Time

Unravel the mysteries and perils of time travel

​ My temple aches, where his gun has been pressed for the last two minutes. The barrel cold against my skin. My breath forms fog with every breath I take.

​“Don’t move a muscle. You’re just going to sit tight while I tell you a little story.”
This is what he said as he came up from behind me in the park. His gun barrel already placed to the back of my head.

Pulling me to the closest park bench he says, “Here. Take a seat.” His hand on my shoulder pushing me to the sitting position.

The bench is cold, and the metal slats radiate an arctic chill through my body. The falling snow has already began to stick. The grass turning white first, as the concrete walk ways begin to slush over.

My first thought is of the red stained patch of snow that will be left behind if he pulls the trigger. The splatter of blood making its art gallery like display the foreground, amongst the white filled background.

The bones and joints of my hand burn from the cold, as I begin to run them along my chest searching for the breast pocket of my jacket.
Inside the pocket… salvation…

“Hold it right there! Move your hand another inch, and I’ll blow your f*****g brains all over this bench. Now let me see your palms.” he nudges the gun barrel harder against my head.

Raising my hands, to show him they are empty, I ask. “What do you want…? I have some money in my wallet, it’s not much, but it’s yours if you want. It’s all I have…”

It really is all I have. I’m not even sure a bank account in my name exists right now. No property, no equity, nothing of value… Except the Bolivia watch my wife gave me as a birthday gift last year. A plain brown leather wrist band, with a watch face made of sterling silver. Even that is somewhat worthless. Retail value of fifteen dollars.

With my hands raised, the sleeves of my jacket slide down my wrist revealing my watch, and I check the time… 9:35… Great I’ve been here 5 f*****g minutes and I’m already getting mugged. If I could only get my hands inside my breast pocket, this could all go away. Instead, my hands are raised, and the cold outside is turning the skin red.

“I don’t want your damn money Chris. I just want to talk. And while we talk, I’m going to keep this gun placed firmly against your skull, to deter you from reaching into that coat pocket of yours…” again he is nudging me hard with the gun barrel.

“How do you know my name?”

“I know everything about you Chris. I know how you dropped out of college because money got tight, and you couldn’t afford to take care of your wife and kid anymore. So you took on a second job working nights at the morgue. Dressing up dead people in their shiny new suits, that they will be buried in. I know how you use to imagine these corpses were alive… Holding private conversations with the dead. Telling them all your little secrets, fears, and aspirations. I know that part of your job description is to remove the clothes and personal effects of the dead, and place them neatly in a bin for their surviving family members to have, to sort through. I also know how on September 19 of 2015 at 12:53 am, you began stripping the personal effects off of some john doe who washed up on the shores of the west Burbank. His skin blue and bloated. The stench of rotting wet death. You stripped him of his belongings, and as you folded up his tattered dripping wet sports coat, something fell out of one of the pockets. Sent skipping across the ground. A palm sized device that shined and sparkled in your hands. The same device that’s in your breast pocket now. The reason you keep checking your watch. The reason, I will blow your brains out if you reach for it again.”

Suddenly I’m not cold anymore…

Isn’t it funny how panic, or adrenaline can warm the body even in the coldest darkest nights. It becomes a welcoming gift.

When you are plunged into a freezing river.

Or dressed for Mexico, and without warning transported to a barren wasteland of frozen ice and snow. Your shorts and flip flops, your tank top, and sunglasses, none of this built to help you survive -52 degrees, and the 4 feet of freezing white snow, that now sits chest high on your body.

Thank god for panic and adrenaline. Forcing you to adapt. To survive. To reach for your pocket and save yourself.

You learn to dress more appropriately, for any situation that may arise.

Fog pours from my mouth with every breath, and the gun barrel cold against my scalp sends chills down my spine.

But I’m not cold anymore.

Internal body temperature rises a couple degrees in times of crises. My hands are still reddened from the cold beating at them, but in my coat, my body is a furnace cooking away.
“Here, keep your hands busy with this.” My attacker says as he’s shoving a newspaper into my face.

“What the hell is this?” I ask ripping the paper from his hands.

“Just shut your mouth and read… Both hands on the paper at all times or I’ll end you here and now.” He says with yet another hard nudge of the pistol. The pain radiating from a single point at my temple.

Looking down at the Newspaper. I see the headline Woman and child brutally murdered. Below the headline is a photo of a smiling family. My smiling family. My beautiful wife, her brown hair curled and waving around her face. Her smile beaming as her arms embrace our one year old son, straddled in her lap. It’s the same photo I carry in my wallet. The same photo, we framed and placed on the fireplace mantle. The article goes on to state that Marry Jenson and son Arthur Jenson were found stabbed to death in there Burbank apartment Saturday. Their estranged husband Chris Jenson, had been missing since September of 2015, But recent reports have shown him in the area. The finger prints on the murder weapon belong to Chris, and he is wanted for questioning…

“How can this be? I would never do anything to hurt my family.” My head hurts where he’s been pressing the gun into my temple. And I find it hard to concentrate.

In a cold flat tone of voice, my attacker says. “Check the date…”

Scanning the top of the newspaper, I see the date stamped in the right hand corner. October 23, 2018.

“2018? How do you have this? Its three years away still.”

More than ever, I want to reach into my pocket. To clutch the shiny object in my palm. To take me away from here. To go find out for myself what the hell is going on.

Coming around my side, I see my attacker come into view. His feet leave long strokes in the newly forming snow. His gun still raised at my head. Coming around until he’s standing right in front of me.

As I lower the newspaper, I begin to take in who my attacker is. Eyeing ever corner of him. Measuring him up. I am flabbergasted at what stands in front of me. It’s like looking into a mirror. It’s like staring at your own reflection. His smile radiating everything I’ve ever seen in the mirror. My twin. But I don’t have a twin.

His long ragged hair streaming about in the breeze. His face wielding a beard that’s been growing for what must be a year at least. Above his right eyebrow, a scar runs horizontally to his hair line. It must have had stitches at one time, but has long since healed. These are things that I’ve never seen in the mirror, but without a doubt that smile, his bright blue eyes, the freckle on his left cheek bone. Those are all mine. All things I see in the mirror every day. It’s me… only not me... Only different.

He must be able to see the confusion on my face, because he gives a smirk and says, “It’s like looking at a reflection of yourself huh? Only different.”

My hand nervously reaches for my breast pocket. For my salvation. Quick as lightning, he flips the gun over in his hand and swings the butt of his pistol at my face, connecting right above my eye. With a crack of an explosion, I see stars. Warm blood oozes down my face. Running into my eye, temporarily blinding me.

Wiping the blood on my coat sleeves, it freezes instantly. Creating a thick scab of frozen red.

Looking back up at my reflection. My twin. Blood dripping down my face, making neat little patterns of red in the white snow beneath me. I see him gesture towards his face.

Using his index finger he points to the scar above his eyebrow. “you’re going to need to get stitches… 11 if I remember correctly.” He says and then shoots me a wink. His smirk shining bright.

“What do you want from me?”

“I’ve been stuck here for two years. Waiting for you… waiting for that device… I want you to remember this, someday you will be on the other side of this. I need that device, to save them… I’m going to save our family. The Newspaper has it all wrong, we would never kill her or our son. Someone is covering this up, and making us their fall guy. It might have something to do with that device. With the things you’ve changed. Either way it doesn’t matter. I’ve done a lot of research and had plenty of time these past two years, to plan this out. I’m going to save our family. Now listen closely… todays Date is January 3 2023, we are at St George park in Maryland. It’s now 9:50am, you’ll need to be here by 9:20am… you got that?

Pain throbs through my head with every pulse of my heart beat. Confusion has set in, and I ask “What are you talking about?

With a jarring slap across the face he replies. “Get it together Chris. Now tell me what I just told you. What is the date? Where are we? And what time do you need to be here?

I comply and state “today is January 3 2023. We are in St George Park. I need to be here by 9:20am.”

​Grinning he says “perfect, now give me the device.”
In a haze I reach into my breast pocket. The smooth round shape feels good in my palm. Pulling it out, the green lights and numbers begin to flash and change.

Now’s my chance… my chance for salvation.

Quickly I start pressing the buttons on the device. Each button producing a different tone. The object begins to illuminate blinding reds and blues.

Before I can finish, my attacker is on me. He slams me into the snow, and begins wrestling me for control of the device. Rolling and jostling, spreading more red blood droplets into the pristine billowy white snow.

With a loud beep….beep….beeeeeeep. The blood splattered snow disappears. Replaced with hot black pavement. The park is gone… now the only thing I can see is the busy bustling street we are now rolling in. cars whizzing past us as we fight for control of the device.

Using his thumb, he pushes hard into the newly formed gash above my right eyebrow. I scream out in pain, and momentarily lose control of the device. Before I know what’s happened, he’s up and running. Sprinting between cars as he adjusts the device.

One second he’s there and the next he’s gone. And I’m left stranded...

Blood pools in the street below my face. Still disoriented, I stand up and scan my surroundings. I’m in a city, but what city, and when?

That’s the thing about this device. You can control the time you want to go to, but it never drops you where you want to be. The first night I found it, as I admired it in my hands. I accidentally pushed a button and was sent from the basement of the morgue in Burbank, 1:32am September 2015, to a ferry commuting between New York and New Jersey 3:45pm June 2018.

After a few times of tweaking with it, I began to realize that the time I wanted to travel to was easy, but the “where” I’d travel to was completely out of my control. Always random. From Beijing to Dallas. From Calaveras to San Marcos. From Italy to a raging river in some topical land. Always random, and always out of my control.

It’s important to dress warm for these occasions, you never know when you’ll end up in the arctic again.

As I stand and regain my bearings, I notice that in my hand I’m still holding the newspaper with the picture of my Wife and our son.

“I won’t let this happen to you. I swear on my life, I’m going to fix this.”

Folding the newspaper up so it fits into my back pocket, I venture across the street and search for the nearest newspaper stand.

Something to tell me where, or when I am.

A block down I find what I’m looking for, And as I spread the new, newspaper open I catch the title… Las Vegas tribune… the date stamped in the right hand corner reads July 5, 2021.

In my head his words play over again. “Be at the St George Park at 9:20am, January 3, 2023.”

Great stuck here for 2 f*****g years.

2 years until I can meet a younger me, and give him a scar on his eyebrow like the one I just received.

2 years until I can steal that device back, and leave a younger me stranded.

2 years that I can study and find out everything there is to know, about how my wife and child died. Get coroners reports, and police reports. Find out exactly when I need to be there to stop their killer. To change history. To change the newspaper that’s stuffed into my back pocket.



​

Author's Note

Looking for unbiased opinions, about grammar, pacing, dialogue, plot, all of it

Reviews

[William Richards]

Hey Cellardoor,

Cool story. I was really engaged with what you were telling, that's a real gift. It's the sort of thing that could be worked up into a movie. I genuinely enjoyed reading.

There are a few grammatical mistakes. Have you ever considered grammerly? I don't work for them! But I bought their software recently and it has helped me a bit. Alternatively, read it out loud to yourself can be useful too. I'm poor with grammar and slowly trying to improve mine, it takes a lot of time. I wish my teachers had taught me it when I was at school!

My only other point were a few of the details need some attention i.e. at the beginning you mention the gun being pressed up to the temple (i.e. side of his head), but in the next paragraph say the gun is at the back of his head. The other detail was the wound he got about his eye from a single strike from a gun butt... if it really did need 11 stitches that would be a huge gash! I may pick up on that as I've worked in an ER/A+E and so not all readers might... if you googled 'wound' and 'stitches' you could count how many are there on the size of a wound you are trying to describe

Otherwise good work. Engaging story which I really enjoyed. I would enjoy reading another chapter to see if he saves his family or not.

[Cellardoor]

Wow thank you. I was wondering if 11 stitches was to many. I just picked an arbitrary number. I wanted the wound to be big enough to leave a noticeable scar for the future character. I appreciate your insight. And I will take these suggestions into consideration.

[David Jae]

Very straight-forward and compelling. I like how you jump straight in and weave the story. Some of your description is a little over too heavy handed, but I like your dialogue and how it brings out your characters. You should be proud of this.

[Cellardoor]

Thank you very much for the read and review. the over descriptions, were my way of trying to add more. Trying to show you rather than tell you. I will keep your comment in mind, while writing my next short story. Again thank you very much for the honest review.

[David Jae]

No worries. You have a lot of potential.

[Coyote Poetry]

The story was well written. The story line brought me in and held my attention. I like the honest tone and direct thoughts in the story. I would read the book. I like real life thoughts and the situations you took the readers to. I liked the story and thank you for sharing the entertaining story.
Coyote

[Cellardoor]

Thank you very much. I appreciate the review. I'm new to here. And new to writing. This is my first story. I'm looking to use this site to gain insight, and learn how to improve.

[Coyote Poetry]

It is a good site. I have been helped a lot. Please send read requests. I would be honor to read your work.