I take a deep breath and look into my mirror. At first, I see my mother, young and beautiful. Her long, dark hair and bright, excited eyes. When I blink, the image in the glass changes. I now see myself, with my short hair and dull, lifeless eyes. People used to say that I looked exactly like her. But now that she’s gone, my eyes are no longer radiant, my smile is almost nonexistent. The past two years without my mother have been hard. I never imagined that I’d be graduating, getting married, or doing anything without her by my side.
I go over to the bedside table. Look at the old, yellowing newspaper clipping. It’s taped to the back of a frame with a picture of my mom, taken a couple of weeks before she died. That was when life still made sense. On the article, there is a picture of my mom’s old car, upside down in a ditch on the side of the road. Her body isn’t in the picture, but I remember what it looked like, in the blue and red flashing lights. Cold and lifeless. Gone.
There is a knock on the door and Michael pokes his head through the door. He’s been my best friend since we were toddlers. I wouldn’t have made it through the last couple years without him.
“My mom and your aunt are ready to take our pictures now.” He watches me place the picture frame back on my bedside table and his voice softens. “Are you alright?”
I nod and put on my best smile. “Let’s do this.” We link arms as we descend the stairs into the living room. My aunt and Michael’s mom wait for us, cameras at the ready. His mom’s face is streaked with tears, and my aunt looks as proud as any mom.
We take many pictures, some goofy and some more formal. Some together, some separate. After almost half an hour of snapping pictures, we pile into the car and drive to the school. Michael and I stand with our classmates, waiting for the ceremony to begin.
Finally, we are instructed to start walking towards our chairs. Throughout the ceremony, there are many speeches that all drag on, boring words after hundreds of other boring words.
And then, for a minute, everything is silent. The crowd stops talking amongst themselves, the students hush. Our principal stands at the podium, clears his throat. My hands get cold, just like they always do when I’m nervous.
“Now, it’s time for the letters,” says the principal. “Twenty-one years ago, a high school Chemistry teacher named Walter Thomas discovered how to create a portal through time. On each of these students’ fortieth birthdays, they will write a letter and send it back in time to this date.” He continues speaking, but I tune him out. This is the same speech that I’ve heard a million times, recycled words repeated every year. Finally, he clears his throat. “When I call your name, please come up to receive your letter.” He starts calling names. My hands get even colder.
After a few minutes, Michael and I are the only ones left. My hands are completely numb. He skipped us, I think. Our last names are in the middle of the alphabet. We should have been called up.
Our principal moves on, avoids looking at us. He continues with the rest of the ceremony. I turn to Michael, and he’s just as confused as I am. “What’s going to happen to us?”
~ ~ ~
Five years later, I’m sitting in a large room, sorting letters. I work at the town hall, separating letters into piles, depending on which high school the writers graduated from.
Since I never got my letter, I have a growing curiosity concerning the letters that others receive. I study the handwriting on the envelopes, feel how heavy the contents are, try to discover what is written.
At lunch time, I meet Michael outside. We walk down the street to my favorite restaurant. I’ve lived here in Stanley my whole life, and my mom used to take me here every Saturday night.
Michael and I sit in the booth in the corner, the same one that we always sit in. He has a large smile on his face, which is unusual. Michael isn’t a sad or depressed person, but his face usually lacks a smile. He tells me that he has an idea, and judging by his grin, it must be something exciting.
“Okay. Spill it,” I command, after we order our meals. “What great idea do you have?”
He looks down at the table for a few seconds, making me wait. After what seems like forever, he looks up at me. “We’re going to get your mom back.”
I snort at the ridiculous idea. “My mom has been buried in the Stanley Cemetery for seven years. Even if they invented something that can bring people back to life, there’s nothing left of her.”
He shakes his head, and I get the feeling that I completely misunderstood what he was saying. “You have to think outside the box,” he tells me. “We don’t have to bring her back to life. We just have to make sure she never dies.”
He leans back and waits for this to sink in. “What do you mean?” Instead of telling me, he just smiles and waits for me to figure it out on my own. When I get it, I sigh. “Okay. I’m leaving now.” I stand up. “There’s no way it would work. Can you move on? I’ve tried to, but this idea of yours isn’t going to help anything.”
I start to walk away, but he grabs my arm. “Think about it, Anna. All we have to do is go back to the night that she died. She died in a car crash. So we just have to make sure she doesn’t get in the car that night. It’s simple.”
I sit back down and he releases my arm. “Michael, nothing about that plan is simple. Do you know how much of the future we could change just by stepping on the wrong blade of grass?”
He slaps the table and leans in towards me. “Of course I know what could be changed!” he hisses. “Your mom could live! She could see you graduate, see you get married and have kids. She doesn’t have to die.”
His hands start shaking, so I know he’s mad at me. I reach out to steady them, then speak in a calm voice. “It’s impossible. I’ve worked there for almost five years, and I’ve never seen the time machine. I don’t even know what room it’s in! How are we supposed to just waltz on in and travel through time?”
He nods, acknowledging the problem. “I didn’t think about that.” He thinks for a moment, and then becomes optimistic once again. “But I’m sure we could find a way around it.”
“Ugh!” I stand up and walk away, and this time he lets me. “You’re impossible!” I shout as I stomp out the door.
That night, despite my doubts, I find myself thinking about his plan. Of course, it would take a lot of preparation. And it’s just about as far from simple as you can get. But do I need simple? Or do I need my mom?
After pacing around my kitchen for hours, I pick up the phone and call Michael. It rings twice, and then he answers. “Tell me why you want her back,” I say. “Why is it so important to you?”
He waits before answering. When he does speak, his voice is soft. “She was my mom too. We’ve been best friends since we were three. I practically lived at your house when we were growing up. I was there to help comfort her when your dad left.” He takes a couple deep breaths. “I miss her just as much as you do. I want her back.” I’m a little surprised at this. I knew that Michael was sad when my mom died. But he had been too busy comforting me all the time that I hadn’t thought about how much he had really loved my mom.
“Okay. I’m in. I’ll do it.” There’s a pause as I wait for him to say something. He doesn’t. “But we have to plan it right. If one single thing goes wrong, we’re dead. We’re done. Understand?”
Even though I can’t see him, I know that he nods. “Here’s what I was thinking.”
~ ~ ~
Eight months later we have our plan. Michael now works at the town hall as a security guard. Last week, he was officially promoted, and he is now allowed to guard the time machine. Yesterday, he actually got the chance to send letters back into the past. He knows how the machine works, so we’ll be ready to go. We’re leaving today during the lunch break.
All morning, I’ve been worrying and wondering about what will happen after today. I try not to think too much about it, try to make my last day at work count.
As I wait, I look up at the clock. With each glance, my thoughts stay mostly the same. Ten minutes. Five minutes. Three minutes until I can fix my life.
The last three minutes before lunch, I go over the plan in my head.
We’re going back to a day before the crash, and going to Redfish Lake, only a few miles away from Stanley. We’ll hitch a ride into town. Once we get to Stanley, we’ll find my house. We’ll pose as salesmen, and Michael will have a suitcase full of stuff that we’ll “sell” to my mom.
The plan is to get to the house around seven, before my mom gets in the car that night. Out of politeness, she will listen to the whole speech, and she won’t get into the car until after the danger has passed.
Lunch time creeps up on me, while I’m working in silence. The loud beep signaling lunch startles me out of my trance. Conversation starts to grow, filling the hallway as everyone exits their offices. I separate myself from them, head in the opposite direction toward where Michael will meet me, and then take me to the time machine.
When we see each other, we both smile. “Excited?” he asks. I can’t speak, because of how nervous I am. So I just nod my head. I’m finally going to see the time machine. Finally going to save my mom. On our way through the back hallways, he keeps talking.
“I figured out why we never got our letters,” he tells me. “We have made a decision to go into the past. We can never come back. And we never got a death certificate because we didn’t die. We just couldn’t get back to the future.”
I nod my head. “I never put the pieces together. But you’re right, I guess.” On the night of our graduation, some students had received partial death certificates. They did not list the date or the cause, only that they had actually died. Michael and I received nothing.
By now, Michael and I are at the door to the room with the time machine. He stops and looks at me, takes a dramatic pause. “Are you ready?”
He opens the door and walks in. I follow, and am amazed by the simplicity of the machine.
All I see is a large metal box that’s hooked up to a computer. I go over and touch the box. To my cold hands, it feels warm, like sun baked concrete in the summer. The smooth monotony of the surface is interrupted by a small engraving. I crouch down and read it. “Walter Thomas invented this thing, right?”
Michael is typing something on the computer. “Yeah, in 2013, right after he had a stroke. Usually strokes damage your brain, but that didn’t happen to this guy. He came out of the hospital, built it, and they mass produced these babies. Idaho only got one, and they sent it here.” I look at him and raise an eyebrow. “I don’t know why we got it either. At the time, the population was less than seventy. So don’t ask me.”
I walk around the contraption. “This is it? It’s not some portal or laser like in all the movies? It’s a box?”
He nods. “Yeah, I was surprised too. It’s amazing how something so simple can do something so incredible.” He hits a few more keys on the computer. “We’re almost ready.”
He helps me get into the box, then goes to the corner to grab the suitcase that’s been there all day. Then, he takes the keypad on the side and starts pushing buttons. “January 16, 2032,” he mumbles. He looks at the coordinates that he has written on his arm. “Redfish Lake is 44o 6’ 35” W, 114o 51’ 11” W.” He laughs. “Hopefully we don’t end up in the water.” He sets a time for us to arrive and then double checks all the information.
“Looks like we’re good.” What happens next almost happens too fast for me to realize what’s going on. He’s about to press the “enter” button when he sneezes. Steps back a little. Trips over my foot. I try to move out of his way. Trip, and fall forward.
My shoulder hits the keypad, presses buttons. In horror, I look at the screen. “Oh, no. I changed it. And it’s going.”
I read the new coordinates out loud. “44o 112’ 54” N, 114o 56’ 12” W. January 17, 2032. And… oh, no. We’ll get there at seven. Too late to save my mom.”
He doesn’t say anything. We have no idea where we’re going now. He looks outside of the time machine, where the room has disappeared. All that there is to see is a grey fog. Then, my skin starts to tingle. My hands start to go numb, but I don’t know if it’s because of the time machine or because I’m nervous. “Michael? Is this supposed to happen?”
“How should I know?” he snaps. “I’ve never done this before.” After a second, his frown disappears. Then, “I’m sorry. This just all went wrong. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I’m scared.”
Before I can say anything to try to comfort him, or to tell him that I’m scared too, the time machine disintegrates from underneath us. We’re standing on the ground in the dark. I hear noises, like cars passing us on both sides. But I see nothing.
Slowly, our surroundings swim into focus. We’re on a road, with what looks like only two lanes. The sound that I heard actually is cars, zooming down the highway.
When I see a break in traffic, I try to move to the side of the road, but Michael is frozen. He won’t move. I try pulling him off the dotted yellow line, but his feet remain planted on the ground. His fear is as noticeable as the skin on his face.
And then I hear it. A horn. Headlights separate the darkness. The car, the only one on this strip of the road, heads straight toward us. But Michael won’t move.
At the last minute, I give up trying to get him to move. It’s useless. I stand in front of him. Maybe he’ll live, even if I don’t.
Right before the car hits us, it swerves to the right, away from us. Rolls. Lands upside down in a ditch.
A car pulls over, the driver takes out his phone. “Hey!” he yells at us. “Get out of the road!” Michael comes out of his trance and leans on me as we walk to the side of the road. More cars pull over to survey the scene.
It’s dark. If it was summer time, we’d still have almost two hours left of daylight. But in the winter, the sun is down before the clock strikes seven. In the darkness, the headlights from the other cars let off enough light for me to see the car in the ditch.
It’s a scene that is too familiar to me. A picture that I’ve seen a million times, right next to an article in the Challis Messenger, the newspaper that Stanley shares with Challis. This car, upside down, is the same car in the picture. This is my mom’s car. My mom’s body.
My lungs shrivel. I can’t breathe. I killed my mother. My hands go numb, then my whole body. I killed my mother. Suddenly, I feel something against my hand. Michael’s fingers are intertwined with mine. Despite the cold January air, his hands are warm. Just like the first time my mom died, he lends me strength.
It doesn’t take long for the flashing blue and red lights to illuminate the scene. Paramedics retrieve my mom’s limp body from the vehicle. They find her phone in the car, call the first person in her contact list. Anna.
Somewhere in Stanley, Idaho, a young girl is at home, doing homework. She picks up her phone when it rings, freezes when she hears the news. The phone drops to the floor, where it will stay for several days.
In a few minutes, that girl shows up. As she gets out of the car, she leaves the door open and stumbles to the stretcher where her mom lays. Tears stream down her face, and she grasps her mother’s hand as if it will bring her back. The paramedics back off, give the girl some space.
Keeping an eye on the girl whose hair is now cascaded over her mother’s chest, I walk over to the officer who seems to be in charge. He’s already talked to everyone else, but he missed Michael and me.
“Officer,” I say to get his attention. “I can tell you what happened.” I tell him about the time machine, and how we appeared in the road, and by the time I’m done, I’m a hysterical mess.
The man looks confused and a little scared, like he doesn’t know what do with me. “Yeah, sure. Of course you’re from the future. Because they just let people walk in and hop into the time machine.” The man’s sarcasm slaps me across the face. It tells me that I can do nothing, that there is no way to make this better. He turns and leaves me, mumbling under his breath. I sink to the ground, helpless.
Michael comes over and wraps his arms around my shoulders. His brown hair brushes my cheek. He whispers comforting words into my ear, the same things he said the last time this happened.
And then I hear a scream. I look over at the girl. Watch as the paramedics take her mom away, zip her into a black bag. Soon, her screams evolve into sobs, racking her entire body.
Along with the sirens, the voices, the radios, and the whispers, the sobs belong. It’s a beautiful, sad symphony. With a burst of sound from my own throat, I join in.

Impressum

Texte: Cassie Hoene
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 15.03.2012

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