Given how dangerous time travel can be, both for my personal wellbeing as well as the integrity of the space-time continuum, if bestowed the power of time travel, I would use it exceptionally carefully, and only for these reasons:
- Retrieve the things from the trash that I wasn’t supposed to throw away or regret throwing away.
- Stop myself from ruining Elysha’s clothing by incorrectly washing and drying it.
- Go back to the day in 1992 when a deposit of more than $7,000 when missing from a McDonald’s that I was managing on Cape Cod, resulting in my arrest, jailing, eventual homelessness, and trial. I wouldn’t stop the deposit from going missing. That would be far too dangerous in terms of altering my timeline. I’d just like to know where the hell it went.
- Return to the spring day in 1988 when Glenn Bacon threw a music stand at my head like a spear, hitting and cutting me below the eye. It was an uncommon moment of unnecessary restraint for me. In hindsight, I should’ve beat the hell out of him. I don’t think another fist fight would alter my life’s trajectory, and it would’ve been supremely satisfying.
- Return to the spring of 2007 to confirm the identities of the cowards who attempted to destroy my teaching career with libelous, widespread, anonymous claims. I know the names of most involved (conspiracies rarely remain secret) but am uncertain about the level of involvement of a couple people. I’d really like to confirm those identities.
- Return to the spring of 1973, when I stepped out of my bedroom at the age of two with a gash on my forehead that would require several stitches. That wound left a cross-shaped scar on my forehead that was later obliterated when I traveled through a windshield, forehead first, 15 years later, but my parents never knew what I had done to cause the wound. I’d like to know.
- Return to the fall of that same year, when my stomach was pumped after drinking a bottle of paregoric, an opium-based Schedule III narcotic that could be purchased over the counter prior to 1970 and was used to sooth the gums of teething children. Apparently my parents still owned a bottle in 1973, which I drank in its entirety. I’d like to see how that went down. Did my parents carelessly leave it out? Did I find it myself? How did a two year-old manage to drink a bottle of a Schedule III narcotic?
There are many other mysteries that I would like to solve.
Identify John Kennedy’s assassin with certainty.
Determine if Babe Ruth really called his shot in the 1932 World Series.
Determine the fate of the Roanoke colonists and the voyagers on the Mary Celeste.
But in order to be exceedingly cautious, I would not travel back to a time when I did not exist, nor would I leave the geographic confines of my own life.
I’ve watched enough time travel films to understand the danger.
