XLII.

Posted by Jeff Craven on September 25th, 2008 filed in Writing

Time Wizard

I am going back in time.

It is my life’s greatest work. Tonight, at 7:15 p.m., my corporeal existence shall be transferred through space-time to September 7^th, 1979. If all goes well, it will be as if nothing changed in the present—the moment in time I am going to alter will be a part of your reality without you realizing it.

There is, of course, the possibility of error. I worked on the theories at first, in my spare time. Bit by bit, piece by piece, it all came together. At first, I realized some key elements of the puzzle were missing, and spent all my spare time trying to unlock the puzzle. I studied tirelessly; I pored through every piece of literature I thought would even come close to helping me understand. I believed that by discovering the theory of time travel, I could also discover the one mystery that every person put on this earth has pondered at least once: the meaning of life.

The chamber I built looks straight out of science fiction. It has the shape of a one-man submarine and stretches from the floor to the roof. Four knobs on a nearby panel control how far forward or backward in time you can go. My prototype machine had three knobs controlling days, months, and years. I recently added a fourth knob: decades.

The love of my life, my late wife Kirsten, was the first to point out how obsessed I was becoming. What had started as a hobby on the weekends quickly became a full-time job. Before I knew it, ten years had passed. My hair went from a blazing auburn to dull brown receding tide. She had aged as well. When she entered a room, it used to be that heads turned and eyes watched. Her golden blonde hair contoured to her every movement, hypnotizing everyone around her. She always had a genuine smile on her face that told people her feelings were real and that she really cared. Even now, I still remember that smile. All the memories of our younger years are beginning to fade away, and memories of more recent times together are practically non-existent.

One night, when I emerged from the basement, she told me she had cancer. The news shook me to my core. When did this happen? How long had this been going on? I noticed that the chemo had taken its toll. Her lavish appearance had faded and turned into a skeleton. Her body creaked with every movement. A knit cap replaced her golden locks. Her eyes begat sadness and misery, and yet she still smiled. She still cared. How could I not have noticed what was happening?

Her death on that September day only fueled my research. It’s been twenty years since then. If I could somehow go back—back before the cancer, before the theories, we could be happy. I could spend my remaining time with her and we could live together like we were supposed to. Live like we were meant to.

Most of all, I can tell her how sorry I am for how selfish I’ve been all these years.

So far, live tests haven’t shown promise. Even after all these years, living beings don’t survive in the chamber once the computer makes the final calculations. Even if I don’t make it, I’ll still be reunited with my love. Either way, we can be together again and start over.

It’s almost time. Remember, if all goes well, it will be as if nothing changed in the present—the moment in time I am going to alter will be a part of your reality without you realizing it. History will have been corrected.

If nothing is written after this, you can assume the experiment was a success.