Time Waits For No One

I stare at it again, amazed. What I thought I saw happen, could not have just happened. This is some crazy dream, from which I will awake.

Except that it’s not. I woke up this morning. I grabbed a piece of toast, and a cup of coffee, and rode the tram to work. I walked down the street. I distinctly remember. . . I am awake.

I hold in my hand what I now believe to be the most powerful object in the world. Capable of doing more good than a thousand service projects, and capable of more destruction than a thousand nuclear bombs. Because this thing, this thing that fits so comfortably in the palm of my hand, is time.

People rush by on either side of me, going to work, going to meetings, starting their day, which is precisely what I should be doing. But I am standing on the edge of the curb, with a pocket watch that I just fished out of the gutter.

It looked to be of pure gold, and valuable, and without an owner. And now I am starting to wish I hadn’t picked it up.

But now that I’ve discovered its power. . . I want to see it work again. With my pointer finger and thumb, I grab the tiny crown jutting out of the pocket watch, feeling it’s rough ridges. I pull it out. It is as if time has just taken a sharp breath in, and is holding it.

The world around me is silenced, like when I push the mute button on the T.V., and everything is still, as if I have pushed pause. I look up from the watch in my hand. Just as before, the flocks of people around me have stopped in their tracks. It is almost scary. They look like wax figures, like statues. Every expression, every movement, everything that was happening in the moment I pulled. . . is captured. I look at the time on the face of the watch. 8:46

I slowly wind forwards, and their movement resumes, but in super-speed. Still muted. The sun is racing in the sky. People stop at cafes and eat meals in seconds, then proceed on their way.

I wind backwards, and their steps reverse. I keep winding until I am back at 8:46. I push the crown back in, and time exhales.

Movement resumes. For these people no time has passed at all. There was no pause between the last moment, and the one right now. And I have seen their futures. For me, they have not yet taken the steps to work, to the cafes, but for me it is already past . . . but it also hasn’t happened yet . . . but it’s happening right now.

I never liked sci-fi shows. I never liked books about time travel. Time has always been paradoxical to me. I’ve spent countless nights dwelling on movies that I’ve watched, wondering if the future is fixed, or if it can be changed. I wondered how time travelers would ever keep timelines and dimensions in balance without everything collapsing on itself.

I finger the pocket watch. Then I let it dangle like a pendulum on its chain resting on my pointer finger. I am standing right above a drain hole in the gutter. It’s teeth hang open, with water rushing underneath. It would be so easy to just let it fall. to let it go undiscovered.

But I can’t.

But I have to. No one should have this kind of power.

But I would use it for good. I could be a hero. I could fight crime. I could stop every bad thing that happened in the past because I would know it was coming. I could. . .

Save my parents. From the crash.

I grab the pocket watch with both hands, appalled that I was considering dropping it. But I’m not ready to save the world just yet. I want to make it through work first. I pop open the cover to look at the face of the pocket watch. 8:53. I am going to be late.

Then I smile. I slide the pocketwatch onto my neck. No I’m not.

After walking the rest of the way to the office building, (it is now 9:12) I pause outside the door. It is so easy. All I have to do is spin the hands backward to just before 9 o’clock, and I will be on time. I take a deep breath, pull the crown and start spinning. People speed-walk out of the door in reverse. I halt when the hands show 8:55.

And then a thought comes to me. I don’t like it. It’s the kind of perplexing thought that makes me hate the idea of time travel. It is 8:55. I was still walking here at 8:55. But I’m actually right here, outside the office building. . . Is there another version of me out there walking?

I decide to go check it out. After all, I have all the time I need.

And there I am. Standing on the streetcorner, unaware that time has stopped. It is so strange to look at myself. I am frozen mid-step, the pocket watch around my neck, black suit coat and skirt, blonde hair in a bun, but that isn’t me. But it also is.

It is scary. And I don’t like it.

I always hated when people took pictures of me when I didn’t know they were. I am looking off into the distance, and completely oblivious. I always hated looking at those pictures and wondering, do I really look like that? This is infinitely worse.

In time travel movies, usually the person isn’t allowed to see themselves, touch themselves, or something along those lines, because if they do the time stream, dimmensions, and all the universe will implode. Suddenly I want to see if that’s true.

I have a strong suspiscion that it’s not.

With the very tips of my fingers, and as softly as I’ve ever touched anything before, I reach out, and stroke my own cheek. I pull back instantly, expecting the universe imploding to commence. . . but it doesn’t. I touch her again.

She is-- I am-- so cold. I can feel the skin, but it also feels like a stone.

If I un-paused time right now, what would happen?

If I pulled the crown of the pocket watch up, and she walked right into me, what would happen?

Will there forever be two of me?

Panic starts to set in. I have split myself. Even if I go back to the office, this version of myself will still get there at 9:12. She will reverse time, and she will come back to this exact spot, and she will see herself.

There will always be two. I cannot run far enough into the future to get away from her, because she is me. Even if I go back to that moment. That moment where I was about to throw this stupid watch in the gutter, there will be the me who was there, and the me who is right now.

But will there actually be two?

Or do I stay in this timeline, and all the other me’s in their own? I guess that’s how time works normally, right? There was me when I was born, and then me as a girl, me as a teenager, me in college, me yesterday.

But I feel like it’s different now. Like I’ve messed everything up.

I sit down on the curb, in the eerie silence and stillness of frozen time. And out of that silence, a thought imerges. If I could get this version of me, the one who hasn’t seen herself yet, to never come back here. . . but how?

There is a pen in my pocket. I can write it on her hand.

Georgia Mary Park, I’m you from the future. Get rid of that watch. I know you will be late for work, and you will never save your parents. But it makes a paradox. There will always be 2 of us or more I don’t know depending on how many times we go back. I am scared. Get rid of it and never use it again.

My message ended up taking the whole of her hand and most of her arm. I thought it necessary to include my full name, because I’m not naturally a trusting person, and I needed her to trust me.

What do I do now? I guess the most logical thing is to hide someplace where no one will see me, and wait. If she never sets the time back, there should never be two of us. So I, the me that’s here right now, will just disappear?

I feel like I’m laying down my life. But it was never supposed to be like this. I have to remind myself that the person I’m looking at, the person I’ve just written on. . . is me.

I will still be alive.

I start walking. Once I’m all alone, I will push the crown back in. Time will resume. And the person I am right now should stop existing.

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I jump back a little bit. Writing has just appeared on me. I was just walking, I looked down, and there is writing all up my arm. The weird thing is . . . it looks like my writing.

I can’t read all of it, because it’s partly hidden by the edge of my sleeve, so I check my surroundings to find a place to read it. I duck into a corner. So far, I don’t like what I’ve read. My name.

I pull up my sleeve, and read the rest in shock. I’m you from the future. Get rid of that watch. I know you will be late for work, and you will never save your parents. But it makes a paradox. There will always be 2 of us or more I don’t know depending on how many times we go back. I am scared. Get rid of it and never use it again.

It’s my own writing, I’m sure of it. And it sounds like me. And not many people know my middle name. Under any other circumstances I would think I was insane, and that I had wrote the message without knowing it.

I yank the pocket watch from my neck, breaking the fragil clasp. It is a shame. This golden treasure, with beautiful engravings around the edge, which keeps time perfectly, and much more than that; the thought of it going to waste is unfortunate. But the situation that will arise if I keep it sounds distressing to say the least.

In a fluid motion, I throw the watch to the ground, and stomp on it. I must look so strange to everyone passing by. Once the pocket watch is shattered, I scoop up the fragments, and throw them in the closest gutter like I had meant to this morning. I watch the rushing water carry the curse away.

A tear comes to my eye. For a brief moment, I had thought that maybe my parents weren’t dead to me. That the accident hadn’t really happened. That I would come swooping in like a hero to stop everything bad in the world.

I wipe the tear with the back of my hand, and pull my phone from my purse. 9:00. I am officially late to work.