The Accident

Author : Iva K.

When you start your career in time traveling they tell you it’s safe. They tell you there’s only a one in thirteen billion chance of getting into “The Accident” and that fixing such a problem is usually easy.

You can call it simply a collision of time fibers – the fabric of space and time is woven very precisely but when you put a human being on one of the threads and let them slide… Well, the human factor always provides for the chance of getting a knob.

My crew had this routine slide – we were supposed to show some VIP guy around the Renaissance so he could decide what part of the nobility personnel needed replacement. It’s how we operate on the past – we don’t change a thing but we have what they call “representatives” of the nobility who are supposed to watch over history and civilization and show tourists around.

Our VIP, my VIP was an era manager as I have been told and I was to be his escort for the trip. “Break the ice,” that’s what my boss had told me and I was doing my best. Jokes and laughter all around, encouraging his ego by asking him about himself. I was fascinated with his experience – he’d been working for “Time Affairs Inc.” for ten years and he had been flying all through the ages, seeing all the faces of civilization. Hypnotized by his stories I couldn’t help but tell him every piece of truth he asked of me. Until the great big bang crashed us into one another.

The impact left me breathles, dizzy and on my knees. His subtle “Are you OK?” got me together as my fingers lay on the palm of his hand. Perfectly shaped, long fingered, and holding me tight – I couldn’t do much but murmur “Don’t worry about me, these things happen. Are YOU OK?” His smile, I suddenly realized, fitted his sparkling cosmic eyes of dark ink. He was fine, he told me, no complaints, only stress. With my heartbeat echoing all around my body I felt euphoria rush through me.

We stood there for two hours. His unbearable charms and me in a knob on the surface of time and space. He and I stuck in a collision where his discreet touch like the fluttering of a butterfly sent Goosebumps all over my very being.

The Accident proved to be the result of some time traveling coordinator’s mistake. He let two slides intersect at very high speed and the blow being very near to our fiber of travel sucked us in. When the mechanics fixed the cosmic issue and the time traffic police came we had to take the VIP to the hospital. “For insurance purposes,” he told me. As I went through the examination he was holding my hand. Except for the sparks of mutual attraction lighting up the space between us the trip continued according to plan.

The ice was broken. His marriage chip was blinking on the nail of his finger.

My one in thirteen billion chance took place. When you start your career in time traveling there’s something they don’t tell you. It’s that your own one in thirteen billion might get messy. And as personal as it can ever be.