Time Travel

Author : Katie West

“I’ve figured it out you know,” I said it casually as we ate lunch at our kitchen table. Right before I took a bite of my sandwich.

“Figured what out?” He looked at me questioningly, and then with annoyance once he realized I had filled my mouth with food just to prolong the anticipation. Looking at me with exaggerated exasperation, he watched me finish chewing and then swallow in silence.

“Time travel,” maintaining that same casual tone to my voice. I watched his reaction; he didn’t laugh, or shake his head in disappointment over having to share the table with someone so out of her mind. No, my husband, he had excited eyes and a mischievous mouth.

“Tell me.”

“I figure, we go into the future, no one’s there yet. We go into the past, everyone’s already left. The only place where anybody’s gonna be, is right now. So, time travel could only be for people who want to be alone.” I took another bite. Swallowed. Thought about barren landscapes void of people, eerie cityscapes impossibly still. “Really alone.”

He slowly nodded and I could see him thinking it over. Imagining a future where no one exists, and a past empty as a ghost town. “We can’t be in more than one place at once, that makes sense.”

“Right? We can only know our future selves, once we arrive there. Our past selves, only known in memory. We travel within time, through space, and must exist in only one space at one time.”

“Then time travel is useless, giving only strange echoing answers to any questions you might have hoped to ask. That makes sense too. And I only ever want to be here, where you are. What’s the point of being anywhere else?”

I finished the last of my sandwich, looked at the man who would give up the silent mysteries of future spaces and empty revelations of past places to just sit and eat lunch with me, everyday.

“Exactly,” I agreed, dumping more chips onto my plate, looking at him again, “what’s the point?”