Given the Chance to Change

The high-pitched tone was only overpowered by the vibrations rattling Sean’s phone off his bedside table. He shot up just in time to catch his phone from falling on the hardwood floor. Eyes still heavy, body still aching, he groaned to himself. Defeated from having only managed to fall asleep two hours prior, he slammed his eyes shut a couple times, shaking off the rust like he was trying to open the door to his grandfather’s old station wagon. He slowly rolled his head towards his phone and saw:

7:00 AM – 08 June, 2015

Could anyone really blame him for his tossing and turning? He certainly gave himself a pass.

“There’s no way that old man was telling the truth. Add it to the list. Why do I come back here, even for a week. Just a waste of time.” He thought.

Right on cue, his mom yelled from downstairs.

“Sean? Are you up? Breakfast is ready!”

Unable to hide his frustration, he thrashed his phone down against his stiff mattress, eyes as sharp as knives trying to pierce his bedroom door. Nostrils flared, having already seen (or in this case heard) red.

“I’ll be down soon!” He shouted back.

He pulled himself out of bed, phone still in hand. He trudged to his bathroom mirror and began his morning routine. However, his frustration was veiled by his wandering contemplation.

“But IF he was right…What would I do?” he pondered.

His hometown was full of interesting characters, but something about this man seemed familiar and warm. Not another old fool who, according to Sean, probably hadn’t left the cottonfields of West Texas since Vietnam. Likewise, he wasn’t one of the disheveled drifters that strayed too far from the interstate.

The man’s offer had kept him up the better part of the night. Well, at least in between his scrolling and swiping sessions feeding his longings for the next semester to start up, so he could be with his friends and finish his last year of college on a high note. Yet, the longer the night creeped along, the more the man’s words took over the entirety of his thought and subsequent actions.

“I mean, I still remember speaking at Craig’s wedding in April. I messed up the intro of my speech and it was so awkward…I mean, my own brother does deserve a better toast than that right?” He offered just as he spit out his toothpaste.

Reaching for his shower door, he couldn’t help but glance back at the mirror.

“Damn. Need to get in the gym more…Well there was that one time with Christie…I probably should’ve treated her better than I did. It’s probably almost worst that I wasn’t a jerk to her, it must’ve felt like I was just stringing her along for all those months.”

Sifting through his wardrobe, a voice comes softly through his door, reigniting his fury.

*knock knock knock* “Sean? Are you going to want breakfast? It’s ok if you don’t, it’s just been over an hour and its getting cold” his mother calmly asked.

Not holding back his anger as well as he thought, he let some of his hot wind hiss out from behind his teeth.

“Yes Mom. Just give me a few.”

His mind quickly toned out her response as it drifted back to the old man’s proposition.

“He’s crazy, right? I mean, a time machine? That is ridiculous…But why do I have the stupid urge to go back today? I’d be an idiot, and it would be such a waste of time.”

He finally completed his outfit with a new baseball cap he “borrowed” from his buddy at school. His thoughts were trying their hardest to escape his mind, and he struggled to wrangle them with each step downstairs. Like a herd of cows anxious to hit pasture, he quickly ran through a few more scenarios he’d like to see different.

“I could go back and have the guts to actually ask Maria to our formal. Or maybe just go straight Back to the Future with it and make a fortune on sports bets.”

Upon turning the corner to the kitchen, the bull rushing his herd blew through the corral the moment his mother spoke – unleashing every ounce of differed rage he had been covering that morning.

“There you are! I’ll start warming up the eggs. I put them in the fridge cause I wasn’t sure how long – ”

“Enough already! I’ve been back for one day and all you can do is bug me for waking up a little late! I could be in Florida with my friends right now, remember that?! But no. I’m stuck here for the next week, so all I’m asking is you give me a day before you get all on my case. Geez!” he exploded on his mother.

Silence. She slowly put the eggs back in the fridge, and croaked,

“ok. Well, whenever you want, feel free to heat them up. I’ll be – ”

“I’m leaving!” Sean yelled, slamming the door on his way out.

9:34 AM – 08 June, 2015

The time and date laughed at Sean as he quickly dropped his phone back into his pocket after the infuriating glance. His steps hastened towards the town square. Beginning to cool off, his tunnel vision opened to a dusty scene of sunshine and cottonfields. The county road against his new pair of Nike Air Max shoes was as out-of-place as oak-shade in the barren flatlands.

“What if I came back before the explorers got here.” His mind returning to the thought of the old man’s claims on time travel.

The boy’s eyes scanned the horizon. Miles and miles of scraggly grass and drought-resistant crops.

“I could ride with the Comanches. Or maybe the Kiowas or Apaches. I could befriend them and be free to go wherever I’d like. I could be a liaison to the settlers maybe. Or just have my own ranch where I stabled anyone’s horses. Hold enough repertoire with everyone, so no one would see me as their enemy. Be it warring tribes, or Stephen F Austin’s settlers.” He daydreamed.

His mind began to fill with Palominos carrying warchiefs and covered wagons sporting raggedy ole cowboys and their families. The dusty annoyance around him suddenly began to transform in his mind to a vast ocean of green, guided by gusts of wind. The sun was high in the air, but the heat didn’t seem to bother him as much anymore.

He saw children laughing and pretending to hunt buffalo with bows and arrows they’d fashioned out of sticks and twine. Mothers watching over them with smiles before arduously continuing the work needed to keep-up their homestead, wagon, or teepee.

An old pickup truck sped past Sean, and the cloud of clay quickly grounded him again. He spat a few times before realizing he was at the edge of town, headed right towards the old man’s booth in the town square. Just as he rounded the first metropolitan corner of his hometown, he got a glimpse of the WWII memorial. A beautiful black marbled statue of a soldier waving his hand over his head, encouraging his friends to follow him. For a history major, it was quite sad that he hadn’t ever noticed this beautiful remembrance in his own hometown until now. He stopped for a moment, and stared at his reflection in reflecting darkness.

“Or I could be back in Bastogne.” He thought.

“Maybe Italy? North Africa? Iwo Jima? Too many iconic battlefields to go back to. I’d be able to see the horrors of war, but even more so, the intimate moments between brothers forged in heroic deeds. The Greatest Generation they say…just to talk to them, and see what they were thinking and feeling would be incredible.”

He paused for a moment. “Of course, I could go back and stop the atrocities from even happening…But what would I be coming back to? Would I create some crazy dystopian future, where animals can talk and aliens have enslaved the human race? Too great of a chance…”

The power that he could potentially have…a heavy thought for a college coed.

As he continued his stroll to the town square, his imagination began to run wild with each new stimulation.

The sandy crunch underneath his foot? The beaches of Cuba in the 1950s. A bird whistling in a gazebo? Feudal Japan opening to America for the first time in 200 years. A couple of kids running out of the general store with a pack of Razzles? You guessed it. New York City in 1982, listening to Duran Duran surrounded by leg warmers and Jheri curls.

A vibration in his pocket shocked him back to reality.

10:12 AM – 08 June, 2015

“TEXT MESSAGE from MOM”

He drooped. A long sigh slipped between his nose as his thumb hovered over the screen. Then, a quick swipe to close it.

“I know…just not right now.” He thought.

As if his legs had a hidden agenda of their own, Sean looked up and saw himself across the street from a familiar face.

The old man was still hunkered down in the shade of his umbrella. His car was the only one in the new parking lot occupying the only space between old buildings in the entire square. Next to his unassuming sedan, there was an object twice as tall as he was, delicately covered by a blue tarp. It didn’t look trashy, nor particularly flashy. Just an old man, a car, a tarp, and a little stand with four black words painted on the front: What Would You Do?

Sean watched from across the street. The man was casually flipping through a newspaper, not even trying to attract anyone’s attention in the slightest.

“Why am I here again? I mean, why am I seriously considering what this crazy man said to me? There is no way he actually has a time machine. Why am I wasting my time?” Sean pondered.

He sat down on a bench trying to contain the restless outburst of emotion he knew was on the verge of escaping. Foot tapping, he stared and stared at the old man. ‘zzz zzz zzz’ another buzz from inside his pocket.

“What would he do?” he thought.

The buzzing didn’t stop. After a brief intermission, again ‘zzz zzz zzz’.

“I know she’s just wondering where I am, but not now.”

‘zzz zzz zzz’

“Where would I go?”

‘zzz zzz zzz’

“What could I do?”

‘zzz zzz zzz’

“Think about what impact you could have…”

‘zzz zzz – ’ the phone lay silent.

His foot stopped tapping. His eyes never left the old man. He sat up straight and closed his eyes for a prolonged moment. One deep breathe to consolidate his emotions into one hefty exhale from his nostrils.

“Ahh good to see you again young man!” the old man said as Sean approached his stand.

“I trust you’ve had some time to think on it? Hmm? I won’t even ask, you just go right ahead and step up to the Aurora Temporalis!” The old man paused and gave a wink to Sean.

“Came up with that name myself” he whispered to the statue of a college student.

Sean walked up to a panel protruding from underneath the tarp right behind the man’s shoulder. He turned back towards the old man, and began to open his mouth, but his words never came out.

“Don’t worry.” Said the old man.

“No need to explain yourself to the likes of me.” He added with a smile and gentle gesture of adieu.

With that Sean smiled back, and he began to slowly type the time and date he chose to go back to:

7:00 AM – 08 June, 2015