Blogomattic A Fine Line Between a Story and Reality

Future

The Time Traveler’s Journal

On certain rare occasions I get to go forward in time for a split second. Whether some higher being uses it to get me to hold on for just a little longer, or it’s a random happening, it always changes the way I approach things. I jumped ahead once when I was seventeen and saw a little girl with very dark curly hair, dark eyes, and a pale complexion. She had to be about six years old. She apparently saw the expression on my face change unaware that a version of her father from before her time had just come to occupy her current father’s body. She called me her daddy and asked if I was okay. I popped out of that time just as quickly as I had entered, without ever having responded to her. Whether I acknowledged her or not, that little girl has haunted me ever since. It’s obvious that she is my little girl. When I shared her for the first time, the little girl got a name. I’ve moved on from the person I first shared her with, but I took the name of that little girl with me because she was my little girl.

Today I jumped forward for the first time since I was seventeen. I was gone for about five minutes to an unknown time. I saw a studio, my studio, with my own works from my current time period. I figured I couldn’t be too far ahead. The open walls on one side let the breeze blow through the space causing the wind chimes that had been expertly placed to ring out in the way I, obviously, intended. The chimes reminded me of a split second memory I have had since I was very small of sitting on a porch listening and watching the wind chimes blowing about. I walked around the small house. It was quiet, filled with things that were clearly mine… filled with things that were clearly only mine. “I’m alone?” I questioned the air hoping to be startled by an answer. Instead my tailless cat walked out and cocked his head to the side.

“Hey buddy,” I said while extending my hand to greet him. My head began to throb. “Well, I guess I’m going back.” I said startling myself. I came to on the floor of the shower. The water had gone cold some time ago, so I had to have been gone at least an hour. I shut off the water, dried my chilled body with the towel hanging on the back of the door, and got dressed. There was work to be done.

-C.P. October 19, 2009.