Altering the Apocalypse: and Other Short Stories About Humans and Time Travel

by Fred Phillips

  But, it worked. Was I surprised when I ended up in the middle of my apartment. You bet. When I opened my eyes, I was lying prone on the floor. Before I could process what had happened, a piercing scream broke the haze.

  “Jesus, who the fuck are you?” A man, no older than thirty sat on the couch, legs propped up on a small oval coffee table stared at me in disbelief. I quickly looked around to survey my surroundings. Yes, this was my apartment, but everything seemed different – different carpet, paint, drapes, and furnishings. Different resident, too.

  “Where the fuck did you come from?” The man looked at his cigarette, which on second glance appeared to be home rolled and filled with an illegal substance, and said. “Jesus, this is some fucked up shit. I gotta stop smoking, man.” He looked at me. “How the fuck did you get in here?

  “Um, I, ah, I don't-”

  “You want a hit?” He reached down and offered the joint to me.

  I figured what the hell, things can't get any stranger. I took the joint, put it to my lips, and inhaled deeply. I hadn't smoked pot in twenty years, but it felt good, if not a bit harsh, going down.

  I handed him back the joint. “If you don't mind, I think I'll just get up and get out of here. That ok?”

  “Sure, man. You're welcome to stay if you want. I ain't got much to steal, if, um, you're a burglar or something. But you're welcome to help me smoke the rest of this bag. He picked up a small baggie half-filled with marijuana. “It’s medicinal. It’s top quality.”

  “No, I'm fine. One hit is enough for me. I'm too old.”

  “You ain't never too old for this shit, man.” He took a long, deep hit and waved his hand as I got up, shook off the lingering disorientation, and headed for the door. As I opened the door, I paused, looked back at the man and asked, “Oh, by the way, what year is it?”

  He laughed, took a long hit off the joint and laughed. “That's a good one, man. You're a funny guy.”

  Sensing I wouldn't get an answer to my question, I walked out into an unknown world to see what I could do to get my lovely Doreen back.

  I first spotted Doreen at the grocery store. I wanted to walk up to her, but something stopped me. I had checked the newspaper in the vending machine outside the store, and discovered that I had traveled back five years. Four years, seven months, and ten days to be exact. There was a moment of silent reflection – a holy shit moment. I did it! I traveled back in time. If you were here to see it, would you believe it, Mr. Einstein?

  Doreen wouldn't age a bit in the next five years. But, what about me? There had to be more gray hairs and a few more wrinkles – it was then that I realized something I hadn't spent too much time considering in my haste to get back and alter my past. There might be another me here. Or am I me? Was this physical embodiment of Jack Torrence the real me? Or, due to my travels through time, were there now two Jack Torrences in the same time? Had I created a paradox or a parallel timeline?

  Jesus, this was a genuine time travel conundrum. Was this an alternate reality? Or, was this the same reality I left, only five years earlier? If it was a parallel universe, I suppose I would be the only one of me. But, what if only one timeline existed? What would I do if I met myself? Could I shoot myself? Would Jack Torrence the shooting victim die, but Jack Torrence, the shooter live?

  Just as I was trying to figure it all out, I saw a gray Honda van pull up to the front of the store. I watched a Doreen exited the building and opened the side door of the van. She placed the grocery stores bags inside and then hopped into the front passenger seat. I watched as my wife and my younger self drive off. One question answered.

  I stayed overnight at the local Motel 6. I had brought along my credit cards and some cash on my trip through time. When the motel clerk ran the credit card, I was surprised when it was accepted, fearing that it may be only good in the future. I slept like a baby, still comfortable that I had made the right decision to go back in time and reclaim my marriage.

  I wish I had made additional good decisions the next day. I wish I could tell you that things worked out and that I saved my marriage. But, time travel was more complicated that I imagined. I was a scientist, a man of logic, a man with a narrow laser focus on the task at hand. My task had been to build a time machine – something no one else had ever accomplished, though STA was on the verge of a major leap forward in time travel science. I had gone back in time, an amazing journey that I didn't even realize at the time because I was so focused on finding my wife and fixing what I knew would break. It was like a living deja vu – but it certainly didn't work out like I planned.

  Don't ask me why I did it, but I confronted my former self. I met him outside work, walking to his car, parked exactly where I knew it would be. I always left at the same time, parked in the same spot, and read my email messages from my phone while I walked. It's amazing how I could remember all the details of my boring life and forget the most important thing of all.

  I always parked at the far end of the lot. The first day I had parked in this one space a few years earlier I had received a surprise promotion and raise, so every day after that, I parked in that same space for good luck. I was a man of habit, and though lady luck had not blessed me since, the last space on the left in the last row became my permanent parking space. Until a little bad luck came my way.

  One late winter afternoon, the sun already set beyond the horizon, I was robbed and knocked out by an assailant as I walked the empty parking lot to my car. It was only three months earlier than the day I returned from the future. After my two day stay in the hospital with abrasions and internal bleeding, I had taken action. I had purchased a gun, legally of course, and I had gone to the local shooting range three or four times. I never expected to use it, but I felt more protected and less vulnerable with it in my brief case. Though my wife knew, no one at work had a clue that the mild-mannered man of science was armed and dangerous.

  I also moved my car one space over. Still at the far end of the lot.

  I, of course, the me who had traveled back from the future, had forgotten this small, but vitally important detail. When I confronted the past me, I didn't even think about the gun, he (I) had in my briefcase. I walked up to him as he approached his (my) car. “You know who I am?” I confronted him. He stopped, looking bewildered, studying a graying, older version of himself.

  “Who, who, are you, what are-”

  “I'm you. You're me. We're the same.”

  “What the hell?” I suppose that the seeds of time travel had not yet been planted in my brain. Had they been brewing inside my head he (I) may have been able to put two and two together – he (I) may have realized that I was him (me) from the future. “Just hold it there, asshole. You stay away.”

  “Oh c'mon. Don't you get it?” I pleaded with myself. “Don't you see I'm you.”

  “You aren't getting my money, my car, nothing this time.” Jeez – I didn't realize that I could be a tough guy if the circumstances dictated.

  “I don't want your money or your car. I want my wife, um, I mean, I want my wife to love me again. I want to be a good husband again, and not, um, push her away or ignore her, or whatever-”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Scientists, as smart as they are, and I was smart – almost perfect SAT scores, 4.0 GPA in college, top five percentile on Grad School admission test, yet here I am, in quite a bind because I didn't think things through to their logical conclusions.

  As I stood staring at him (me), unsure of what to say, I saw him (me) reach inside his briefcase, the small pocket on the side. He (I) pulled out the small caliber pistol I (he) had purchased not too long ago.

  “Jesus, no.” I exclaimed, my voice quivering. “There's no need-”

  “Shut up and leave or I shoot. I'll count to ten. I'm not calling the cops. You can stay and I shoot. You leave and I just get in my car and go. What's it gonna be?” He (I) pointed the gun at my chest, an itchy finger on the trigger.

  Damn, he (I) sure
sounded and looked like a tough guy. I stared in disbelief for a few minutes. Then I acted. On my first move I grabbed his (my) wrist. As he(I) tried to jerk it out of my grip, his (my) wrist twisted inward; in the chaos of myself versus myself, the gun went off. Time seemed to stop as I stared into my own eyes. Was I hit? Was he (I) hit? For a brief static moment, I didn't know what happened. Then he (I) crumpled to the ground like a deflated accordion belting out its last sour note. I watched as the back of his (my) head hit the pavement, and looked around nervously like murderers do in the movies. I reached down to feel for a pulse and listen for a breath, but there was nothing – only the sound of wind rustling through the trees and cars speeding on the distant freeway.

  I thought of my fingerprints on his (my) wrist, but then I realized that they would be my (his) fingerprints the forensic team lifted during the investigation.

  It was three days before the police knocked on my door. Yes, I had gone back to my house that night. Yes, I had eaten the dinner of steak and potatoes Doreen had prepared. Yes, I made sure to give her a kiss, a hug, and to tell how great the dinner was. Yes, I had crawled into bed with Doreen that night and made love to her for the first time in months. Yes – Doreen noticed a more than a few new gray hairs around my temples. Yes – I was changing my behavior; after all, this was the reason I had spent all those hours working on my time machine.

  The next day I was at the police station, in a small interview room, reminiscent of those I had seen on television police shows, sitting at a desk across from a police detective.

  “We have you, or at least someone that looks like you, near your vehicle, in an altercation with another person. You probably weren't aware that your company has the parking lot under video surveillance, were you?”

  “Um, no, I can't say that I ever thought about it.”

  “They put it in after your previous altercation with an assailant. You know, to protect the employees, and I imagine to thwart any potential lawsuits if something occurred again.”

  “So, why again am I here?”

  “It's not hard to figure out. You were assaulted, the assailant went down, the camera has you dragging the body out of sight, and then you drive away. That's it. Where's the body?”

  “There's no body, detective.” I thought quickly, like an experienced murderer. “I knocked him out is all. I dragged him over to the edge of the grass and left him. He was breathing fine when I left. And I guess the fact that there is no body means he got up and walked away.”

  “And you didn't report this?”

  “Detective, I already gave my wife one big scare. You think I wanted to give her another?”

  “Well, the video shows what could be a gun in his hand.”

  “No, no, there was no gun.”

  “Well, we may have more questions, but that's enough for now.”

  “Is this the part where you tell me not to leave town?”

  As I was gathering myself to leave the station, I overheard one of the uniformed policemen talking to the detective. “It's the weirdest thing, Lieutenant, on the video, it looks like the vic and the perp are the same guy, same height, same build, same profile – strangest damn thing.”

  I laughed all the way to my car. Looking back, I can only wish that the police were the bulk of my worries. Sure, they questioned me two more times, they executed a search warrant to rummage through my house and my cubicle at the office. They searched the area around the office multiple times, but with no sign of a body and no missing persons report to suggest that a body was missing, their passion for this cold case grew weaker and weaker as the weeks went on.

  Unfortunately, as the case grew weaker, so did I. The second week after the murder of myself, I noticed a significant drop in weight. I stepped on the scale one morning and noticed a drop of ten pounds. Most middle-aged men would feel great to go from 190 to 180, but it worried me since I had been enjoying home cooked meals every night of the week. Perhaps it was all the sex Doreen and I were having, but I suspected something was amiss. When I noticed droopy cheeks and a gaunt face in the bathroom mirror, and another drop of ten pounds on the scale, I made a hasty appointment to see my doctor. A battery of tests over the next month revealed nothing wrong, yet I now was down to 145 pounds. I was wasting away, and one night, lying wide awake in bed, I realized what was wrong. No, it wasn't nerves or anxiety over killing myself. It was the fact that I had killed myself, and set in motion some bizarre time paradox. Like the family portrait disappearing when a time traveler goes back in time and kills an ancestor, I was disappearing because I had killed myself on that dark night several weeks ago.

  Marriage is a funny thing; you'll ignore the one you love until your love runs away, and then you'll do anything to get that lover back. You'll even kill two of yourselves, one by accident, and one because you didn't realize the cosmos-altering effect of killing yourself in a different time. Most people don't even think time travel is possible; I may be the only one who knows it is feasible, but it just may be a bit more complicated than a highly-educated scientist yet emotionally rejected husband like myself originally thought.

  One thing I know – it can be very fatal.

  The Weirdest Sex I Ever Had

  We’ve been having sex for about three months now. At first, it was every two weeks, then once each week, and then as frequently as every day. Though we weren’t madly in love, the sex continued. It’s not one of those friends with benefits scenarios because we moved in together to pursue domestic bliss. Now we’re kind of stuck with each other. Not stuck in any traditional sense – no unplanned pregnancy, no dog we’re fighting over, but there is a dirty secret we share.

  But, let me go back to the beginning.

  We were set up by a mutual friend which seemed like a superior alternative to online dating or hanging out at dance club drinking overpriced alcohol. Dating in your forties is both exciting and frightening, exhilarating and intimidating. Divorce gave me back my bachelor status a year or so ago, and there I was out on my first date in twenty years. Dinner went well enough, and she got drunk enough to ask me back to her place. I swore I would just come up for a cup of coffee, but one cup of java turned to three glasses of wine, and we ended up under the billowy covers that draped her king bed. I can’t say the sex was great, but it was enjoyable. Everything worked, our parts fit together, and we played safe. I think we both reached a satisfactory end, though I did see that old movie, When Harry Met Sally, and I know women can be quite adept at accessorizing their pleasure.

  But, this was unlike any sex I had ever experienced.

  The instant we were done, there was a palpable sense of naked first-date remorse hanging heavy in the air, but before I could process it or say anything about staying, leaving, cuddling or hiding in the bathroom, and even before I rolled off her dampened body, this unusual sense of disembodiment came over me. Kind of an out of body experience.

  I was watching our bodies merging together in silence. While I was above our bed of sin, I had a vision of her as a child. No, not even a vision. It was like I had been snatched away and taken to a completely different location. I was above, perched over the scene, staring down at a realistic scene of family bliss. I saw a little girl, blonde ponytail, lavender princess dress, and a silver tiara, playing with a collection of dolls spread out across the floor. I saw her parents, a glowing TV screen, and a carpeted family room opening to a tiled brightly lit kitchen.

  Then it ended and I was back in bed, the warmth of her body embracing me like a hot shower at the end of a strenuous hike. I rolled off her, groaned as my head hit the softness of the pillow, and collected my thoughts. I looked over at her; her eyes were wide, her mouth agape, her body rigid. Was this how women were supposed to look after good sex? I had no idea.

  I waved my hand in front of her face but there was no reaction. I pushed up on one elbow and stared at her, and she shook and almost jumped out of bed.

  “What the hell was that?” Like a child who had just seen the bogeyman
in the closet, her voice high and forced.

  “What was what?” I asked, a bit afraid of her answer.

  “I-I, um, I felt, no, I saw something. I-I was home.”

  “You are home. This is your place.” But I knew she meant something else.

  “No-no, you idiot. I mean my home where I grew up. I was there and I saw my mom and she was so much younger, and my dad, and he was still alive. I was really there. And I don’t know what the hell that means!”

  She looked over at me – it was my turn to freeze with eyes wide open and mouth agape, and it certainly wasn’t a reaction to great sex. “I know it’s weird. I sound like a psycho. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to freak you out.” When I didn’t respond, she continued. “C’mon. I mean it, I’m sorry. I guess I’m not used to this. I don’t usually sleep with guys on the first date, or the second, or the third. Or, well, let’s just say it’s been a long time.” She anxiously waited for a response. “You ok?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “I mean, I don’t know.” I paused to gather my thoughts, but I couldn’t organize them in any rational way so I continued. “Did you wear your hair in a ponytail when you were young and, um, was, was it blonde, I mean really blonde?”

  “Um, yeah.” She placed her hand on my forearm and leaned in to me. “Why?”

  “Did you have a lavender princess dress and a silver tiara? And a rather extensive doll collection?”

  “I did. Yes. It was my favorite. And I loved dolls for a few years. My parents, especially my dad loved buying them for me. But, um, how do you know that? Now you’re freaking me out.”

  “And light tan carpeting in your family room and tile in your kitchen, white tile?”

  “Now you are seriously freaking me out!”

  “I saw it.” I shook my head, bewildered at our conversation. “I felt like I floated out of my body after, well, you know, after we finished. I saw us lying there, and then I saw you as a little girl. In your dress and tiara. I saw it. Your parents, I mean I assume they were your parents. Your house. I definitely saw it.”