Image by Thomas Breher from Pixabay
“You agree to the rules?” Richard the fey said, his delicate, almost too long fingers tapping his briefcase. He smiled and it was like watching a statue move.
The abandoned warehouse stunk of oil and rust, but I’d been in worse. Slept in worse. “If the young me in anyway becomes aware of me I end up here. No telling lotto numbers or other future information, no grandparent paradoxes. Payment up front.”
“Excellent. Good to know you listened.” They held out one hand.
I took it and gasped. My sight became so much worse, my knees ached, my back ached, and everything felt weak and stiff. I hadn’t lived a healthy life. It wasn’t exactly surprising my body was falling apart after I paid for 25 years. One year of my future for every year into my past I went. “Now the goods.” I have a smokers voice. I guess the magic assumes I keep the habit.
“Of course.” A doorway appeared, showing my childhood home. Me at five years old watching cartoons in the living room. My parents getting ready to leave. None of them know how fated this day is. In 24 minutes, they die. I saw them get shot, I’d see the bullet go through my father’s head and my two through my mother’s chest. I shove the memory aside. Stay focused
I crossed from stale oily air into the scent of fresh cut grass and barbeques. The potato is quickly shoved into the tail pipe, and I use a pair of pliers to undo the air valves on the tires. Damage that would slow them down but not ruin the car.
“Listen Deedee, we’re going to the park but first we need to stop at the bank.”
Deedee. no one had called me that in twenty-five years. I blinked back tears as I sprinted to the cafe next door, taking one of the outdoor seats, the furthest one. I remembered the warning I could hear them, but I couldn’t see. This had to work. Please. Work. I wanted a life with them in it. Where I cried at their funeral when they died at 85, not when I’m five.
“How about this, we go to the bank, and if you’re patient, we’ll get ice cream after the park.” Mum, who liked ice cream just as much as me. She’d get whatever had the most chocolate.
They buckled me in. Then climbed into the front, mum driving, dad playing with the radio. The memory played in my mind as clear as a movie.
Car doors opening and closing, my heart in my throat as I watched my clock. Just ten minutes. I just needed to delay them ten minutes.
“Why was there a potatoe in the tail pipe?” Mum. Of course she found it. But it took her 3 minutes.
“Can we use it for supper tonight?” Of course dad would think of eating it. I smiled a little, even as my gut felt like it was full of angry beetles.
“Do the tires look wrong to you?”
“Some fool kid undid the valves. Do you think Jerry would lend us his?”
“Course he would. He’s still got out weedwhacker.”
I saw him, my dad walk by. He looked older than I remembered. More tired. Almost like he was sick. I wanted to hug him, tell him who I was, for him to call me Deedee again. But I just returned his friendly wave. Thirteen minutes had passed by the time he returned with a little air compressor in a red wagon.
I did it. By now police would have the entire block shut down. They couldn’t be in a shoot-out if they were stuck here.
“Do you want to take her to the park while I deal with this?”
“YES!” Little me yelled.
Mum and little me rounded the corner, and she waved at me. Shit
Back in the warehouse, and it’d gotten cold. “Did it work? Shouldn’t I have new memories?”
“It did work. But you did not listen quite well enough. I said you would stop existing as you are now.” He held out a pencil. “Try to take it.”
Confused, I obliged. My hand went right through it. “Am I a ghost? Does that mean she’s dead?”
“Not a ghost, she is alive. But your livestream is no longer true in this reality. So, you are no longer a physical entity in this reality.”
“What is her, my, life like now?”
“You made her a wonderful life.”
“And my parents?”
“Still alive and happily married.”
“Really?”
“No. Your father died of cancer when you were ten, your mother died while giving birth a few months later. Both her and the unborn died.”
I swallowed hard. That wasn’t the life I’d wanted for me. That wasn’t…. No. “So what was the point of all that? Of me spending 25 years of my life to change it? Did you know?”
“Of course not. Some might be able to predict the future but none a future that tries to alter the stream.”
“What do I do now?”
Richard shrugged. “That is entirely a you problem. You wanted your parents to live past a point, and they did.”
Thank you for reading! comment rewarder is one so please leave me your thoughts, insights, critique, or if you liked the ending. I debated about that for a lot.