The past

It was believable because it was true: Rock had traveled approximately thirteen billion, eight-hundred million years into the past, to the instant of the Big Bang, to learn the universe had been created without the constituents of hydrogen, oxygen, or carbon. It was clear to him that nothing recognizable had or would ever exist.

His house and all within it looked the same, including Jo the cat, but Rock knew none of what appeared before him could possibly be there.