Time you Want

Arnold starts by winning the lottery, several of them actually. He hit Las Vegas too, put all his winnings on red twenty-one, he still felt the rush of winning, even though he knew where the ball would hit. He buys things like Italian cars and nice suits. Oh, and he had a girlfriend, Rachel. Yeah, he dropped her immediately, almost as fast as he quit his job as a TGIF waiter. Why settle? He was practically a god now. TGI F-yourself.

"Let's just drink champagne today," Zou says, the latest of the models he's found. She's blonde and exotic, but also midwestern. He never understood in the movies how just being wealthy attracted women, but it does. It's boring.

He doesn't respond, just gets out of bed and looks over the view. It's tropical, he think. No, Mediterranean? Maybe he's in Greece. Could be the Virgin Isles for all he knew. He feels stupid for always needing to ask people about the world and how it worked. He taps the glass on the Watchface.

"Arnie, hey, come back to bed, you're getting that look on your face again."

"What look?"

"I don't know, like you're seeing something, you know?" She reaches over for him, but he stays in the same spot.

"No, I don't. What does it look like?" He bends down into her beautifully pale face that's perfectly sprayed with freckles. Her hazel eyes catch him even in her still drunk, just waking stupor. Yeah, she's beautiful. But he thinks about Tabitha, again.

"It's, ah, umm..." She stutters at the sudden need for honesty. "It's kinda like when you see someone running on a treadmill, you know? Like you're looking at something far away but you're just running on a moving wheel thing."

"Fuck," he runs his hand through his hair. He's more sober than he's ever felt in his life. The watch dangles on a necklace he never removes. He picks it up in his soft hands and turns back towards the ocean or sea or whatever body of water he was looking at. Tabitha giggles through his thoughts, back home, all the way back in 1986. That's the first time he remembers wanting to do something in life.

They were sitting on their carpet squares coloring with crayons. Cartoon worms ate through the alphabet strung across the wall. She had black hair and dark eyes and mocha skin. She touched his pictures and like them. He felt proud of that, he'd been working really hard on those rockets that transformed into robots. Not just any stupid robots from TV, but his robots. And his drawing. And Tabitha liked them.

"How far back could I go?" He mumbles.

He's done several years, relived what it's like to drink in his twenties. He went back to his high school years and wanted to study to get into a better college, but he couldn't just put the right answers and expect to pass and then get into the nice colleges and get the prestigious job like doctor or lawyer.

There was so much work involved with that. And he just didn't have it in him. Didn't have the passion other than winning lotteries or placing sure bets. He'd been investigated, but he could afford lawyers to fight those fights for him.

Before, as a waiter, he went home every night and smoked weed. He just was with Rachel who was cool, but she wasn't anything special, other than neither of them had to really put any effort into the relationship aside from the occasional tiff about sex or who was going to pay the take out. When they broke up she got upset but just shrugged and said "Byeeeee, Felicia." But she did call when he won the lottery that first time.

He could do anything, but it felt scary. Who the hell am I, anyway? He thought.

He never did anything great because he never knew he'd have to. So he just relaxed a lot, he explored a life where he could just pay for whatever he wanted, the American dream, right? Just buckets of wealth for free and posting it all on instagram or whatever magazine wanted to do articles about him.

"I'm like a super hero, but not the kind who you'd read about in the comics because I'm not doing anything to help anyone. I don't have a nemesis, I'm not trying to save the world."

Zou laughs, "What? You're my super hero!" She sits on the side of the bed with her legs open, straddling him.

He moves away, but picks up her hands. "Hey, thank you." He looks down at the girl waiting in his bed. "This easy life, being rich or beautiful, sleeping all day and partying all night; I think it's just a phase we all really like in America. But we lose sight of the rest of the work, how life really is for the rest of the world. And what it all means for us to live a life worth living."

"You're not making any sense."

"I think I am, you just don't understand it yet."

He lets go of her and twists the nob of the stopwatch all the back to 1986.

The rush of light is nothing but a blur. It never mattered about the amount of clicks he gave, just the memory of a time he held in his mind.

Everything is black.

The smells of clay and glue, wet paper and spilled milk. His hands are tiny. Everything is really bright. The world is tasty and fun. What is that thing over there? He thinks. I think that's my desk, oh boy! Oh and these are my friends, I love my friends except stupid Fred, and girls are gross, and I love coloring! Why am I wearing this stupid watch?

And the six year old boy takes it off and throws it into the slips of time. Who cares about time, he's going to color for the rest of his life.

Hi Tabitha!