Janet Westerman is trying to cope with the return of her husband Jack from a mission to Mars in which some aspect of the planet made it so that his sensory input now comes from 3.3077 minutes in the future.
Dropping the letter, she held her head in her hands, closing her eyes as in the curved bone of her skull she heard all her possible courses of action jar together, future lifelines that annihilated each other.

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  1. “Man in His Time” by Brian Aldiss, in Science Fantasy, April 1965.
    2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by Brian Aldiss