My mail order time machine
Second
Had a visit from my future self. Apparently I never got around to taking the time machine out on garbage collection days, which doesn't surprise me. He wanted to know why I didn't make more of an effort to take over the world when I had the chance. So taking another look at my nefarious plans.
The next morning, I woke up with a mild headache. Too many beers, I thought to myself and decided for the umpteenth time to not do it again. Or maybe it was the wine that was the problem. Who could tell, I thought and went to take a quick shower. When I got out of the shower and walked into my living room, towel in hand drying off bits and pieces, I saw myself sitting on the sofa and playing a game on the game console that shall not be named to avoid any unpaid advertising. I looked like myself, with long hair and short stubble. Not bad, I thought. Not great, but not bad. I wrapped my towel around my waist. It was just me in the room with myself, but I still felt some level of decency should be observed. The me on the sofa turned to look at me standing there with my hair still a bit wet and hanging over my eyes. I brushed the hair away from my face with my hand and wrapped the towel around my waist a little bit tighter. “Um.” That’s all I managed to say, looking at the other me. “Hi,” the me on the sofa said. “Sorry to pop in like this, but I wanted to have a bit of a chat.” He turned off the console and the TV. “Why don’t you get dressed though, I’ll make us a cup of coffee. Or two cups of coffee, since I don’t like sharing.” He got up from the sofa and started toward the kitchen, then stopped and looked at me. “That is, if I can remember where everything is,” he added with a smile. “Um, ok,” I said, and turned around and walked to the bedroom. “Just don’t wear the same thing as I’m wearing, because then even I might start getting confused,” the other me called out after me. “Ok,” I said and closed the bedroom door behind me. I couldn’t remember what the other me was wearing, and I felt it would be stupid to ask, so the first thing I did was to try to logically decide what would be the least likely thing for me to wear if I was a future me and decided to pop back into the past to give myself a visit. “I’m wearing one of my Commodore –shirts and blue jeans,” I heard from behind the door. And then I heard steps heading back into kitchen. “Got it, thanks,” I replied. How helpful of me, I thought to myself as I opened my wardrobe and started to look through my not-so-extensive collection of clothing items. As I was going through my options, my brains engaged in a quick process of decision making. I don’t think I have any commodore-shirts so should easily manage to avoid that. Blue jeans are the only kind of trousers I have these days though, but if I wear something already a bit older then I think I’ll be safe. And for the shirt just a plain white one will do. I closed the wardrobe and checked myself in the mirror. After I was finished admiring the view I headed back out to the living room. The coffee was ready and the other me was sitting at the table. There were two cups full of steaming deliciousness. I took one. “That’s mine.” “Oh, sorry.” I put the cup down and reached for the other. “That’s mine too,” the other me said with the wink as he picked up the second cup. “As you are the past me, anything you have is mine, because I am you. You, however, are not me, because you lack the experience that would make you me.” “The cups, of course, are both yours as well,” he then added. “Next time I might bring one of my own.” I gave a small mock laugh. “Ha-ha.” Leave it to me to spoil the joke and make it into philosophical exploration of self. I took the first cup and tasted the coffee. It was as it was supposed to be. We are talking about instant coffee anyway, so expectations aren’t set too high to make it easier to meet them. “What did you want to talk about?” I asked the other me. “I was just curious why you never made more use of the time machine.” He put his cup down and stared into my eyes. “No schemes to make money, no attempt to get ahead in anyway. The least you could have done is to take over the world, so I didn’t have to.” The future me seems to think himself quite a comedian. “To be honest,” he continued, “I had forgotten about the time machine myself. I think I thought I – we – you – had thrown it out, but I just found it in one of my moving boxes. I tried it out, and it worked just like it did the first time.” “Where did you go?” I asked. “Well, here,” he said, gesturing to his physical presence and the space he was in. “Oh, so coming here to my time, this is your proof that the machine still works.” “Indeed, it is.” “Works as well as any other trip, I guess.” “And it was safe, since I knew you had just got the machine. And I wanted to give you a nudge to do something with it.” “So that you don’t have to.” “Exactamundo,” the other me said and pointed at me with his coffee cup before taking one more sip. He then stood up. “But now I probably should head back to my time.” “When is that?” I asked. I had no plan to visit the other me, but I was curious how old he was. He looked good. The other me smiled. “I know what you’re thinking. I’m from ten years in your future, and I’ve taken up some slightly better habits than the ones I had when I was you.” He walked over to the centre of the room and waved his arms around as if to check that there was nothing too close to him. “You know, the thought just came to me that it’s a little bit odd that I had no memory of me coming to meet myself before I made the trip. And then some memories suddenly started to pop up,” the other me said. “I wonder why that is,” he continued with a puzzled look on his face. “Oh well,” he then shrugged, “Now I want to be home.” The other me vanished in a flash of light. There was a quick disturbance of the air as it rushed to fill the space where his physical body had been. Later that night, I finished the day with another update on social media. “Had a visit from my future self. Apparently I never got around to taking the time machine out on garbage collection days, which doesn't surprise me. He wanted to know why I didn't make more of an effort to take over the world when I had the chance. So taking another look at my nefarious plans.” Again, after a few moments the computer speaker started making dinging sounds to mark people liking my post. One could get addicted to this, I thought, and turned the volume down. I should probably look into those habits of mine, and take up some better ones, I thought to myself as I opened my first beer. But before that, some relaxed relaxing. Obviously, I'll get to it at some point.
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