Illustration (c) Romeo Esparrago
I was going back again, but this time would be the last. I don’t know how many times I’ve gone back, only ever really managing to remember the last two. Time plays tricks on the mind. I laughed at the irony. Explosions from outside the complex shook the room. I switched on the machine and focused on the destination. An hour after my first meeting would cut down on the explanations. Climbing into the machine, it spooled up, charging the exotic matter needed to slip through space and time.
It fired as the room started to break apart and released me into the void, away from the armageddon that was occurring around me. Once again, I had escaped my fate and once again, I went to change it.
The change from now to before was almost instantaneous. There was an after-effect that left me reeling, much like sunspots after looking at the sun directly, except with an all-over-body experience. It always took me a while to reorientate.
Once the world returned to a perceptible normality, I got up and went to find myself. It was a good forty-seven years since my last meeting with myself, but my augmented memory was crystalline clear and rich with vivid details. My other self, the younger version of me, would still be reeling from the first encounter with myself, from what I recalled. He would be at home, in his room alone, and it was there that I found me.
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