Short Story With Time Travel

This is another short story, and I usually post these without preamble or context, hoping the story will be enough to hold itself for as much as I want to tell. But I feel like this one does need a bit of context. For one thing, normally when I write a short piece of fiction for my blog, it’s a random moment, or the very first few paragraphs to a story. This time, it’s the very last page. It all started when a friend I know through Twitter posted the following exchange a few nights ago:

My 6 yo son: I want to go to your wedding.
Me: Which wedding? Mommy and my wedding?
Him: Yes
Me: But you weren’t born yet. You couldn’t go. You didn’t exist then.
Him: But I exist now.

This instantly sparked a story in my head of a kid somehow getting a time machine just to go back and be there for his parents wedding, but getting into all sorts of trouble along the way.

I responded to her at the time:

This is the start of a ripping great YA sci-fi book involving time travel, dinosaurs and the Temporal Enforcement Division, TED. "Sorry kid. TED talks, you listen. That's just how it is. I won't be taking questions at this time..."

And that was that. Or so I thought. In fact, my brain was running it over and over, imagining scenes and moments and set pieces, and I said so.

[Bleep]. I'm now writing the entire book in my head just to get that one gag into it. I have an ending... I [should] write it down before I go to sleep...

By this time, it was past 11pm. So I went to bed, turned out the lights and shut my eyes.

Then I got up again and got my keyboard for my iPad and sat up in bed and knocked out the following in about 30 minutes. It’s rough, it needs editing, but it was fun to write, and that’s all I care for. Enjoy.

***

He held the Time Piece in front of Connor’s face as it faded out of existence.

“Sorry kid. The adventure’s over for now.” Michael put one hand on his own Time Piece, and held the other out to Connor. “As an officer of the Temporal Enforcement Division, I am authorized to return you to your time of origin.”

Connor didn’t move. He looked down at the thick moss on the jungle floor. “It’s not fair! I just wanted to see my mom and dad’s wedding day. I wasn’t going to change anything, I promise!”

“I know that. Why do you think TED just sent a single officer, me, to deal with you? We keep the big teams for the big bads, the ones trying to rewrite history.”

“Then why did you stop me?” Connor asked, with maybe a little more poutiness in his voice than he had intended.

“Delay” the officer said calmly.

“What?” Connor looked up and saw, really for the first time, not the terrifying figure that had been chasing him since he first got the Time Piece, but a person, a regular other person that had a warmth in his voice.

“Delay. Not stop. You’re just 6 years old.” Michael placed one knee on the moss and a hand on Connors shoulder. “You’re too young to really appreciate this moment. Besides, if we’d let you go now, there would have been two of you there, and that actually would have caused problems for the timeline.”

Connor was silent for a long moment. “So I will get to see it?”

“Yes. And a TED officer will escort you. In fact, I put in a request for the job.” Michael thumbed the Time Piece and Connor saw that now familiar swirling of stars and streaks of purple, and suddenly he was back home. Michael stood up and took two steps back.

“Wait!” Connor said. “What if I tell people about this?”

“They’ll just chalk it up to a six year olds imagination. But you probably won’t. This is a secret that’s worth treasuring for yourself. See you in fifteen years, kid.”

“Fifteen years?!? That’s so long! Will I recognize you?”

“Sure.” Michael looked at his watch. “It’s 3:20 on a Friday afternoon by my timeline. I’ll hopfully be assigned your escort mission before the department shuts down for the weekend. I’ll see you Monday, personally speaking.”

Connor smiled. “That’s nice that you get weekends off.”

Michael shrugged. “Union rules. Nine to five, Monday to Friday. No overtime.”

The officer touched the control on his Time Piece and faded from existence.

***

There are things I’d certainly keep if I ever wrote more. I love the “TED talks, kid. You listen” gag, so the Temporal Enforcement Division would have to stay. I also love the idea that they run a strict Monday to Friday, 9 to 5 work week. Because they time travel, there’s no deadline you have to meet relative to your own time. You can take a break and drop in after a night’s sleep at almost the exact moment you left. I’d put in moments into the story where the officer shows up and seems a little forgetful of specific details of what exactly is happening, despite having been there moments before, because for him, it’s been a whole weekend.

Of course, there are things I think I’d have to change if I ever wrote more. I think the protagonist would have to be a bit older. For the short piece I wrote, I left the reference to him being 6 because my friend’s son is 6. But 6 is very young to be getting into adventures across time. I mean, it’s not impossible to imagine that for a kids book, it would just be a very diffferent story than I’m thinking of.

Anyway, thanks for reading. Sorry about the blog post title. I couldn’t think of anything better. If you liked it, that’s awesome! I like it too. If you didn’t, my friend responded to my initial story seed with “I love it!” so I blame her entirely for all of this and you can too. Either way, you’ll probably never see any more of this story from me.

Because that’s just how I roll! Peace out! [Attempts to leap dramatically out of view, catches foot on lighting rig, falls flat on face and dislocates a shoulder]