Lake Effect

Day One

To Whom It May Concern:

I am a time traveler and the following is a brief account of my travels and a confession of sorts.

I became a traveler to escape.  To escape the despair that was my world and myself in many ways. 

Science found a way to move humans through time and I took advantage of it. 

Before I go any further, let me explain. 

My name is Wil Elshaw.  I come from a world you do not know yet; one I hope you will never live to experience.  My place in time is, well, fleeting would be an apt word to describe my place.  As I said, I am a time traveler.  I have the ability to move around in time --- to experience all that is old and that which has yet to be imagined.  Some call me lucky.  I prefer cursed.

Why?  Because I cannot stay in one place any longer.  The more you travel the more accepting your cells become of the activity.  Suddenly without you knowing when you will leave or where you will travel to --- you will jump.  The older you get, the more random the jumps become.  You loose all control.  You visit places more than once.  This phasing, as it was originally described by the scientists who made the discovery, is quite annoying and sometimes scary.

I once paid a visit to Pennsylvania around 1863, Gettysburg to be exact.  If you know anything about 19th Century U.S. history, you know what was taking place that day in a field in Gettysburg.  I found myself standing in front of a group of men running out of the trees.  It later became known as Pickett's Charge.  I found it terrifying.  The carnage was unbelievable.  I had never seen anything like it up to that point in my existence anyway.

I now refer to my life as an existence.  It's not really a life anymore.  All the people I loved are now lost in a haze of memories and sometimes I even question if they were real at all.  I have no way of telling.  Some days I even wonder if I'm still real.  I wonder when I will die or if I will ever die.

I was the first.  I had the right DNA makeup.  I was told I would be able to make the transition easily because some recessive gene was ordered in such a way as to make it possible for me to step in to what amounted at the time to a box with a lot of lights, (actually it was just a room that looked very hospital like and very square) and move through time.  I was urged on by family and friends.  I was promised by all the scientists in the room and at the Institute that I would be able to return.  I would just be going on a short trip.  They would be sending me to a lake in Scotland circa 1730.

Why this place?  Who knows?  I have forgotten the long explanation about this particular place.  Maybe someone had visited there as a child or saw a picture in a tour book.  I don't know.  I've been traveling for far too long to remember the reason any longer.

I mention it now because I once again find myself here; sitting on the dock looking out over the water penning this note to you, whoever you may be.  It's very calm here.  It's almost the same as on that first day. 

I remember landing here.  I say landing because, well, what else does one call it?  Actually, it's more like appearing.  You just appear out of thin air.  One moment you’re there, the next you're not.  Just like that.  There's really no stumbling or wind shear that would suggest landing but I like the term so I use it.  One thing about being a time traveler, and the lone time traveler as far as I know, there is no one to argue your terminology.

Back to the lake.  I'm here again.  This time, I don't what year it is.  You sometimes end up in the same year and sometimes not.  It's not an exact science.  Far from what I was told when I took on this adventure.  Maybe I should have asked more questions...

I should consider myself lucky.  I try to tell myself this at every opportunity.  Unfortunately, I argue with myself a lot.  You see, I've gotten to experience many things first hand.  I have been part of history.  I have changed history.  Yes, there was a whole discussion on this when I decided to take the offer.  We were told we were not, under any circumstances, to alter history.  After many years and knowing a lot of the heartache that would follow these actions and bad decisions, I have stepped in when I could and have changed a few things.  Nothing major mind you.  That would take a lot of people and honestly, it's a lot of work to explain how you know so much and people can be very suspicious especially when you happen to be advocating the overthrow of a government and you're wearing jeans and a t-shirt with R2D2 on it and it's 13th century China.  Some things are very difficult to explain.

Back to the lucky part.  I've learned to speak several languages, some dead now and never to be heard again.  Mayan for example.  I was stuck there for a number of years which was back in the early days of my travel, before I became the mad traveler. If you're lucky, you get to be part of society.  Other times you have to be careful to just not get yourself killed while trying to eat.  Since you don't know how long you'll be there you have to try making in roads to survive.  This is especially true in early civilizations where it's impossible to just pop on down to the store to grab dinner.

Anyway, why I am telling you all this?  Not sure.  Maybe I'm trying to make sense of it all so I can get back to my own time.  Maybe I just want someone to remember me.  Maybe I just want someone to know I existed and not just in the form I now am.  I'm convinced I have changed so much on a cellular level I am no longer the person I used to be.  Or at least DNA would not be able to prove who I am any longer.  This traveling does something to you.  It changes you and not in the more you experience the more you learn and grow sort of way.  My DNA was different from the beginning and then it was altered, reactivated, whatever it was they called it.  But I now I'm not the same.  I think I just want someone to know I was.  It's that simple.

In the long jumps I have made, I had the opportunity to become part of the fabric of the community, to meet and become part of a family.  To love even.  I have become happy to the point of not wanting to go back.  To stay where I was as if I had always belonged there.  It was never to be.  After many years of this happening, I stopped wanting to become part of anything.  Now, when I travel, I just try to get out of the way of everyone before I'm noticed, before I'm exposed.

I know there are others out there like me, but I've not met any --- yet.

Do I want to?  Not anymore.

Since I don't stay in one place for more than a few days, I no longer have the opportunity to become attached, which is the source of my apathy but it also means I can't go out and find someone like me.  I stopped looking a long time ago.  I stopped longing for home.  I stopped caring.

Today I sit here looking out over the lake, on the same dock I have sat on many occasions and in many different time periods.  I don't know what day it is.  I don't know what year it is.  I do know the time.  It's 2 pm.  One thing I've learned to do is tell the time by the position of the sun.  It's the one constant I have, odd though it may be.

Day Two

I spend a lot time thinking about time.  Time is my foe.  I can't outright call it an enemy but obviously it's something I have to deal with in an odd manner.  Most people don't disappear like I do and find themselves in another time and place altogether.  It's disorienting to say the least.

If you're reading this, I'm guessing you want to know more about my time travel theories.  Well, maybe you don't but I'm going to provide a few anyway, it's my story and since I'm telling it, this is the next topic I'd like to cover. 

I know there are a lot of theories out there.  Some believe you need to pass through a circle of stones made of a certain material and placed just so that they allow a portal to another time and place.  I find this to be one of the more interesting theories and one that has a long history and a bit of a following.  The Stonehenge people I like to refer to them as. 

Others believe it's all mysticism.  They believe that if you to concentrate hard enough, you can move yourself in time.  You can affect the parallels of the earth and move them.  I think there might also be some drugs involved in this one but I don't really know.  I also don't place much faith in it but I do find it amusing.

Magic.  Ah, magic.  I think this one is really my favorite.  Why?  Well, it's just quaint.  You sprinkle a few herbs in a bowl, say a few chants over it and there you are, traveling in time.  When I think about magic I think about witches, elves, and dragons.  I don't think about time travel but I do think it is a great excuse or maybe explanation would be a better word here.  You see, there are many things in this world that we mere humans can't explain and when we hit such a stumbling block, we fall back on our baser human instincts and call it magic.  Now, granted, this stopped happening when we began using science to explain things, however, it's still one of my favorites.  Having been able to observe and be a part of a few early civilizations, your perspective changes.  You see first hand how things such as curing a disease with herbs can seem almost magical.  There is no reference point for these people who are just beginning to understand and explore their surroundings.  I’m not saying this in a negative way but we were all naïve at one point in our existence and it would all do us good to remember that sometimes.

Machines.  This one is sort of correct and I say sort of for this reason --- it started out this way.  When scientists first began trying to move objects and people in time and to explain the theory of time travel they used a machine.  They are scientist after all and that's what they do plus they saw a lot of time travel machines in the movies and I guess they figured that if the movies could do it that way why not them.  Okay, that maybe a bit snarky but after what's happened to me my love of science has really gone downhill.  I have no idea how old I am, where I am, how I got here, and needless to say I'm a bit pissed.

Let me explain how it really began.  There was, and maybe he's still alive I have no idea now, a Dr. Joshua Walken.  He came up with the idea that time is cyclical.  It's really true after all.  I know this because I traveled to the same place twice.  Anyway, Walken was a friend of mine and that's the only reason I become involved.  He needed someone to test his theory on and I volunteered.  I know now I should have had something else to do that day but I didn't and I wanted to see what would happen so I went with him to the lab and here I am. 

His theory was more Darwinian in nature.  He believed in our DNA there was a code that if awakened, would allow us humans to travel in time.  The human genome had been decoded and solved if you will.  Or at least that was what was believed at the time.  There were little quirks in the DNA of a few that still baffled scientists.  They wanted to know everything and mostly they did.  They were programming the human race to the best of their abilities which doesn't say very much.  In my opinion, or at least my opinion now, they should have left well enough alone.  Evolution can and does takes care of many undesirable human traits and we should have let it be.  But no, no one could.  You wanted a baby with blue eyes, sure why not.  It started out all nice and safe.  Let's eradicate birth defects, disease, fix the human race.  Make us better.  More beautiful.  Stronger.  Smarter. 

It backfired.

At least in my case.

These scientists found that by means of a simple chemical reaction, I'm over simplifying here but go with it, they could change life.  Take out the wrong, or preconceived wrongs, that were harming or delaying our evolution to the next level.  We wanted perfection and believed we could attain it with a few simple alterations.  How wrong we all were.

They never foresaw the main problem they set in motion – how to stop it.  Some things aren't possible to stop once you start them.  This was one such thing.

If I believe all of this why did I do it?  I think about this all the time, and time is what I have a lot of.  You can imagine all the theories I have come up with over the years but I won't bore you with any of that here.  Really, it's just too much to get into and I wasn't planning on going on that long.

Curiosity.  No, not really, in fact I didn't think anything was going to happen at all.  In fact, I was so sure nothing was going to happen that I agreed to it in the first place.  If I had really known what was going to happen to me and the people that followed me, I never would have done it and would have done everything in my power to have stopped others from doing it.  Thinking back on it now, I would have gone as far as destroying the information so others couldn't use it.  Yes, they would have been able to rebuild but maybe the time it took them to do so would have made them stop and think about what they were really doing.  Maybe others would have stepped in and asked questions. Who knows.

Depression.  A bit.  My family and I weren't getting on very well and I thought this just might show them.  I was wrong.  Yep, showed them didn't I. 

A little change.  Really, who doesn't need a change in scenery?  This is being said with more than a grain of sarcasm here.  Sometimes, you get what you ask for and I get new scenery all the time.  Sometimes it sucks, actually more than sometimes.  I venture to say all the time.  I never know what is going to happen next.

That's probably not accurate to say something like that.  No one really knows what is going to happen to them next.  But most people can be assured they won't up and disappear at any moment and find themselves somewhere in another time and place.  I do, as you know, since you've been listening to me all this time.

Day Three

The world I left was on the brink.  I may have caused things to be better or worse because of my actions but I don't actually know.  I hope it's better.  I hope I haven't made things worse.  I hope...well, I really do hope that my world still exists in some way.  It's what keeps me going some days.  Memories are all I have now.  I don't belong anywhere.

Let me tell you a bit about my world.  I was born in 2542.  I began my little trip in 2580.  Last birthday I celebrated was my 38th.  I haven't bothered counting any since then. 

Pollution, over populations, global warming, rampant disease, water supply severely depleted, war over land, war over water, war over human rights.  I can go into detail here but think about all of these things together and see what kind of world you envision.  Not a good one is it?  No, it wasn't.

The air was so polluted you had to wear a mask to help you breathe when you went outside.  Water was being filtered from the oceans since fresh water no longer existed in places such as lakes and rivers which meant the oceans were also quickly receding.  Global warming, yeah, it was hot.  Those polar icecaps, well, they melted a long time ago and all that water is now gone.  Disease ran rampant in the lower classes.  Slums where basically places of death.  If you lived there you were sure to die at some point of some disease that mutated and couldn't be cured by modern medicine.  All those warnings in the early part of the 21st century about using too many antibiotics were true.  We didn't listen.  We just thought we could make something bigger and better to just cure the next round of disease.  Not true.

War.  There was constant war.  It was over everything.  It depresses me think of it so I won't say more.  I lost too many family members and friends.

Needless to say, chances at a good life were slim and when you were offered a chance to get out and start a new one you took it.  That's why there were so many people living in space when I left; many on stations orbiting the Earth and even a few on the moon.  The moon colony was still new and having a few operating problems when I was still in my own time but I didn't blame individuals who were given the opportunity to get out to do so.  Hell, I did.

When my ticket came through I jumped at it.  I wanted out.  I wanted to go places.  I wanted to land somewhere I could sit outside without wearing a breathing apparatus.  Maybe that's why I always like landing back here.  The lake.  Fresh water.  You can drink it.  You can touch it.  You can simply appreciate its beauty.  I didn't have that in my time and I wanted it.

They asked, I said yes.  It was all that simple.  Should I have thought about it more?  Should I have asked more questions?  Should I have said no?  Maybe to all the above.  Sometimes when your own situation is so bad you don't stop to think about what you're really doing.  You want to make it better for yourself, to make it better for your family.  In my case, leaving was going to make it better for my family.  My wife and I were not getting along and I was pretty sure my wife wanted me gone.  I suspect she was having an affair but I won't go there.  I wasn't exactly faithful either.  Looking back at it, we never should have married but we did out of some strange obligation to each other which we never should have had in the first place but it's all in the past now, or future depending on where I am at any given moment.  Future now I think.  Anyway, we were lucky enough to not have any children.  Don't get me wrong, we tried, just didn't happen and I'm very thankful for that now.  My wife would have been a great mother and I would have no fears of having left my children with her for eternity but I know I would miss them more than anything now and it would be completely unbearable and I would have offed myself a while ago.  For not having children I am incredibly thankful.  For leaving my wife, I am sad.  I did and still do love her and hope things worked out for her in the end.  I actually took out a huge insurance policy on myself so when I didn’t return she would get a pile of money.  I made her a million by taking myself on this little trip and in a way it does make me feel better to know I was able to do that for her.  It doesn’t make anything right, things just sit better on my conscience because of it.

I jumped at the chance to run away.  I had no other family besides my wife, parent's long gone, a brother who had died in a war and a sister in a comatose state from a genetic experiment to help her fight a common cold.  She had longed stopped living for me and I for her.  I bailed when the opportunity presented itself.  Selfish, maybe but I also foolishly thought I could change the world.  That if I had the chance to stop something in the past and make the future better I should do it.  I felt I had some sort of obligation to my world to stop the damage. 

People survived in my world.  Especially the people with money.  They didn't have to venture out if they didn't want to.  They could buy better drinking water.  They could buy medicines that were untainted.  They could buy the best medical care available.  They had a life that was worth living.  They could survive and thrive.

I wasn't poor.  I wasn't rich.  I was lucky not to live in the slums.  But my life was not happy.  I was not happy.  My wife was not happy.

So I left.

Day Four

I left behind everything I knew.  I have to admit in the beginning I was looking forward to it.  I had become a bit of a minor celebrity and it was fun those last few days before I left.  Some great parties were had.  I thought it best to take advantage of the parties just in case it didn't work and I ended up dead but frankly that may have been a better outcome than tooling around time wondering where you'll go next, not knowing what will happen, when I will die or if ever.  If you're stuck in a loop, what happens to you?  Do you eventually just come around to the time of your birth and start all over?  I always wonder if I still exist somewhere in my own time frame and if life is better there for me.  Probably not is what I have decided. 

I once traveled to the future.  It was 2657.  It was 77 years after my departure.  The planet was nearly devastated.  Nothing would grow, there was no water anywhere.  The oceans were gone.  Dust bowls all of them and most of the planet.  It was sad.  People died in droves.  The news, which was constant now and the only programming on, kept a running total of the dead on the left hand corner of the screen.  I constantly ticked up.  It never stopped.  People just kept dying.  The numbers were completely accurate.  Some time after I left, people were implanted with a small device in their wrists that told their vital signs.  When it stopped detecting life, it sent out a signal.  That's how they knew you died and sent officials out to get you and drop you in a local fire pit to dispose of the body so you didn't spread more disease.  I couldn't stop staring at the ticker on the screen until I was lucky enough to land somewhere else.  I had never been so happy to leave a place in all my time.

I felt I had caused it.  That I had some how in the time I had been jumping through the hoops of  days past harmed my own.  I had caused the world to come to an end.  I was the destruction.  I was the grim reaper for myself and my world.

How did I come to this conclusion?  I tried to change history.

I landed a few years before my time.  I was not born yet.  I thought maybe it was a chance to change the world.  I became a prophet of sorts.  I preached to the masses.  I was on TV.  I told everyone I was a time traveler from the future.  I told them tales of destruction.  I told them how they should fix it.  I told them what to do.  Because of this, I feel I was the reason for the destruction.

Is it true?

Who knows.

Is it what I believe?

Yes.

Do I feel guilt?

Absolutely.

In the end will it anything change?

No.

There was discussion about whether or not we travelers should make an attempt at changing anything.  No one had an answer for that question.  Did they debate it?  Oh, yeah, endlessly.  There was never a consensus.  I, being the first of my kind, never got to hear the final debate which oddly enough took place on TV two hours after my scheduled departure --- very helpful to me that timing was.  Not that it really would have changed my mind about it all.  I was determined to see if I could change anything.  My guess, theory, hypothesis if you will, was that you couldn't change anything.  I decided it was all predetermined.  I would have no affect on the world at large.  Yes, maybe I would or would be able to sway a few people here and there in their opinion but I didn't really believe I would actually be able to change the world. 

I never traveled to my time ever again.  I think it has something to do with the same matter occupying the same space at the same time.  I think that might be a physics thing but I don't know and won't even pretend to understand it and will hence forth never bring it up again.  But that's what I think.

I did travel to a time in the not so distant future from my own though and all of the people I knew and loved were dead.  They had died of the genetic plague.  They had succumbed to a disease that was essentially brought about by genetic experimentation.  I had tried to talk people out of this but my efforts did nothing.  All of the people I knew were dead.  My species was dying out thanks in part to its own devices.  Trying to make it better had only made it worse and caused the end of the world for us.

I gave up after that trip.  Now I just float through time not worrying about what my actions may cause.  I no longer pass my time trying to change anything.  I no longer care what happens to me or to any time and space that I occupy at any given time.  I am here for the ride.  I move among people without any care for whether they live or die.  It doesn't really matter anyway.  I already know what happens in the end.

I know the world will be destroyed by us.  I know we will and are slowly engineering our own death.  We are killing ourselves.  We are trying to perfect ourselves and ruining what makes us unique and healthy.

We are no longer safe because we have taken away our own ability to evolve.  We can no longer fight.  We are lost.

Day Five

I wonder about death a lot.  When I will meet it.  If I will meet it.  I don't care about when.

I wonder if I can die.  I sit around thinking about this often enough I feel I have finally figured it out.  The answer I have come up with is maybe.

I know.  It's very specific.

You see, this goes back to my loop theory.  If you're stuck in a loop, can you get out of it long enough to actually stop?  I don't know.  I'm sure there is some scientific theorem that would prove me wrong but I'm going to stick with maybe.  Why you might ask?  Well, I like the answer.

Maybe I'll just roam through time.

Maybe I will some day go home.

Maybe I will go home to a new world.

Maybe I will go home to a better world.

Maybe I will go home to a place that is home where people love me and care for me and want me.

Maybe I won't die by this lake in the middle of Scotland I couldn't find on a map if I had one.

Maybe it will all be better if I can just believe that it will be.

See, this is why I like maybe.  There are possibilities.

And really, isn't life about the possibilities?  Don't we all want a second chance at things.  Do overs if you will.

I thought I was going to get that when I signed on to this silly little experiment that wasn't supposed to send me anywhere.  I was planning to go to a party the night it worked.  I was planning to get drunk again.  I would wax prophetic with my compatriots at the bar who hung on my every word about why it didn't work and what the scientists did wrong and why they should have listened to me.  Then I would go home and be very happy I was still able to fall into my own bed.

It didn't happen that way and here I am sitting by a lake wondering about death.

I decided if I were to come back here I would leave a message for the next traveler.  I was hoping they would use the same lake.  I wanted to leave a note about my travelers, my work, my attempts, my failures.  I wanted someone to know what happened to me and how wrong all of them were.  I wanted to let them know they failed.

I say those words to make me feel better and I know it's all finger pointing but it still feels good.  I want to blame people for my problems.  It's the easy way out.  It was the way out I always took and look where it led me. 

I now sit here by the side of a lake pointing fingers at others for the catastrophic failure of the world. 

Maybe I should be focusing on the great adventures I have had.  Or the great many things I have seen.  Maybe, maybe, maybe...

I sometimes try to focus on the good parts.  And there have been some good parts to all of this.  Like the time I ended up at the World's Fair in Paris to see the Eiffel Tower in all is brand new splendid glory.  Or the time I spent on the Mayflower.  Yep, the same Mayflower that brought the Pilgrims to the new world.  What a riot those people were.  Well, I'm sure they didn't think they were so funny but I got a hoot out of all of them.  To this day I still don't know why but the thought of actually getting to meet them, talk to them, and ask why they were doing it was fascinating.  I wanted to tell them so badly how it all went down in the end but kept my mouth shut, for once.  I had some pretty good times here and there.  I guess I could easily say most of this little trip of mine has been good.  Fulfilling maybe.  Well, any way you look at it it's been interesting. 

The bad times tend to stick out more but who would argue that point.  I've yet to meet anyone.  Give me time, I might just find someone though on these little trips I keep taking.

Day Six

I sit here writing this letter wondering what is really going to happen to me after all and for once I can say I am a bit torn up about it.  Say someone was to appear here with me, in the same time frame, and tell me they can take me back.  Should I go knowing what I know and having done what I did?  Would I have to defend my actions?  Would I have to answer for a world very much changed?

I think maybe.  Shouldn't everyone have to answer for their actions?  We all have a hand in the shaping of this world for good or bad and while I may have changed more than most, I would say that I too have to take responsibility for my actions.  Would that be fair to me?  I mean, I have had more opportunity than most to mess about with things.  But should I have done what I have?  Well, sometimes one can only do what they think and believe is right at the time and move on.  However, most people don't have the same kind of time on their hands as I do.

“Wil, is that you?”

Wil spun around to face a man he hadn't seen in years, generations, eons.  It was Dr. Joshua Walken staring at him with a slight green tinge to his pallor.

“Walken?”

“Yes.  I wish they would have told me the ride can be a bit bumpy.  I wasn't expecting that at all.  So have you been sitting here this whole time?  Time travel is not nearly as exciting as you thought it would be is it?”

Wil stared without saying word.  The man could be a figment of his imagination.  He'd been there before.  He knew time travel did something to the brain.  But this, no, he was too real to be imagined.  He was talking for one thing.

“How did you get here?” asked Wil.

“I injected myself about 15 minutes after you were gone.  I was insanely curious.”  Walken was looking around seeming to assess the place he had chosen as the initial 'landing site.'

“How are you going to get back?”

“What do you mean?”  Walken was visibly shaken by the question.  He apparently hadn't thought of everything which made Wil feel much better.

“I want to know how you plan to get back?”  Wil rose and walked over to Walken.  “You said I was only gone for 15 minutes.  Is that right?”

Walken shook his head.  “Yes.  Only 15 minutes.  Why?”

“It's been more than 15 minutes I can tell you that.”  Wil was angry, shaking with rage at the mere suggestion his trip had been so minor.  He knew what he had experienced, what he had done, what he had accomplished and he knew it was more than what Walken was making it out to be.

Walken didn't move.  “I don't understand.  Have you left here?  You haven't been here the whole time?”

“I have been traveling, moving through time.  I have experienced more than you can probably imagine.  I have seen the damage you have done with your experiments.  I have seen the death and destruction.  I...”

“That should not have happened.”

“How would you know what would happen?  You admitted you didn't know what would happen!  You had no idea!  Don't tell me you managed to figure it out in the 15 minutes I was gone.”

“Why are you so upset?  I don't get it.  It worked.  It worked!  You've traveled through time.  You're here in Scotland in 1730.  That is the year isn't it?  How can you not be excited about this?”

“You don't get it.  You haven't seen what I've seen.  You don't know!”

Wil began pacing the length of the dock.  He had done this so often in his life that he could do it easily with his eyes closed.  There was no way for him to explain to Walken what he was going through.  Just moments before he had been sitting on the deck proselytizing about death and when and if his time would come when Walken arrived. His entire theory was blown.  What if he could go back?  Would he go back?  Did he want to go back?

No, he found he didn't.  What he wanted to do was run.  To go away from here.  Far from here and far from Walken.

“Do you know what I have been doing here?  I have been writing a letter to the next traveler if there was to be one.”  Wil shook the pages at him then carefully folded them.  “I wanted someone to know.  To understand what happened.”

“What could you have been doing in the last 15 minutes?”

Wil threw his head back and laughed.  “For a scientist and one with numerous degrees you really are stupid.  I sort of always thought that about you but as a friend but I never said anything.  I haven't been sitting here waiting for you to show up.  I've been traveling, seeing, and experiencing history.  Being a part of history.  Changing history.”

“You were not supposed to change, just observe.”

“Then you sent the wrong man.”  Wil smiled at him.

“Maybe it causes some psychosis that makes you believe you've done all, well, all you think you've done.”

“I'm far from crazy.”

Walken nodded at that and took a step back.

Wil never expected the first traveler he would meet would be Walken.  It never occurred to him he would even try it.  He thought him too much a coward for such a thing.  He was the consummate scientist and all he ever really wanted to do was be in the lab.  He never experimented on himself.  But here he was standing in front of him.

Wil began pacing the dock, his steps echoing in the stillness.  He ran his hands though his hair and down his face.  Getting angry wouldn't do much now but it felt good.  He couldn't remember the last time he had felt so intensely.  The tips of his fingers were tingling.  He felt alive and he didn't understand it.  Maybe it was seeing someone from his own time.  Maybe it was seeing an old friend although he had long ago stopped considering Walken a friend. 

He realized Walken was talking.  “I don't understand...”

“What it is you don't understand?”

“Any of this.  You weren't gone long enough for anything to happen.  At least in my calculations.”

“Your calculations were wrong about a lot of things.”

Suddenly Wil knew why he was so excited.  He could stop everything right here and now.  This was his moment to change history for the better.  He could stop the man who sent him on this journey.  The irony was not lost on him.  During his many travels he had pictured this moment many times but it was all part of his daydreams and theories about changing the future and making it better.  If he killed Walken, he could end it now.  He wouldn't even be punished for it.  He would get away clean.  Could he really do it though?

“Wil?”

Wil turned to face him trying to look as casual as one can when thinking about killing the person in front of them.  He nodded at him afraid to speak for the moment.

“How do we get back?”

“There is no getting back.”

“Of course there is.”

“You're the doctor here.  I thought you had it all figured out.  Your calculations.  Your figures.  Your experiments.”

Walken shook his head.  “We just assumed you would be able to picture the next place you wanted to go and you would, well, go.”

Wil sat down at that.  He was laughing so hard his legs gave out.  “Are you serious?  You just assumed?”

Walken's mouth opened and closed.  He crossed his arms looking quite hurt.  “Sometimes, even in science, you have to just assume things will follow a predetermined path and as such we simply were left to believe once the recessive gene was reactivated a traveler would be able to determine his or her next stop in time.”

“I've been trying but have not yet been able to predictably jump.  It's all random.  I never know where I'm going to go next and I assume you will be the same as me.”

“How can you assume such a thing?”

“Uh, you are aware of what you just said, right?” asked Wil holding back a smile.  He knew he wouldn't have to kill him after all.  Time would do it for him.  He would suffer the same fate.  He too would be stuck jumping from place to place, time to time.  It was a wonderful thought.

“There has to be a way.  We are set to send several more people here.  There is no way to send them a message to tell them of this eventuality.  Is that what you are telling me?”

Wil shook his head.  He was hoping he wouldn't be stuck with Walken from now on.  In that case he might just have to kill him.  He had no idea what he saw in him as a friend.  He was careless, and stupid.  He began wondering if he had ever noticed it before.  “How long till the next one is sent?”

Walken just shook his head.  He looked as if he might cry.

Wil shrugged.  It was all he could do, that and wait to jump again.  He took a seat on the dock.  It was his sixth day here.  He should be jumping some where soon.  He tried to remember how long he was here after his first trip.  It wasn’t long which meant Walken would be leaving soon.  He wondered if Walken would follow a similar path to his travels.  He hoped that wouldn’t be the case.

He looked around realizing this was a long stay for him – six days.  Maybe Walken was right, he did have the ability to exert some control over his jumping.  He hoped, no wanted, to stay long enough to finish his letter and maybe that's what kept him here.  He glanced over at Walken.  He was slowly disappearing, staring down at his hand, mouth open looking terrified.  He’d be a sight at his next stop.  Wil picked up his pen again.