by Jason Ayres
It seemed that on my second trip back through time I had jumped back exactly the same amount as the first time, one year and two days.
There was an obvious pattern emerging here. It seemed that 3am on 2nd January was the trigger point for my involuntary trips back in time. The burning question for me now was whether or not that was the end of it. Would I stay put now, or was the pattern set to repeat? And if so, what were the implications?
If I kept jumping back in time like this every two days, I was going to travel further and further back into time, presumably getting younger as I did. I still wasn’t entirely certain if it was just my mind that was being transported or my body as well, but I would find out soon enough if the jumps continued. After a few trips, if my body was getting younger, I would surely start to notice.
Being younger again was something that millions wished for, but I could already see that my fountain of youth was potentially a poisoned chalice. If I really was going to get a year younger every two days, my life would fly by in no time.
I had been thirty-nine when all of this had started. At two days per leap, it would be less than eighty days until I would reach a time before I was born. So what would happen then? Would I just cease to exist?
What about my own birth? It was an event no human could remember under normal circumstances, but was I to experience it all, fully conscious with my adult mind, knowing I was living my last two days on earth?
Or would my immature and undeveloped brain no longer be able to make sense of all of this? Was I destined to end up a helpless infant, with no control over my bowels or bladder, like an incontinent, senile old person in reverse? The thought horrified me.
Was there any way out of this? Was there anyone who could help me? If I could track down the mysterious Doctor Gardner, perhaps he could, but I had no idea where to start. I didn’t know his first name and I didn’t even know if Gardner was his real name. He had been pretending to be a doctor, so had he used a false name as well?
Whoever he was, was he even aware of what he had done to me? I cursed the man and his time-travelling wand. Why had he let me get dragged into whatever he was up to? Didn’t time travellers have rules about this sort of thing? They always did in the movies.
Assuming I wasn’t going to find him, then what else was I to do? Wallow in self-pity or make the most of the time I had? I had to try and be positive. Maybe I did have less than eighty days left to live, but potentially they were full of opportunities. I may have hated most of my birthdays the first time around but now they were positively sparkling with possibilities.
I pondered what was to happen in my new life as the years passed. Right now, here I was living with Phoebe and Lily, but in another couple of years that would come to an end and I’d never see them again.
Then there would be Rob. The man I had lived with for nine years who had betrayed me, belittled me and cheated on me. In return, I wasted the best years of my life on him. How was I going to be able to bear spending nine birthdays living with him?
Don’t get mad – get even, whispered a voice inside my head.
It was an interesting thought. A woman scorned, getting her revenge in first? That could be a lot of fun.
In the years before I had saddled myself with Rob there had been college, travel, teenage crushes and more. The thoughts of those years excited me. Was this death sentence really so bad? How many with lives going nowhere would swap shoes with me, given the chance?
And what about the people I had lost – my mother, my father and especially my sister? Maybe I could help things turn out differently for them. Even if I couldn’t, at least I would get to see them again and that was almost worth the cost of all this alone.
I decided to banish all thoughts of my impending mortality, and seize the day. The possibilities were endless. I had no idea how all of this might end up playing out or what part I was going to play in it all, but it was time to start thinking ahead – or technically behind.
I needed to be sure I was going to jump again before I started making any plans that I might not be able to bring to fruition. So in the short term it seemed best if I just played out the next two days as if life was proceeding just like normal. I would go to work like the dutiful soul I am, and then see if the jump back in time happened again on 2nd January.
If it did – then I would know that this was definitely game on. It was a game where I could tear up the rule book of life and throw it out of the window. There were new rules now, and I was seemingly the only one who knew what they were. That gave me an advantage over everyone else and a certain sense of power. The possibilities were thrilling. The world was about to become my own personal playground where I could do pretty much anything. Would this be abusing the gift I had seemingly been given? Very probably, but right at this time, I really didn’t care.
I had nothing to lose and life was about to get all kinds of fun.
Chapter Five
2021
I had stayed up until 3am because I wanted to be wide awake when the jump happened. When it did, the last thing I remember was looking at the digital clock in my room as it ticked over to precisely 3am. The next thing I knew, I was waking up and it was 8.30am in the morning.
This didn’t mean I had arrived at that time. I was pretty sure it meant I had arrived at 3am as before, but had been asleep in this body at that time. That was to be expected – if I wasn’t at work I would almost certainly be asleep at that time as most people, party animals aside, would be.
I went straight for my phone, which I noticed was now an S10, for the confirmation I sought. It was 31st December 2021, just as I had expected. That settled it, then. The pattern was clear. I was travelling back a year and two days in time every forty-eight hours, as regular as clockwork. Except I was living by a clock unlike any that had ever been invented.
Seemingly it was only me that this was happening to. Everyone else I had seen or spoken to in the last few days had been acting completely normally. I think if the whole world was being cast back in time simultaneously it would have been pretty obvious – and probably extremely chaotic.
I sat up in bed, once again contemplating my situation, as I had so many times in previous days. Last night I had felt quite excited by my newfound ability to travel in time, but would I carry on with this if I had a choice? I had to be honest and admit I wouldn’t. I would stop this right now if I could. But what could I possibly do?
It seemed that I would have to assume that there was no way to stop it, so perhaps I ought to accept the situation and start thinking about what I should be doing with my time.
I likened my position to someone with a terminal illness who had just been told they had less than three months to live. That was effectively my life expectancy. I had already done the calculations.
Perhaps that was looking at it from a somewhat pessimistic angle. I wasn’t dying of a terminal illness. Yes, my days were numbered, but the potential those days held was enormous. I wasn’t going to get sick and spend a large chunk of my final days dosed up on morphine in a hospice with everyone feeling sorry for me.
I was going to get younger, having discovered that fountain of youth that had eluded everyone from ancient alchemists to the most advanced modern scientists. I was going to get a chance to relive snapshots from my past all over again, including seeing long-lost loved ones again. This was an amazing gift that had been bestowed upon me and seemingly me alone.
If I was to be stuck in reverse gear, then what consequences would any actions I took in the past have? If I was destined to keep travelling back every two days, then would each trip back absolve me from any actions I might take? Had I been given free rein to do whatever I wanted? – even a licence to kill, should I so desire. What better place could there be to hide from such a crime than in the past, before it had even happened?
A fleeting dark thought crossed my mind as I thought about stabbing Rob to death with a kitchen knife in a wanton and unrestrained act of revenge for his in
fidelity. It wasn’t the first time I had fantasised about doing him in.
For all I knew maybe everyone thought such things from time to time, but very few ever acted upon these deep, dark impulses. Even if they did possess the balls to do it, a life sentence in prison was deterrent enough for most. But that wasn’t something that I needed to worry about anymore.
I could kill Rob, then jump back in time a year before the police could track me down. And even if they did catch me in the act, all I needed to do was ride out my time in custody until the next jump back in time came round at which point I would automatically escape.
Then I could kill him all over again. And then again – every one of the nine years we had been together. He would be like a cat with nine lives, and I could end every one of them, despatching him in a grisly variety of different ways. I could be the ultimate serial killer, with the twist that my nine murders would all be of the same man and the police would never be able to catch up with me. What a plot for a thriller that would make!
Much as I was revelling in this fantasy, it wasn’t one I had any real intention of carrying out. Quite simply, it all boiled down to the truth that I wasn’t a killer and never could be. I just didn’t have it in me and I was thankful about that.
It didn’t mean there weren’t lots of other non-lethal ways I could get back at him, though. I smiled as I toyed with various possibilities.
Other than making Rob’s life a misery, what else could I do? I needed to have a good review of my own personal history and start making some plans. Could I figure out exactly what I was doing in each individual year?
There were landmark events during certain years that stood out, but what about all those other nondescript New Year’s Eves and birthdays? They all blurred into one and I couldn’t honestly pinpoint which year was which in the random snippets of my memories.
The short answer was no. I couldn’t do it from memory alone. I was going to have to play detective with my own life, using social media and anything else I could to try and pinpoint what I was going to be doing each year.
Eager to get started on embracing my new life, I climbed out of bed and headed over to the window to open the curtains. Then I made a beeline for my bag, which had seemingly been discarded on the other side of the room when I had got in from whatever this version of me had been doing last night.
Each time I went back in time I noticed subtle changes all around me, and this bag was a prime example. It was my old bag which I’d had five or six good years’ use out of before the strap had broken.
I had really loved this bag. It was black with a variety of leaves on it, in various shades of autumn colour. Although pretty, the exterior wasn’t the most important factor when I had bought it. The biggest-selling point for me was that it had pockets everywhere – and pockets are awesome.
This bag had them on the inside, outside, in hidden flaps, with zips and buttons everywhere. In total, there were fourteen pockets and every one had its own little function – right down to my emergency condom pocket. It was hidden by a tiny zip just enough to hold a single Durex in case I got lucky unexpectedly.
I seldom did, but it was best to be prepared, even if in recent years, in the heat of the moment, I hadn’t always been as careful as I should have been. Perhaps that was down to the biological clock, too. Tick-tock… and then pregnant by a one-night stand and a single mum at my age? It wasn’t that unheard of. By accidentally on purpose forgetting to ask my partner to rubber up, was I subconsciously fulfilling some primeval desire to get pregnant?
This hadn’t happened in my case, which was probably just as well considering my current situation. If I had had a baby in the last couple of years, how heart-wrenching would it be to be parted from him or her by my backwards time-travelling? I couldn’t even begin to imagine, not having been a mother myself.
Rediscovering my bag had instilled a real sense of nostalgia in me. Temporarily forgetting why I had picked it up in the first place, I put it down on the bed and cast my eyes around the room, looking for more changes. Seeing some discarded garments of yesteryear scattered around prompted me to get up and open the wardrobe. Looking inside, I found much of that had changed, too.
What about myself? Taking out an old rugby-style shirt I used to wear on days when I was bumming around the flat, I closed the door again and took a good look at myself in the mirror.
Did I look any younger compared to when this started? It was hard to tell. How much did people change in three years? Perhaps they did not change much in their thirties because I still couldn’t make out any discernible differences. If I was Lily it would have been obvious from the ever-changing hairstyles, and presence or otherwise of tattoos, but I had none.
I cupped my breasts in my hands – was it my imagination or did they feel a little firmer? Once I had taken a few more years off they would rival Phoebe’s for defying gravity, but then in those few years I would have no Phoebe to compare against – because she wouldn’t have arrived in my life yet.
2021 was the year we had all moved into the flat so this would be our last two days together. I felt a pang of impending loss wash over me about this. It was something I was going to have to get used to. People were going to come in and out of my life pretty rapidly in the weeks ahead and I have to make the most of whatever time I had with the people who mattered to me.
For the next two days that meant Phoebe and Lily, and this realisation reminded me of why I had gone for the bag in the first place. It was so easy to get distracted with all the diversions my new life had brought Turning my attention back to the matter in hand, I reached into one of the many pockets on the inside of my bag to retrieve my work diary.
That was another thing that would change each year. This diary had a picture of ladybirds and butterflies on it. It was just a cheap, pound shop diary, but I bought most things like that from those sorts of places. I couldn’t see the point of spending four quid on something that was practically identical from WHSmith.
The diary looked brand new so it must have been for the year ahead, not the one just ending. Hopefully I had started filling it in already. Thumbing through to find the first week, I discovered that it actual began from the start of the current week, five days ago, and all my shifts were neatly written in.
It came as no surprise to discover I was pencilled in to be working nights again over New Year, starting from tonight. Well, it was time to take an executive decision – there was no way I was going in to work tonight – or any other night, come to that. The expression “life’s too short” had never been more apt than it was for me right now.
Yes, I was conscientious about my work, but only up to a point. Not turning up tonight wasn’t going to affect my non-existent future in this world.
I didn’t want to leave the hospital in the lurch, though, and did feel a certain responsibility to whatever patients might be counting on a fully staffed ward. Whatever the shortcomings of the NHS might be, I didn’t want to be the one to let the patients down, so as a compromise I decided I would phone in sick. That would give them time to arrange some cover for me. Then I would go out with Phoebe and Lily to get sloshed and have a good time.
Speaking of my flatmates, just as I was formulating these plans I heard an annoyed shout from the kitchen.
“Hey, Phoebe – did you use all the milk?”
I was so going to miss these two. Eagerly I pulled on the rugby shirt and headed out into the flat, clad in just that and my knickers. I heard the welcome rumble of the coffee percolator on the go which meant that Lily was preparing her daily caffeine fix and I wanted in.
Sure enough, there she was in the kitchen. Her hair had changed again. There were no dreads now, just long, straight hair which was dyed a brilliant purple. And she certainly looked much younger than before.
“Ugh – too much flesh, pet,” was her first remark on clocking my scantily clad lower regions. “You’re getting as bad as Phoebe – go and get some clothes on.”
“Wh
at is it with you and naked flesh?” I asked playfully.
“I don’t mind it on a fella,” replied Lily, “but I’m not into girls – even though the way everyone goes on about it you would think we were all bisexual these days.”
I laughed and replied, “No worries, I’ll go and stick my dressing gown on. By the way – what are you up to tonight?”
“We’ve got tickets for Fever, remember?” she replied. “It’s going to be awesome. I wish you were coming.”
“Well, you’re in luck – because I am,” I replied.
“I thought you were supposed to be working?” she queried.
“Not anymore,” I replied. “I managed to swap a shift. So the three amigos can ride again!”
“Cool,” said Lily. “I assume you’ve got a ticket, then? Because when you said you weren’t coming, I did only get the two for me and Phoebe – and they were hard enough to come by.”
I hadn’t got a ticket. But that wasn’t going to stop me from getting one. This was an opportunity to make the most of my altered circumstances to disregard the normal rules and push the boat out.
“How much did you pay for them?” I asked.
“£25 each,” she replied. “But they won’t have any left now – they sold out weeks ago.”
“Everyone has their price.” I grinned. “I’ll get one – you’ll see.”
I poured myself a coffee from the large pot that Lily had brewed.
“You’ll have to use Coffee-mate,” said Lily. “Phoebe’s had all the milk again.”
“That’s not a problem,” I said. “I like Coffee-mate.”
“I don’t,” replied Lily. “But it looks like I’m going to have to make do with it because Miss Piggy’s in the shower and I can’t face going out to the shop without having a coffee first.”
I could hear the shower going. It had been on the whole time I had been in the kitchen.