Daily Flash Fiction Challenge

Alternate-History

“I’m from the future,” he told himself whenever his memory took him back to that moment, the one he’d revisited time and time again for the past twenty years of his life. It was in this moment he could grab ahold of his Old Self and keep that person from getting into that car.
In his memory, he could do this, talk to himself.
“You shouldn’t drive,” he could tell Old Self. “Not like this.”
In his memory, he could explain why as he held Old Self on the ground, keeping the man he used to be from fighting stubbornly for the keys.
“There’s still more to lose,” he could whisper.
In his memory, he could stand up once his Old Self had calmed down. He could move his arms to dust off his jacket, could take a stroll with who he used to be for a few hours, and this visitation worked to reset the series of events that would play out were he not able to.
Of course, being able to do those things in his memory, being able to re-shape his past and live out wholly-new and imagined lives, this did nothing to change his present one.
After each day of living out these altered lives, an orderly comes into his room with a tray in her hand, cuts his meat into small pieces, and feeds it to him bite by bite.

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