Author : Tyler Hawkins

I only just missed you this time. Five millennia in the timescale of the cosmos is a needle in a haystack and then some. I was only 5 thousand years away from you but it seemed like it very well could have been any of the other times I arrived before the Milky Way collides with Andromeda. We were long gone, I was surprised to find. The stars looked identical to when I left, it was so reassuring. But the Earth didn’t. Pity, I had higher hopes for humanity.

Not really any of my concern though, the Earth will be there for us. I have the tools to reach you, just not the luck. Time travel was so new for us, but it was agony waiting for every minor breakthrough we had perfecting it. I needed more accuracy, but by the time we could have hit that small window where you lived your life, I would have been long gone so I had to risk it. I’ve been traveling for 2 years now, with each jump I use more energy. With each unsuccessful jump I age that much more, my machines wear that much more and I become that much more desperate.

Even if I deplete the stars, even if I destroy these machines and my body, I will reach you. 20 years now, so many parts have failed, machine and body alike. Each jump now uses more than a whole star, but lucky for me the universe has billions and we only need one. I think back to the closest I’ve ever been to you, and realize it was before all this started. When I was born, it was only 150 years since you had died. I met you through your writing, I loved you through your photographs and I will find you across the universe.