The Jump Journal

by Douglas Corriveau

  Sorry again. Let’s just crack on, shall we?

  As you can imagine, when I landed in the Ohio forest for the fourth time, I was beyond upset. Not only was I lost for an explanation as to what I was doing there, but I had just left behind my closest friend and a life that I would miss for decades to come.

  As the sun set, I discovered a nearby stump that practically begged to be used as a seat, and who was I to refuse? The woods slid into darkness as I processed my thoughts. I knew now that what had happened the past two years wasn’t a freak accident; apparently getting yanked back to this spot at this time was to be my fate. Strangely, though, I wasn’t furious, sorrowful, or even afraid. Chaplain’s friendship and the events of Year 3 had given me a…I don’t know, I guess a new perspective on my abilities.

  Chaplain had said that there were some things more precious than our own lives. I knew what one of mine was, but she had to remain safe from me. Without Tara, what were the other things in my life that were precious to me? The crickets chirping beneath the leaves served as the soundtrack to my lack of answers. I had never really considered that question, even before time travel was a possibility. Now it seemed as though it was the only truth that mattered.

  I still hadn’t reached any epiphanies when I finally rose from my tree stump. I eased my way through the woods, struggling to avoid trees and branches in the dark. This time, I wasn’t headed further into the woods in a panicked retreat. Finally, after countless trials, I was on my way back to the surface.

  That was the beginning of Year Four. In order to speed up the process a little and get you caught up, I’ll have to feed you just the highlights of those years of my life. Here we go:

  Year 4: I hitchhiked to Florida and worked as a bartender in a biker gang joint. Called in more than a few tips to the cops, let me tell you.

  Year 26: Texas. Moved in with a Chinese family who’d just bought a farm. None of us knew how to farm, so that went well.

  Year 53: Lived in the Rockies as an apprentice Fish and Game officer. I hated it.

  Year 71: I decided to go abroad. And by abroad, I mean Canada. Let’s not talk about that.

  Year 88: I hadn’t found anything precious to me yet, so on a whim I started working at a children’s home in Detroit. Turns out, I loved the little gremlins. I stayed there for a number of years.

  Year 97: I was broken up about leaving Detroit, so I buried myself in my studies. Went all over the country to different universities and libraries to research the concept of time-travel, which was like trying to research unicorns.

  Year 114: Took up taxi driving in Boston. That actually wasn’t too bad.

  Year 135: I was seriously depressed that year. Spent a lot of time drinking and, oddly enough, painting.

  Year 168: OK, now this was a turnaround year for me. Or was that 178? Damn.

  Year 178: Oh right, this is when I figured out what I should do with my gifts. I’ll talk about 178 before I move on.

  I found myself in Illinois that fall, working odd jobs and wondering, as I always did, how on earth to get out of the loop. I had tried, believe me. I fought like a wildcat every May when the year’s end reclaimed me, but to no avail. Occasionally, I threw caution to the wind and attempted (again) to stop my echo before making that first jump, but I always arrived too late. I don’t even count those attempts as full years, otherwise I’d never be able to keep track.

  Honestly, I have no idea what was holding me together. There was no joy in what I was doing, no excitement in living differently year to year. Sure, it sounds great at first, but let me refresh your memory: I’m not immortal, I’m stuck in a one year span. There’s a difference. A year is not long enough to pick up a trade, or to settle into a new location. It’s just enough blank canvas to make a new start. I was sick of new starts by Year 5. To this day, I’m surprised that I never tried to take my own life. Sure, occasionally I thought about it. Who wouldn’t? Maybe I was too afraid, or I was holding on to hope. Regardless, I was in rough shape.

  The first glimmer of hope came in the strangest way possible. As I was walking the streets of Chicago, a woman’s shrill shriek rang out.

  “Stop!! He’s got my purse!!”

  Her cry came just as the disheveled thief in question dashed into view. Obviously panicked and unable to think clearly, the guy turned into traffic and started playing real-life Frogger with the oncoming cars. The formerly disinterested pedestrians gawked and pointed as the man narrowly avoided car after car( or they avoided him). I braced myself; I knew where this was headed. Someone was going to get hurt or killed here, it was only a matter of time. I’d made it a point not to get involved for the past decade or so, but this was happening right before my eyes. I couldn’t just stand by.

  Sure enough, a yellow ’68 Mustang came barreling down the road, oblivious to the chaos that this poor lunatic was causing. There was no avoiding a collision, and when the inevitable meaty thump, screeching of tires, and screams of pedestrians assailed my ears, I felt the same gut-wrenching nausea that everyone else did. I wasn’t so hardened by the life that I’d led that I was immune to it; to see someone die before your eyes...you never really get used to it.

  While I’m on the subject, let me clarify something for you. By now, you understand that I remember the altered past when I jump, right? OK. Now consider this: I live in a constant fractured state. Basically, I remember both, or sometimes multiple, realities, which means the psychological toll I take from an incident, like a sport car sucker-punching a guy into the great beyond, stays with me even if I reverse time and undo it. Just so you fully understand.

  So as I was saying, the Mustang slammed into the guy with all the sympathy of Simon Cowell from American Idol, if Simon was on a bender and just found out someone killed his dog. At this point in my life, I didn’t even have to think about it; as soon as the body hit the ground, I threw myself into the continuum. No one deserved to go out like that, purse thief or not. My feet met the pavement and I took off sprinting down the sidewalk toward where the screams would start in 5, 4, 3….

  “Stop!! He’s got my purse!!”

  This time, the woman was in sight. Middle-aged, circles of exhaustion lining her eyes, worn shoes barely covering her feet…this woman was not a prime target for theft. Honestly, if I had to guess, I was pretty confident that she barely had enough cash on her for a subway pass home. She wasn’t my primary concern at that moment, so I shook myself back into focus and waited for the purse snatcher to barrel his way through the crowd.

  As he shoved a young couple out of his path, I braced myself for impact. Since I wasn’t the biggest guy in the world, I had to play this smart. Originally, all I’d set out to do was stop the guy long enough for the Mustang to go by without turning him into mush, but now that I’d seen the desperation in the victim’s eyes, I knew I couldn’t just let him get away with her belongings. I had to get the freaking purse back now, too. Lovely.

  He sprinted toward me, off balance. I quickly gauged how unsteady he was and promptly thought of a much easier way to solve this whole thing than getting into a two-man rugby match. As he all but toppled into me, I let out a startled yelp of surprise, while simultaneously latching on to his jacket. I relaxed as best I could and gave gravity permission to do its worst. I hit the ground hard enough to see flashing balloons of light, but my death grip around his collar yanked him down even harder.

  Dazed, we both fumbled to our feet. I apologized profusely and tried to help him to his feet, mostly for the crowd’s benefit. A purse thief is a show in the city; two idiots colliding on the sidewalk isn’t, and sure enough, the pedestrians just decided to forget all about us and our supposed accident. The inside of my skull pulsed to the sensation of a jackhammer chewing its way through granite, but the other guy looked even worse. With a backward glance over his shoulder, he raced/stumbled away as fast as he could limp and disappeared into the crowd. I shook my head, winced painfully at the motion, and turned around myself, the woman’s purse in my hand
.

  She was less thrilled than I expected, considering that I had probably gotten a concussion to save her purse. Her dark, suspicious eyes darted across my face as if trying to determine if I’d been the one to steal it in the first place. After rooting through whatever it is that women keep in their purses, she was satisfied and without so much as a thank you, she stalked off as fast as her worn heels would carry her. I didn’t even bother to yell a sarcastic “You’re welcome”. I just shrugged, tired of it all, and kept on walking.

  I took up residence at a city homeless shelter that night. It was a new habit of mine. It served my needs until I was able to pay for a grungy apartment in the worst part of whatever city or town I’d chosen for that year’s life. As I shuffled my way back there that night, I reviewed the day’s heroics. I’d saved a man’s life and a woman’s purse, but the world hadn’t noticed. The world never noticed what I did because I wasn’t one of its normal citizens. Think about it. Everything that I did was contained within a fishbowl: it was a sheltered little portion of life, periodically cleaned, and occasionally furnished with new decorations, but always the same bowl. Why would the world recognize my actions? Nothing I did lasted for more than a year.

  I trudged through the halls of the shelter until I found my cubicle of a room. I tossed myself carelessly onto the used couch cushions scattered on the linoleum tile floor that served as my bed, ignoring the landmines that exploded behind my eyes in protest.

  Chaplain, what is the point? What am I supposed to find that’s so precious to me that it’s worth all this?

  I missed my wise old friend. Every year, I considered going back to Michigan, but whenever I was tempted, I heard his soft voice scolding me, prodding me to go back out and find something thatI could live to fight for. Hours ticked by as I lay staring at the bland ceiling, wracking my weary mind for something that mattered to me. The only thing that resonated with me was the flash of deep blue eyes and golden hair that kept circling through my mind’s eye, but that was immediately chased by the same ache that I’d felt for the past twelve years. As the lights in the shelter turned off automatically and plunged the room into darkness, I continued to stare off into the blackness.

  Tara was precious to me, but I’d lost her. I’d fled from her so I could never hurt her again, so that my weakness and failure would never cause her the same pain that I felt every day. My eyes slowly widened as I grew more and more excited to follow this train of thought. I’d left to save her. I’d exiled myself from her; the last thing on earth that I wanted was to force her to live a lie. This wasn’t something that was happening to me; I’d deliberately chosen this ridiculous, agonizing lifestyle because I loved her and I didn’t dare hurt her again.

  But what did that mean? There was something in this logic, I could feel it, but it hovered tantalizingly out of reach. I closed my eyes redundantly in the dark, my imagination spinning with fragments of thought. Suddenly, everything that I’d assumed I’d known about my past decade was thrown into question. What if everything I’d suffered wasn’t just a combination of bad karma and poor choices? What if there was a reason for it all? That changed things. That meant that something was precious to me after all. Tara might be gone, but she was still present; as I traced my way through the memories of the years since time-travel, I saw how every actions had been rooted in my desire to keep her safe. Or, at the very least, safe from me.

  Maybe that meant something. Maybe it didn’t. The point was, it gave my tortured existence purpose. Tara didn’t have to be the only person I protected; after all, I’d saved Rachel’s sister and the purse thief on the streets, hadn’t I? I had an ability beyond that of anyone else. There were deaths every day that couldn’t be prevented without a miracle, but now, the world had its miracle: me. In the lightless shelter that night, I opened myself up to my gift. This is for me to share, I told myself, savoring the swelling tide of nobility and sacrificial heroism flowing through me. I’ll save everyone who can’t be helped by normal means. The world needs a hero.

  I’m surprised that I wasn’t honest enough to think it to myself at the time, but I know what I really meant. I wasn’t planning on being a hero. I would be a superhero.

  The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

  ****

  You’ve thought about this before. There’s no shame, everybody has at some point. You’ve wondered what it’d be like to be a superhero. Rushing in to save the day, flamboyant cape and codpiece ablaze with color…….OK, so maybe not that part, but you see what I’m getting at. There’s a part of all of us that wants to be heroic, but honestly, what we want is to be recognized for our efforts.

  I quickly realized that I’d picked the wrong field for that.

  That morning, I trolled the city’s newspaper stands. I flipped through obituaries and back page stories, searching for murders, muggings, or break-ins from the night before. The loosely formed plan at the time was find a crime, go back to last night, and catch them in the act. Sure, it was hazardous, but I wasn’t worried. Nothing could trump the searing pain of the burns that I’d received rescuing Rachel’s sister, and it wasn’t like I would let myself die, so what did I have to be concerned about?

  Eight hours in the past, I shook off the last icy tendrils of pain from the jump, and set off in search of a showdown. The burglary that I’d read about moments earlier would take place on the West Side, so I’d cushioned the timeline with an extra hour to make sure that I arrived just as the robbery was in progress. As the train wound its way through the labyrinth of tunnels, I visualized the shock on the robbers’ faces, the inevitable terrified awe as I beat them down and trussed them up tight for the police. To top off my delusions of grandeur, I even prepared some catchy phrases to badger my opponents with. I realized it was childish, but I was so abuzz with anticipation that I didn’t care. Razor sharp wit was a must-have on the list of badass qualities for a superhero.

  I trotted up the stairs out of the subway tunnels, surprised at the crushed soda cans and cigarette butts littering the steps. Every other train stop I’d seen in Chicago was carefully policed for trash, but this one was literally drenched in refuse. As I emerged into the orange glow of the street lights, the disrepair of the stop suddenly made sense. I hadn’t bothered to do any research about this neighborhood, but if I had, I would have quickly learned that it redefined the phrase “in the hood”.

  If I was ever going to film a post-apocalyptic movie, I’d use that area as my primary set. I swear there were only a handful of unbroken windows in a three block radius, and those were the ones with bars on them. Every other street light flickered at the slightest breeze and alternated between orange and generic white tints at irregular intervals. A perpetual odor of pot and trashcan fires assailed my nostrils as I gazed around with a growing sense of apprehension. The excitement that’d boiled through my veins seconds earlier faded into nervous anticipation.

  The setting should have warned me off, but my heroic quest was still so fresh in my mind that I manned up and strode through the shadowed streets like I owned them. I imagined feral eyes burning holes in my back as I followed my directions to the site of the crime. I sincerely doubt that any street dwellers had the slightest interest in a punk kid swaggering through their turf that night, but I didn’t know any better at the time. Despite my recent adventures, I had no experience whatsoever with the rules of the ghetto. This new environment was dark and threatening, harboring every horror story of the big city that I’d ever heard growing up in a small town.

  A rat darted across my foot. I reacted so fast mentally that my body didn’t know how to respond, so it decided to lock up for about ten seconds. Once I started breathing again, I retreated back into the mental argument that I’d been having since getting off the train.

  In what universe is this a good idea? my common sense snapped.

  Hey, I’m just doing what Chaplain told me to do.

  Don’t pin this on him. Chaplain didn’t tell you to be an idiot. I’d neve
r heard my common sense so irked. It’s not too late; turn around, get back on the train, and go home.

  Maybe you’re right…

  Of course I’m right, it said, relieved. You’re not meant for this hero thing.

  I stopped cold in my tracks.

  OK, well, that was below the belt.

  You know what I meant!

  I silenced that voice in my head with prejudice. I hated being reminded of my failures, and since the scale of positive vs. negative actions was constantly tipping in favor of the negative, those reminders came far too often. Damn it, I could be a hero! I steeled myself for whatever might come and scanned the apartment numbers for the one I’d been searching for. There it was, 36 A, in all its….uh, glory.

  The interior and exterior doors had both been jimmied open by the thieves, so I was able to slide through with ease. Creeping down the hallway towards 36 A, I strained to catch any sounds of shuffling feet behind the stolid door. The article said that the owners had not known that anyone had been in the apartment at the time, so I figured they were fast asleep. A slight creak caught my ear, accompanied by some faint whispers that I couldn’t make out. There were two voices. I felt my confidence come roaring back. I could handle two guys no problem! Before I let myself over-think any further, I kicked the door down and burst into the room.

  Chapter 24

  I rushed into the apartment expecting a whirlwind of fists and grunts of pain. Instead, I was greeted by stunned silence and my momentum died faster than an overfed goldfish. Details caught my eye, were acknowledged, and then evaporated. Given this God-forsaken neighborhood, the place was nicely furnished; tasteful curtains, hardwood countertops, a modestly large flatscreen. No wonder this was where the robbery was going down; it was probably the only decent residence in this neck of the woods.

  I mused idly about the lifestyle choices of the owners of the place while staring awkwardly back at the two thieves frozen in the middle of the room. Still gaping at my unexpected entrance, they performed a dance of confused stares; they sized me up, looked at each other, then looked back to me. They “rinsed and repeated” this a couple of times over what felt like full minutes, but in reality, my entrance had only been seconds earlier.