My gums still hurt from the last betrayal. I thought my Cap'n Crunch was at the perfect saturation. I went in too fast and hard. It hadn't had time to soak up the milk. This time I was ready. This time I prepared. I had the bowl ready. The milk ready. The Cap'n Crunch.. ready. Go! I went as fast as I could. But my little boy was up 2 minutes earlier than expected. He caused a delay. You think you have enough time.. but you never do. I dusted his knee and kissed his head. He is still learning to walk. I attend back to my cereal. You think you have enough time. I bite down. Soggy. I swallow the slime. I sit back in my chair... defeated. My boy runs now. He's off to college. My grandkids are loving and warm. My cereal is cold... You think you have enough time.

I never take the path that runs past the old country club, behind my house. After the Peters boy died in '92 they had tried one last attempt to keep it open and increase membership. The diving pool had been the beginning of the end for Chapel Oaks Country Club. The stories passed around my school all those years ago were ones of disbelief. Mentions of Terrance Peters slowly changing before his demise. His friends say that it almost seemed like his time was coming. Like ocean tides receding before a storm. Talking to himself during gym class or wondering around the streets near his house at three or four in the morning, until the cops found him and took him home. It isn't clear when the rumors started, some said it was after Becky Holmes failed to resuscitate Terry and he had to be airvacked to the hospital in Downwater, others said it didn't start until he got the job at the Club, but they all agree that at times it feels he never left. Becky said she swore she felt his last words. Even though they weren't audible they still rang in her ears. I found that I was repeating myself more and more around her. She swore her hearing was fine but the ringing was getting worse. Her physician, seemed to think everything was fine, and that was enough for her parents until she began telling them that the whispers she heard told her she was going to drown by the end of summer. No one believed her, they said the voices were all in her head and perhaps they were, but it still didn't save her.

Here at the Country Club... this exact spot... is where I tried to save her. She and I both knew that it was hopeless. She smiled. A last smile is unique. It feels like the only time a smile is honest. As she slipped away I saw her lips move. I leaned in. All I heard was a hushed silence, the slight exhale as she gave up the ghost, the whisper fading into nothing.

I am a thief in the night. Your gifts are mine. No one shall be happy because neither am I.

Verdant pastures reaching, stretching towards forests of whistling pines. Ivy, slick and creeping, up the moss covered maples. I look north and catch the five tailed fan. My dreams are greedy for more as I sleep below the canopy.

I am nothing in light and everything on paper.

In the night I feel at home, in the day I'm never alone. You cannot see me I am the abyss, I am the darkness when your eyelids kiss.

"It's not flat enough. That could be affecting the taste."

Gus was desperate to find the recipe that his grandmother took to her grave. She made them nearly once a week when he was a child. A strong contender for the source of his round physique he now carries with him. Gus was often sick as a child and found comfort in his grandmother's cooking. She always served it with a smile and a glass of sweet milk.

"3 years and 16 days!" he shouted from the living room. A weekly reminder to his wife of how long it's been since he'd tasted one. Each weekend his wife went back in the kitchen to try a modification to the previous recipe. Julia always served them fresh and, more recently, with a side of scornful agitation. Gus had started Julia on this quest the moment his grandmother fell too ill to cook. At first Julia thought her passing was good for Gus. However, his new found energy quickly turned toward obsession.

So Julia toiled away. Sunday after Sunday she'd hand Gus a new batch of cookies and each Sunday Gus would toss them in the bin while mumbling critiques:

"A smidge too nutty"

"Not sweet enough"

"Worse than the last batch"

That was until one night. Seemingly without cause Julia sprang out of bed and rushed toward the pantry. Metallic clangs and sugary puffs sang through the halls. Eventually smells began to stir Gus from his slumber.

*Bang *Bang

Julia slammed the cookie sheet into the marble countertop. The chef's kiss of a perfect cookie. The ring of the pan shot Gus fully awake and the smell ripped him out of the room.

"Here" Julia raised the cookie sheet to his face. Exhaustion covered her body. A smile hung from her cheeks.

"That smell.. you sure this is it?!" He lunged toward the pan.

Gus snatched a cookie knocking a few to the floor. Julia, stoic, leans back on the counter like a swimmer coming up for air. The years of tension melt from her body as the spatula falls to the floor.

"This.. this is it! The sweetness!! How?"

"The recipe.. of course" Her gaze lowers.

"YES WOMAN!"

"Cane sugar."

"I should'f known! Nowway thats the ownly thing we'f mift?! What elsf?!" Gus mumbles through the crumbs of a fourth cookie.

"Unsalted butter, and.." She says while pulling the gloves off her hands.

"And what?" Gus begins to sway

"And.. that sweet sweet antifreeze."

I love my mommy so,

Her heart never leads astray.

I follow wherever she goes

To be with her 'til the end of days

She always ensures I'm safe

Whispers that it'll be okay

Buckles me around the waist

And extra tight, just in case

She says daddy won't hurt me again

He said it was just fun and games

Hear her cries as we approach the end

I still can't stop the horrible pain

Now off the cliff we go

I sure do love my daddy so

She holds tight...she always holds tight.

I lived, still do, in a multistory complex. The worst kind to be in during a fire. I may have forgotten the cause, but I'll never forget the girl. I tried so hard to pull her from those flames. When you lose someone, you are supposed to be able to move on. Though it is her who never really left my side.

I still feel her tug at my arm, she tugs at the one I lost. The one I held onto her so tightly with. She still has ahold from the other side. At night she gets angry, jerks and pulls at my flesh that burned away.

"Stop!" I shouted. Past midnight. 'How long has it been' I cry to myself. I still live in the same building. She still tugs away.

She'd pull me out of the building, then onto the street. Now she pulls harder, holds tighter. At night she claws, at night I weep.

"Please, I beg you, I'm sorry. Haven't I paid the price?" Head down she walks me out my door out onto the street.

She pulls me farther each day.

My feet stamp down onto a grassy edge: "Cypress Hills". A place I remember.

4 am: I follow her, I follow her always. She pulls and claws, we pass a sign "Cypress Hills". I wish that it would end. Will it ever end? It seems I lost myself ages ago.

She pulls, she always pulls. I see it, the gravestone.

Her gravestone.

I stop.

She yanks.

I pull back.

She claws.

I give in, I always give in.

I can see the stone, I look for her name...I only see mine.

I hold tight.

I always hold tight.

"Sir, are you ready?" She spoke without blinking. Her all black attire hid any features that may have once caught my eye.

"Doesn't matter either way does it?" I remember feeling that my voice betrayed my appearance of confidence.

"Here's your Temporal Helm. I've gone through your training record and am confident I need not waste anyti--"

"Correct." I interrupted out of reflex of position, instinct, and the sheer weight of what lied before me. I was rushed for time and yet faced the reality of time being nothing more advanced than the mustard carpet of my bathroom.

"Step through here." She approached a large vault with massive locking bolts coming from every which way. She pressed her face up to a scanner and then poured a vile of something red into an intake. A loud sheering noise started toppling over us and the bolts began to rescind. Soon the door was agape. I walked through.

"I'll need no further assistance. I'll alert you when I'm finished."

There I was, a large empty room. So large and so barren the attempted comprehension of it made my knees buckle. I assumed it wouldn't be as debilitating the second go around. This time was different however, I was heading backwards.

I grasped the Helm with my wrinkled fingers. I recalled them being much more youthful before my previous jump. A few presses of the Helm, an L-Z-Boy Super Recline appeared in front of me. I didn't take time to enjoy myself or reflect last time. I wasn't going to let that opportunity pass me by again.

I thought of the mission ahead. The world is in chaos and I'm one of the few that has a chance to change that. The President is a monster, before they became as such they were behind the rapid arrest of Epstein. A fact many are still unaware of. This took away his opportunity to make the call that would release all the blackmail he had on everyone. This, truly, would have gotten me put away also. Things could have, should have, gone different. If the needle was threaded in a new way I would still be safe and the President would have never held such a title.

I rose from the recliner, pressed a few different buttons and a commercial jet appeared. I climb the stairs and found the correct row and the right seat. Another button press.

"Activating TTAR. Please take a deep breath out." The voice bounced around the seemingly infinitely distant walls. Ozone filled the air and sparks flew... Darkness. When my vision cleared I was there. I made the leap… back. Such a different move, so much more challenging, yet nothing feels changed.

My knees bumped the seat in front of me. I was momentarily distracted by an older lady setting across the aisle from me. She gripped her bagged cap and gown. I shook off the invasive thoughts. I had to focus.

"Epstein..." I said without looking to my left.

"Holy hell, how did I miss you, Slick!? Guess my mind was across the aisle" He said in his normal charismatic way. How I've missed this devil of a man.

"It's been awhile"

"Not really" he said with an uneasy laugh.

"So what’s the deal, wishing for an itch to scratch?" He knew me so well, he knew my needs, better than that hag of a wife did. It's been so long since I tasted youth... his words shake me with proof enough that the crutch still resides beneath me.

"I came with an ask, I need our files" I finally vomited up the request with a sigh of something besides relief.

"Yours?" He leaned back, head facing the ceiling.

"No" I answered nearly as fast as he asked.

"Okay, you know there is no backtracking here. Nothing ties back to me, there is enough to do them in though. Copies only."

I closed my eyes, memories I'll never again be able to re-live in the flesh storm my mind. He slips something in my jacket pocket.

"Didn't know you two were having issues." He smirked knowing we had them just unaware of what pushed me to such an edge.

“Not yet, but we will.” Images of what was to come painted the back of my eyelids. I pulled my hat down low and stood.

"Knowing our history Epstein, I'm sure we will meet again." I blinked rapidly in a poor attempt to hold back the inevitable.

"My bet is on the next life." He was right, No matter the amount of good I put into the world my sins will never be undone. My actions here may save the world, but will not save my standing in it.

I pulled out the Helm, its mirrored screen reflected a face I nearly had forgotten. A few presses.

...

"Open the locks." I said through the comm.

"Opening now sir. I hope it was a success." There was little doubt in my mind, I checked my pocket and there it was. Location and code. My past self would've pulled those files and leaked them to the world. History would have unfolded differently, I would stand as the silent savior to the world.

"I'll find out shortly" I answered as I walked through the door.

I snatched a remote off a stand nearby. Started flipping through the channels.....THE PRESIDENT.... IT... NOTHING CHANGED!

"How, what? That hag is still the president???!!" I collapsed to my knees...

"President, Sir!? You mean Lord Supreme Clinton?"