dave decided to fix that. He still had time before the weekend, so time travel was not necessary. He voyaged to Southwark instead and talked to Mr F, who realised that his round table was too bulky to fit in narrow doors and staircase. The older gentleman dismantled the table before the Sunday mission and made S&K's work much faster.

The present that never changed

S&K arrived at their first mission on Sunday a few minutes ahead of time and had a chat, unaware that Mr F could see them through the curtains from the living room. They pressed the doorbell at 10:30 on the dot and were welcomed by Mr F's wife, Mrs L. She introduced the volunteers to her husband, who came out of hospital after breaking his leg in three places and was learning how to walk again. He was managing well, given that he recently celebrated his 83rd birthday! S&K learned that both Mr F and Mrs L also successfully recovered from cancer and to the volunteers they looked like a tough couple. The GoodGymers could only wish to remain so lively in the next 40-something years!

Some things posed a challenge to the older couple though. One of them was moving the furniture that had been put upstairs when Mr F needed a hospital bed for his recovery. S&K's job was to transport two chairs, a big, round table and a cabinet with a mirror back to the ground level. The GoodGymers were done with the furniture in no time. A great advantage was that Mr F had taken the table apart. The volunteers wanted to help Mr F assemble it again and tried to slide two halves of the table-top into designated railings.

"Maybe try to swap them around?" Mr F suggested.

That strategy did the trick - the tables literally turned - and the pieces of the puzzle now fitted each other. S&K stayed at Mr L and Mr F's for a few minutes more for a chat and learned their stories. K included one of them later in the mission report.

Is this report the final one? Or was there a better story that happened in reality? Maybe there are thousands of parallel universes where S&K wore red t-shirts, where it was S who wrote the report or where Dave came to help the older couple himself as he couldn't create the timeline where S&K succeeded?

Only the Time Lord will know.