by Jalen Cole
“Hey, it’s me,” I said at the tone, taking a pause for a layer of dramatic effect, “I’m really sorry about tonight. I can’t apologize enough. But I’ve got a plan to fix all of it. A plan as stupid as I am.” I took a moment to laugh, hoping she would find it as funny as I did, “And uh, if it works, you won’t even have to worry about me ever again. So, here’s hoping.” I paused, this time it was for me, not the drama, I needed to take a moment to fully accept what I was about to commit to, “I really am sorry.” Maybe it was for the drama.
Carefully, I put on one of the gloves I had found and moved the ball into the baggie, taking a moment and a few deep breaths as I removed the glove. I placed it in my back pocket and readied my index finger for something I felt incredibly confident and stupid for considering.
I closed my eyes and braced myself for any kind of pain that might come as I pressed my finger against the cold metal. But all I could feel was the wind sweep against my face and strong aroma of cut grass rising from below. Somehow, I had gotten outside, somehow I had opened my eyes to see a familiar cul-de-sac. My knees buckled, almost as if I had jumped and landed on the new ground. My heart skipped a beat as a sudden sensation of vertigo almost put me on my back. My breaths became erratic and hurried as I scrambled to regain my balance and composure, which took entire minutes to fully accomplish.
I looked down to find my finger still pressing the orb, my face and body still clenched and braced for anything. A melancholy moon hung above the houses of a small neighborhood, casting somber rays of dim light down the streets. Late night wind whimpered against rustling sycamore trees as a cacophony of late night insects chattered.
I was going entirely crazy, every fiber of my being shouting. One half was cursing Emanuel, but the other was screaming with the excitement of what he had promised. Now I only needed to find out where to start—that’s when it hit. All the knowledge promised to me by a stranger. Where I needed to be and what I needed to do, all the information I needed had made its way into my mind.
My feet seemed to move without me, marching forward towards my resolve. While they did, I was still partially adjusting to my surroundings. The turn of the millennium, a literal half a lifetime ago. I had to shake off the feeling, being shell-shocked would have to wait. For the time being, I was off to meet myself.
. . .
Whatever knowledge I had acquired from the small orb in my pocket lead me to a not-too-lonely house on the left side of a dead end street, paired only by a twin on the right. The birthplace of the love story between Amanda and I.
I remember the two of us used to keep our windows unlocked, using a ladder my dad kept in the shed to sneak into each other’s rooms. I briefly reminisced in the old times we shared together, stories and gossip and jokes that were thrown back and forth while hiding under forts made of sheets. It always seemed like the nights lasted forever, day-time only acting as a reprieve in between.
I used our old methods to sneak into the room I used to sleep in, carefully tiptoeing my way closer towards the bed near the room’s far end. As I approached it, I noticed the sheets rising and falling slightly, rhythmically. For the first time, I noticed the sleeping body of my younger self. The feeling of a fourteen year gap between me and myself seemed so surreal. But, if Emanuel was right, it would all be worth it.
Seeing myself, my past self, sleeping pushed every other thought aside. Somehow, it was more surreal than the prospect of time travel. Slowly, trepidatiously, I extended a time breaking finger towards my own head. The same one I used to bring me here, I had to be doing it for some kind of poetry. Maybe I was doing it for the drama.
Every other thought was purged from my mind as I began to remember being dragged from my slumber, unexpectedly, as my finger touched skin. There was a shared moment of still silence between myself and myself. I took my index finger and placed it over my lips.
“Don’t do anything loud.” I warned.
“W-…” My past self started, obviously scared at the man in his bedroom, “Who are you?”
“Chris.” I started, smiling, “I’m you. From the future.” For the drama, again…I had been reminded of every cheesy line from every time travel movie ever.
The room was darkened, illuminated only by patterned stripes of moonlight filtered in through blinds, but even still, my past self was able to be as quick witted as ever, “I look like that in the future?” He asked, looking me up and down. For a moment, it felt like we were separate people, “Here I was, thinking I’d be handsome.”
“Man, I was an asshole.” I said, earning a laugh from little Chris. And as that thought came into mind, I articulated it, “I’m gonna call you Little Chris to avoid confusion, okay?” I kneeled down low, making the conversation more intimate.
“Why do I have to be Little Chris, why can’t you be Big Chris.” He said, gesturing at my stomach.
I let out a low laugh and almost sighed, “Let’s stay focused, ask me why I’m here.” I said, getting down on one knee to even out our heights. For a moment, I could feel myself imitating Emanuel.
“Alright, why?” Little Chris asked, I remember that I was starting to feel a little more comfortable by this point in the conversation, although more curious.
“Regrettably, things don’t go so well between us and Amanda in my time.”
“Oh…” I could remember I was disheartened, almost heartbroken when I was told, “What happened?”
“We had some disagreements. Trust issues, a…less than romantic home life,” I stopped and awkwardly scratched the back of my head, “It might’ve had something to do with me cheating on her.”
Little Chris stirred in his bed, “You w—” He stopped himself to readjust, “Why did you do that?”
“Lots of reasons.” I pursed my lips, “But that’s not why I’m here.” I said, grabbing Little Chris by the shoulders, trying to capture his full attention, my full attention, “We got into a huge argument, one that seemed like it lasted for days. It revealed layers of her that we…” I paused and let go of my younger self, my shoulders and arms slumped down to my sides, “layers that I never knew about.”
“Hey, come on. I’m sure it wasn’t that bad.”
“No, it really was!” I said, my voice going higher than I anticipated. Both of us crouched down, expecting either of our parents to wake up. “Listen,” I made sure to keep my voice low, “I can tell you everything you’ll ever need to know about Amanda. That way, you can spend your time learning about everything else.”
“Uncover those hidden layers.”
“Now you’re getting it.” I smiled, nodding to my younger self, “And once you know it, you can learn new stuff. And once you know it, I’ll know it. And then I can do…something…with that.”
Little Chris chuckled at me, “You’re a bit all over the place, aren’t you?” He asked.
“Yeah.” I rubbed my head again, “Time travel will mess you up. But you won’t have to do it, luckily. I think I created an alternate universe with this golden ball.”
“You are…” My younger self took a moment to find the right words, “the oddest, most…information-dense dream I have ever had.”
I took the moment to grab his shoulders again, “I promise, I’m not a dream. You’ll be seeing more of me in the future. I can’t tell you when because I’m not sure, but I promise, you will see me again.” I stood up from him and smiled down, “Until next time, Little Chris.” I took a moment to open the plastic bag in my pocket, reaching in with two fingers for the orb in my pocket. In another instant, I was gone: in the next instance I was supposed to be, but I could remember myself making yet another witty response.
He smiled back to me, “Until next time, Big Chris.”
. . .
I found myself in the same crouched position, resting behind a tree as another familiar scent struck me. I peered around my camouflage to see a bus pulling out and away from a car circ
le at the lip of my neighborhood, coughing smog like propulsion as it crept away. I wanted to take a moment to feel nostalgic, but was interrupted by a flood of directions. The information had come in so much quicker this time, it almost knocked the wind out of me. I felt like a marionette, being pushed up into a standing position and getting shoved towards my objective without my body fully consenting. I crossed over two sets of streets before weaving around a small grove of trees and towards my younger self as he walked home from the bus stop.
“How was school?” I smirked as the words danced off my lips.
Little Chris turned to investigate, “You!” He shouted before backing away as quickly as his feet would carry, too quickly, “You were supp—” he began just before tripping over his own feet and falling to the ground, “You were supposed to be a dream!”
“And you were supposed to remember Amanda’s birthday today.”
“Wait, what?” He seemed more reluctant for the moment, albeit still off guard.
“Listen man, I get it, it’s the first birthday she’s had with you, so it slipped your mind. But it’s the first birthday she’s had with you, so you gotta set the mood and not forget it.” I extended a hand to help him up from the ground, “That’s why I’m here.”
“Alright just…I need a second man.” He accepted the hand, “You show up out of nowhere then disappear for—”
“Three weeks,” I interrupted.
“Yeah…three weeks. Then you just show up out of thin air again. This might not be weird to you but I need a minute.”
“Alright listen, I’ll make this easy for you,” I grabbed both of his shoulders to inspire some confidence, “Amanda’s expecting you to walk her home from the bus stop as usual, but they got stuck behind a few lights and are running late. So this is what I need you to do,” I shook him by his shoulders ever so slightly, “Run as fast as you can home, grab the teddy bear Aunt Ronda got you for valentine’s day and cut the ribbon off of it. Give it to Amanda as a distraction present and drop her off at her house like normal. That’ll buy you some time to make or buy something a bit more thoughtful.”
“Okay!” He nodded back, “Repurpose bear, get real gift. Got it,”
“Alright,” I smiled quickly before the grin soured, remembering that my past self hadn’t felt confident at all by the end of the conversation, “I have complete faith in you.” I took a step back and reached for the baggie in my pocket.
. . .
The first trip to the past I had taken seemed so fluid, as if time itself were the wind breezing by my face. It was jarring to be flung so far, the feeling leaving me completely unprepared for the hop and skip that occurred once I touched the orb again. Before my knees trembled and my legs shook as I landed back in time. Now, it seemed almost as if the ground shifted beneath me without so much as a twitch from either leg. Where my heart had once skipped a beat, I now felt as if I wasn’t comfortable enough where I now stood.
I looked over my shoulder to see Little Chris, thumbing through a drugstore’s catalogue of greeting cards, “I take it she liked the bear.” He flinched as I spoke form beside, looking over his shoulder at me, “you seriously couldn’t think of anything better than a card?” I raised an eyebrow.
“You didn’t give me a whole lot of time to think of anything substantial.” He scoffed.
“Yeah, that’s the way this tends to work.” I gripped the bridge of my nose, remember that my younger self didn’t feel very helped by my comment, “Birthday cards are on the other side, by the way.”
“…Shit.” He muttered under his breath.
“This is gonna take longer than I thought.” He didn’t feel very helped by that comment either.
. . .
I spent so long going forward through my past life, correcting every mistake I ever made, every time I wronged Amanda. So much so that it started to get tiring. There were so many, I had messed up so much, it was almost embarrassing. At one point, I warped forward and attempted to go forward again. To let one mistake slip through the cracks. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t make the device move me forward again. I was obligated to correct whatever I did wrong. I could tell Little Chris was even getting tired of seeing me and was attempting to make corrections before I had to. But he fell short. And when he did, I was there to catch him. The entire thing became a process, the only reward being the reminder, every time, of Amanda’s smiles. I had to convinced myself that was enough.
As I did more, Little Chris got older and I got closer to the present. Back to when I would’ve started. As I did, I got better and better at mending whatever wrong I had done. Some kind of training for when I did return, so that I wouldn’t ever make another mistake, but it was hard to tell if I was learning from my mistakes, or someone else’s. Me and my younger self seemed so distant from each other at this point, like two different people. Which was concerning, considering how close I was getting to my current age.
But I would have to toss those ideas aside, again. Drain my head, purge my thoughts, cleanse my conscious. Until I return…
. . .
It had finally come when I had least expected it. I touched the orb with my index finger and thumb, just as I always had to go forward. Instead of the feeling of instant travel, I could feel wind whipping around my head as I traveled. As the scenery seemed to morph around me, the ball let out a whimper and dimmed, leaving me, at the end of my journey, in a darkened bedroom. The information had stopped coming in, and the feeling of being transported between destinations didn’t surface. It was incredible, waking up in a bed I didn’t recognize, in a room that felt completely foreign. The only thing I did expect was the only thing that wasn’t there. Amanda. I pictured her lying next to me, the two of us embracing each other through the nights—a repaired couple. But I didn’t find her. Only an empty pillow with the impression of her head on it.
I got up, swinging my legs wide across the side of the bed, propelling forward with my arms, ecstatic at what I would find. I could hear Amanda’s voice coming in through a crack in the door, hushed and low. The apartment we shared was beautiful. Finely furnished and decorated. Pictures of us, happy, all around this country and others. It was relieving to see her again, so close to me without there needing to be some event to bring us together.
It wasn’t as relieving to see someone inside of our apartment, kissing her goodbye as he left out our front door, “Amanda?” I asked, my voice rolling through the apartment, catching her off guard as the door shut.
“Chris!” She near jumped as she turned to me, standing in an untied bathrobe, clutching it shut with both hands, “Hun, it’s like…4 in the morning, what are you doing awake?”
I didn’t know how to answer, “I don’t really know. Who was that?”
“Who?” She asked, batting her eyelashes coyly.
That was when I knew what was happening, “Are you…what’s happening?” My voice shook with disbelief as her eyes said what her lips couldn’t, “Who was at the door?” I asked, my voice shrinking.
“I swear, I can explain.” She said, walking closer to me, holding a hand out so that she could come in and embrace me.
I wanted to, I did. But I chose not to and backed away instead, “Start explaining.”
She was debased, choking on her own words as a tear started to form, “I’m so sorry.”
“But I…” I took a moment, placing my hands on my waist. I didn’t want to look her in the eye, so I turned to the side, “I did everything I could. I did everything to make sure you were happy. Weren’t you happy?”
“I was, I was, I promise.” She nodded, “I was so happy, for so long.” She admitted, tears free falling as she did, “But you were so perfect, all the time. You never forgot, or missed, or misplaced anything. And I just…wasn’t.” She said, walking over to me and forcefully turning my head, locking eyes with me, “Someone as great and loving as you…deserves someone so much be
tter than me. I can’t be perfect like you.”
There was a moment of silence between us, “I don’t care what I deserve, I just wanted to be with you!” My body took a step forward without me knowing. I pursed my lips and nodded downward, moving backward in an attempt to reset my tone, “Is this my fault?” I asked, “Is that what you’re trying to say.” I became a bit defensive as my voice seemingly came to a whimper.
That’s when she became defensive too, “You know, you’re not the most important one here!”
There was a strange comfort in her raised voice. Even though she was talking straight to me, singling me out, our conversation had long since been over. I wanted so desperately to walk away, just as I had before, to keep running so I wouldn’t have to face whatever uncertainty laid ahead. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t sacrifice the ground I had made. Not again. “You’re right.” I told her. Again, we felt alone in each other’s company, “You’re right.” I grabbed her by the shoulders, “I’m sorry. All I ever wanted was for you to be happy.” I dropped my arms, letting my hands grip her waist. I pulled her in, resting my head on her shoulder.
“Chris…” She said, her voice barely above a whisper as she threw her arms behind my neck, tears still falling.
“You’re happier with Robby.” I said, “I already know it.”
“Chris, you’re not making any sense.” She said, pulling away from me.
I had to reach into my back pocket to make sure I could go through with what I was planning. Luckily, I still had my plastic baggie.
“Don’t worry about it, Amanda.” I kissed her one last time before I backed away, “I’m going to fix this.”
I pulled the orb around to my front, a dazzling golden glow emanating from it. I realized this was not the finale, this was not the present I would come back to. I realized that making amends, true amends, with Amanda and finally understanding her heart was why I was brought here, just another way station along the road.
. . .
After I had touched the orb, I found myself standing in front of myself. Two futures crashing in the past, right outside my old house, next to the ladder, “Hey, me.”