Everyone knows time travel requires extraordinary discipline. People used to think alternate outcomes were impossible, mere science fiction imaginings. Many believe in fate and other such nonsense. It's nothing new. It's the same as when they thought bloodletting would cure illnesses, or that going outside with wet hair when it's cold outside would make you sick. Now, in scientific circles within the Illuminati, we understand that every instance of traveling back in time alters the world dramatically.

            We've tinkered with the past. Believe me. Early in my time traveling, I went back in time and distracted the priest who pulled a drowning Hitler to safety when he was four. We thought it would save a lot of suffering. So, Hitler drowned, and that was that. No holocaust. No World War II.

In that alternate reality, the war, if you can call it that, didn't start until 1952. They called it the Great Atomic War. I'm not sure what was so great about it. The additional years gave the Germans time to perfect the atomic bomb. A guy named Von Kohler, you wouldn't be familiar with him in your reality because he was killed on the Eastern Front in 42, authorized bombing

London, Moscow, and Paris. Those beautiful cities were turned into dust. After I saw what I did, I backtracked in time and let that priest save Hitler. It was simply a question of math. Six million, or sixty million. We messed up other alternate outcomes also. Even killed off all of humanity a handful of times before deciding to unilaterally stay out of the past, for the most part.

             

But there was one thing I could not let be. I would not stand for it. No. And I didn't care if it sacrificed every other God-forsaken person on the planet.

 

She was a beautiful baby. Innocent. Pure. Just a baby. Precocious, though. Lily was her name, back when they assigned names instead of numbers. I called her Sunshine because of her round face, ringed by strawberry-blond hair. She spoke in complete sentences when she was two. At five, it was like talking to an adult. Her mind was piecing the world together behind speckled, blue-marble eyes. By the time Sunny turned seven, she asked complex questions beyond her years.

"Daddy, the Universe either has an end to it, or it doesn't. Having no end seems impossible, but having something like this wall thing at the end seems equally impossible. Which is it?"

"I don't know."

"Daddy, why do people try to form an image of God, instead of accepting the broader definition of God?"

"What is that?"

"That God is everything. The Sun. The chair. A rainy day. Emotions. Everything."

"Lily, where do you come up with this stuff?"  

"That's just what I think about. Daddy, what happens when you die?"

"I'm not sure."

 

During the summer, we went down to the lake most afternoons. The beach was a mixture of imported sand, foot-biting pebbles, and reddish-brown dirt. The murky upstate water was painfully cold in June, slowly warmed by the luxuriant summer sun, and finally pleasant in August. We ate peanut butter and grape jelly sandwiches on wheat bread in our brightly colored beach chairs and then washed the sticky off in the water. Lily was not blessed with coordination, so she splashed awkwardly, each of her four little limbs going haphazardly in a different direction, scaring fish for a hundred miles. As she got older, I could sit, relax, and watch her from the beach. She stayed in for hours. Getting her out, toweled, and in the car was a monumental task.

 

I never go into the future when I travel. I don't want to know. My daydreams have me living the golden years on a tropical island with a grown-up Lily and her family. We bask in the ethereal warmth of the sun and belly-laugh at the slightest hint of humor.  

 

It was a big lake, full of mystery and centuries-old, creepy lore. Tales of people disappearing. Sturgeon the size of whales. Pockets of unfathomable depths have never been found. Monsters lived beneath the surface.  

 

There were sirens.

Red lights daggering through the evening sky.

Chaos. Pumping. A defibrillator.

Limp as Jesus in Michelangelo's Pietà.

She was light blue when I looked through the window in the back of the brightly lit ambulance.

 

This is the day I'm returning to. I just need to go back one year. Exactly one year ago. We won't be going to the lake. Maybe we'll go grocery shopping. We can stop at her favorite playground.

"Push me on the swing, Daddy. Push me higher."

"Okay, Sunshine."

 

I'm ready now. Ready to go back. It's time to undo. To rewrite the story. Our past. Thank

God for time travel.

 

"Hello. Hello," I yelled down the hall through the slot in my door. "It's time. Hurry up. I can't be late."

The key twisted in the lock.

"Hello, Mr. Johnson. How are you today?"

"Hi there, 3258. Let's get a move on. Time travel is precise. You can't miss the portal.

Last week we were three minutes off, and it screwed up everything."

"Here, let me help you with your slippers."

"Any update on my shoe request, 3258?"

"Oh no. I've told you before, Mr. Johnson. We don't believe in shoelaces here. Slippers are easier anyway."

"I taught my daughter how to tie her shoes when she was only three. I did the bunny ears trick. She loved it. When we finished tying them, she would stand up and sing out, ‘bunnies on my shoes, hop, hop, hop.' She would hop three times and then smile and look back at me before holding out her hand. ‘Come on, daddy, hop with me.'"

"Let me get one of the boys to wheel you down."

"I don't need help."

"You need help getting back when you're through."

"Oh, right. Time travel takes a lot out of you."

"I'm sure."

"Hurry up, though. I can't be late. She's waiting for me."

"Jarod. Jarod, take Mr. Johnson down to the ECT room."

"Doesn't it bother you that they call you Jarod and not 8117?

"No, Mr. Johnson. Most people call me Jarod."

"Jarod is a stupid name, 8117. So old-fashioned. Let's go. We're running out of time."

"Electroconvulsive room, right, nurse?"

"Yes. Bye, Mr. Johnson. Good luck."

"Thanks for everything, 3258. I'm not sure you'll be here once I change the past. But I have to get to her somehow. I want to say goodbye, just in case. You've always been good to me."

"I think you'll get to her this time, Mr. Johnson."

"Yes, I'm sure of it."