You see the problem with using time related references is that you wind up saying things like “I visited yesterday today and I’ll probably go back there tomorrow.” Now that just sounds ridiculous, even to me, and I’ve seen a lot. I’ve been everywhere. I’ve watched Caesar stabbed, witnessed JFK’s shooting. Most won’t believe me but there really wasn’t anyone on the grassy knoll, save for me. That’s how my excursion into time travel started. I would go back to great historical events and see them first hand. Marie Antoinette wasn’t as pretty as you’d think. Now, Cleopatra she was a beauty. Anyhow, that’s what I’d do; after running out of events from my high school history class. I started randomly hopping in an out of eras searching for great triumphs. The kind they don’t tell you about in school. The place I saw 6-year-old Ricky Johnson, on a rainy day in Seattle, get his first bike. The elation in his face, now that stuck with me. Or Suzie Pekinzy’s first kiss, the day before the Nazi’s invaded Poland. Her happiness, her lust; those feelings would die that night. She’d only experience it once. I got to witness it whenever I wanted.
Naturally, watching other’s lives led me to my own. I reopened all my presents from Christmases past. Climbed a tree with a bag of popcorn and watched my first romance like a movie. Stood in the crowd and cheered myself on in my first fistfight. Once the glamorous parts of my life lost their glitz, I started revisiting tragedies. The pain, the loss, the betrayal; those things carried weight. At first I started small. Like when I found out Santa wasn’t real. I stepped it up a bit and watched the argument that led to my parents divorce. It was weird seeing them like that. Hearing their secrets thrown at each other like missiles. My mother, the nicest person in the world, had acid in her mouth, her retorts like poison daggers. My father, a proud man, looked like a ghost. One moment a chainsaw the next a coke bottle filled with shame. I felt deep pain from seeing them like that but, the masochist in me couldn’t stop.
After a three-day nap, you could do things like that when time did your bidding. I finally worked up the courage to watch our break up. I sat in her closet and waited. She came in wearing the day’s stresses like a wet coat. She had a new job and was having a hard time adjusting to the boss’s outrageous demands. It was easy to see that now. It was easy to see how hard it must have been for her having two tyrants in her life. I came in after some time. I don’t really know how long, I was lost watching the symphony of her undressing and brushing her long black hair. Those beautiful private moments meant for no one. My enjoyment of how gracefully she had folded her sheets and vacuumed her apartment was bittersweet. For I knew what was coming. I came in all cocky and loud demanding a sandwich. She had told me no and that I was perfectly capable of making one myself. God I was a jerk back then. I remember how I had been growing irritated with her. How I couldn’t believe she didn’t have time for me.
Now, I had all the time in the world to think of the things I said. How my child’s anger had overflowed. I wanted to burst from the closet and shake myself, rough me up. Scream “You asshole, offer her a bath or back rub. She isn’t asking for much. Just some comfort.” I knew how to cook; I could have easily made her dinner. I yearned to go back 20 minutes and reason with myself. “Look kid, I’ve seen countless loves. Real loves. Not the kind in Disney movies or Dawson’s Creek. Where everything is perfect. Nothings perfect. You’ll realize that once you witness the things I have, like war and murder.” But the fuzzy laws of time traveling wouldn’t allow it, that and I was too proud back then. I couldn’t possibly have understood that I was the Judas to my Jesus. Betraying the one shot I had at divine happiness.
So, I went back to that day. The day I first discovered that old steamer trunk. The dusty attic was still reverberating from my first trip. In my initial excitement I hadn’t looked at what else was in the trunk. This time I did. I found a worn leather book filled to the brim with letters. Each recounting the visions of time travelers. How they had also begun by enjoying history. How they too were drawn into rewitnessing their own lives. How they had gotten trapped in the cycle of wanting to fix past mistakes. Falling victim to the rip tide of regret. After finishing the book of confessions, I noticed the circular pattern that each traveler was in. How each was finally ended with a letter. So, like many before me I wrote my own letter. I described the beautiful images I saw, the secrets I now knew, and the travesties I encountered. How although only a week had passed for any one ordinary I had lived for centuries. I was as old as the sea. I preached of how time should be ephemeral and passing. The fact that specific memories, events, and feelings only happen once is what gives them their significance. A blooming flower is only superb because it never blooms again. After I finished I signed the letter like every other traveler had:
Sincerely,
You-
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