The day started off like many other days in my life. With a medium-strength headache. Maybe it was the whisky, I thought. Or the beers, possibly even the wine. Impossible to know.
I got up and walked into my bathroom for a quick shower. As I was rinsing my hair, the door opened and a bald head peeked in. “Ah, you are in the shower,” the head said, with my voice.
“Yeah, go wait in the living room or something,” I said. “And close the door!” I added when the head pulled back. The owner of the head did as I asked and closed the door.
Is this how things were going to be now? Future versions of me just dropping by unexpectedly, invading my privacy and in general being a massive source of annoyance and nuisance. I wondered what this new version wanted. And what’s with the bald head? Am I going to lose my hair? Of course, I reminded myself that I had shaved my head before, so it could just be that in whatever time this new visitor came from I am still going through the cycle of letting my hair grow out and then shaving it all off and letting it grow out again.
I suppose it could even the guy from yesterday, I thought, if he had shaved his head. Then again, it's all the same guy, me. Is it the one who visited me yesterday if he waited one day to come back? Is it still him if he waited a week? A month? And further, what if it was him but a month earlier?
After I was done with my shower, I went back to the bedroom and got dressed, choosing for a simple black t-shirt and blue jeans. Then I walked out to the living room. The bald me was sitting on the sofa playing with my game console. Do I not have one in the future? Or do future versions of me not have a lot of time to play? I need to make sure I spend a bit more time playing while I still can, I thought.
“So what is it that you want?” I asked, perhaps a bit more rudely than I wanted. Or perhaps just slightly less obviously rudely. Or maybe I wasn’t being and sounding rude enough. I couldn’t quite make up my mind.
“I just woke up this morning with this memory of visiting the older version of me that had just got the time machine, and I thought I should follow up on that,” the bald me said.
“Yeah, ok.” So, he was from further in the future than my visitor yesterday. “I didn’t really have much time to try to do anything yet.”
“Good,” he said. “You also shouldn’t rush into anything. Time travel can be ...” his voice trailed off, along with his gaze that seemed to suddenly be concentrating on something other than the physically present world around him. “Time travel can be dangerous,” he finished after a moment, his eyes turning to look directly into mine.
“Ok...”
“You met the robots.”
“Right. I did. Well, one, I met one.”
“They are not necessarily happy with someone else planning to take over the world.”
“But I didn’t - “
“Not yet, but you will,” he cut me off. “That was another thing I just remembered this morning, the plans I – you – made for world domination after the first visit.”
“Good plans?”
“The best plans.”
Clearly, I had retained my mock arrogance. Also, I hadn’t made any plans. Not yet, anyway. Maybe he’ll share some of them to save me some trouble.
“So did I – we – follow through on those plans?” I asked.
“I only remember making them, not acting on them yet. Time works in a funny way, with changes. They take time to propagate through time. Come to think it, maybe I could try to explain it, that might help me to understand it even better myself. You know, if you learn it now, you’ve had plenty of time to think about it by the time you become me.”
The bald me got up and looked around as if looking for something. “I don’t suppose you have a whiteboard I don’t remember having?”
I shook my head.
“Oh well, I just suddenly felt inspired,” the bald me said. “But I’m still not really a presenter.”
“You seem more comfortable with it than I am,” I offered.
He looked at me with a small smile. “To be fair, that is rather easy.”
Then he brought his hands together with a clap. “Ok, imagine that you are able to travel through time.”
“That I -”
He pinched his index finger and thumb together on both hands in front of his face and pulled them to sides as if he was pulling on the ends of an invisible string. “Just listen now.”
I zipped my lips and threw the key over my shoulder. He nodded approvingly. Of course, zippers don’t have keys so my gesture was flawed and nonsensical but that didn’t bother either of us.
“So, imagine that you are able to travel through time,” he started again. I lifted my hands, rolling my eyes. “And you decide to go into the past and change something.” He looked at me, pointedly. Should I now say something? I wasn’t the one that had changed anything, though I did go to the past... but nobody saw me, and I did not change anything. As far as I knew.
“Maybe you don’t even directly change anything yourself, but you somehow initiate a change. Doesn’t really matter, the end result is that something in your past changes from how it was, and that change has consequences over time all the way to your current time.” He looked at me again. I made an effort to look interested.
“Before you went to the past to make that change,” he continued, “you had certain specific memories of your life, of events around you, et cetera et cetera.”
I was nodding my head slightly; where this seemed to be heading was sort of making some kind of sense. So far.
“When you get back, the change has been made in your past. Again, whether you directly changed something, or someone in the past did something different because of your visit, doesn’t matter. What matters is that the timeline is in flux at that moment.”
I opened my mouth to speak, and he lifted one finger up tilting his head slightly. “Now, you still remember the original timeline, and you don’t right away know what the full impact of the change has been. I, for example, remember not having a time machine.”
“Well, so do I, I only got it like yesterday or so.”
“Not what I meant. And I believe it was the day before for you.” He looked at me as if I was the biggest disappointment he had ever dealt with. I have to admit I sometimes feel the same. “The point I’m trying to make is that the changes catch up with your present gradually. And it can be very disorienting, it all depends a bit on the magnitude and number of changes the timeline – and you – have to adjust to.”
“So, what you meant is that the time machine is new to our timeline. You went through being me without having had a time machine.”
“Correct. And learning about it was not a big change. But the slightly earlier me learned about it before I did and as I was a bit more gung-ho during that period of my life, he naturally paid you a visit. And suddenly I remember making that visit. And then the memory of being visited makes its way to me too.”
“Sounds disturbing.”
“That’s one way to call it.” The bald me sat down. “And then I start to get these memories of the plans I had made – you made – will make.” He looked at me. “And those plans are becoming clearer and clearer.”
“But you still have no memories of having followed through with any of those plans, right?”
“That is correct, but the robots have caught wind of it, so I must have done something.”
“Or maybe we’ve talked about the plans somewhere where the robots have seen or heard it?” I offered.
The baldie shrugged his shoulders. “Can be I guess.” Then he looked at me pointedly. “Actually, didn’t you post some stuff on social media about it?”
I hesitated. “Not really...”
The bald me pulled out a mobile phone and fiddled with it for a bit. “Yeah, you did. Just yesterday you mentioned your nefarious plans.” He showed me my update from last night. “Just that could be enough to get the robots interested, especially if they have a way to detect the time travel activity, which I actually suspect they do. Anyway, I cannot see if you’ll post more, since when here I can only access what is current, so just try to avoid it ok?”
“Sure,” I said, trying to sound convinced. Or convincing. Or both. “Will do. Or won’t do, rather.” I flashed a smile. He looked at me blankly. I think I was failing on the convincing goal.
“Anyway, I think I should get going,” the bald me said and got a constipated look on his face. I wasn’t sure if that was the reason he wanted to go, or a result of him trying to concentrate on going home. But suddenly there was a rush of air being replaced by something arriving with a flashy bang.
It was the other future me. He looked around, saw me and the bald me, and shook his head. “Right, who’s this then?”
“Hairy, meet baldie. Baldie, hairy,” I offered introductions.
“I don’t remember you,” the hairy me said.
“That’d be because I’m future you,” the bald me replied. “Though in a moment you should probably remember me visiting your past self,” he continued.
“Right. I’m still a bit new to this time travel stuff,” the hairy me said and took one of my dining table chairs and sat down. “So, what’s up?”
“I was just telling our past self about the attention we may be getting from the robots, because of our plans for world domination,” the bald me started.
“Do you think they are getting worried? Good.”
“Not so much worried, as perhaps annoyed. You see, we are nothing but ants to them.”
“I think I disagree.”
“I’ve actually spent time monitoring them, which I don’t remember you having done. So I think I know just a little bit better how the robots think. And I can tell you that they would find your attitude disrespectful. That alone would invite a smacking down.”
“We cannot live in fear of a bit of a ´smacking down´. We have to do what is right.”
“Taking over the world is what you would call doing what is right, then?”
“If the alternative is them taking over the world, as they did when there was nobody to oppose them, yes.”
“And do you think with the plans we have, that we would be any better than they are?”
I looked at the two future versions of me. They were starting to become irritated with each other, and I didn’t think this argument was going to go anywhere anytime soon, so I started to think I probably had something better to do with my time than to watch and listen to myself arguing with myself, when I didn’t really have anything to offer to the argument. Not that I felt they did either, but they had convinced themselves otherwise.
I quietly made my way to the door, put on my shoes and a hoodie and slipped out.
I returned home later that day, and both future versions of me were gone. They seemed to have stayed a while though. I cleaned up the empty beer cans and bottles, closed the half empty bottle of wine – then on second thought poured myself a glass and took a sip.
Checked the fridge and saw they had not restocked. Also, my left over pasta casserole was gone. I headed back out to get some fresh food and drinks from the supermarket.
Later that night, I was in front of computer. I had the thought I would like to find a way to prevent these visits from my futures selves, so I was diving into the world of imaginary physics of temporal displacement theories – which I guess were not necessarily as imaginary as I would have thought just a couple of days ago – and trying to look for ways to create some kind of shield that could stop anyone from being able to travel to my current time and location.
Before turning in even later that night, I wrote a quick update for my devote fanbase on social media.
“Had more visitors. First another future me (this one was bald, while the one yesterday had long hair) came by and told me that the robot overlord will get whiff of my plans for world domination by researching old NSA archives. Then the one from yesterday showed up and the two proceeded to have an argument about my plans and what I should do. I was in no mood for my stupid crap so went out for a beer. When I got back they were gone, and so was what was supposed to be my dinner for today and tomorrow. Bastards. I am now researching temporal shielding to see if it might prevent further visits.”
I fell asleep to the steady dinging of the avalanche of likes.
