A down-on-his-luck physicist who’s invented a faster-than-light drive stops to watch the first manned Mars landing in a small-town Georgia diner. This is one of the few stories I’ve seen that ties together FTL with time travel.
And you’ll discover something else when you’re tinkering with that drive.

Variants

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  1. “Drink in a Small Town” by Peter Wood, in Asimov’s Science Fiction, March 2014.
  2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by Peter Wood