Gift of Life (Time Travel), by Joshua Johnson

Creative people dream of traveling through time and space. It turns out people have a better chance of landing on the Saturn than traveling through time. However, that does not mean it is entirely impossible. The chances are about one in a billion. Over Christmas break, that number didn’t seem so large after noticing the changes that had been done after successfully time traveling. For this to happen to me at a young age that goes to show the ratio is just a group of numbers meant to inhibit people from believing.

Around late December on Cambridge Street, everyone was pleased to know Christmas was around the corner and was well known as the most delightful time of the year. Much like every other year for me, the days were spent thinking of my past misdeeds. It was nearly impossible to remain well behaved for a month, let alone a year only to learn about financial problems on the on Christmas Day. My days were spent playing outside.

One day while playing outside in the six inch deep snow, cousin Nickolas came riding in the back seat of his mom’s car, excited to see me. My mom welcomed his mom (my aunt), with a cup of egg nog while Nick decided to stay outside and frolic in the snow with me. Once the women walked away, Nick revealed his moms spare car key and an unusual ticket which Nick immediately gave to me as a present. We put our phones in the snow to avoid pocket dialing while we took the car for a joy ride around the neighborhood. Nick parked the car on the side of a building and we continued on foot. We made it to a sign that clearly read “Danger Ahead!”. We both continued over the gate confusing the words “Danger Ahead!” with “Dessert Ahead” and thought this was a must.

Once both of our feet were planted safely on the ground, nothing seemed right. My cousin vanished in thin air and the atmosphere changed instantly from safe to sorry. At that moment it was assumed hallucinations were responsible for what was being seen right before my eyes. Comparable to a hologram, misdeeds were being presented in a surrounding grey glowing cloud. Since it was happening one by one, and sat about six feet away before the next event took place, it was stopped it and the following event appeared in its place.

After feeling confident to take on the next few problems, Nick reappeared in confusion, put a tight grip on my arm and we both reappeared in a small closed-in box. The only sounds we heard were each other’s strong breathing pattern and wind hitting up against the side of the box as if we were soaring through the sky. The wind grew silent. Then everything became completely silent which made me paranoid. Nick had fainted about an hour after and getting some sleep seemed the only logical idea to help the ever increasing anxiety.

We both woke up to the sounds of kids running down a flight stairs. They were screaming what they wanted to see once they opened their presents.  Two little girls opened the one we were in and oddly, we were just as surprised as they were because the girls were our mothers about 20 years ago. The ticket that I had in my pocket was now attached to the present we were slowly making our out of. As our mother took a few steps back, that’s when we made a break for the front door. After jumping off the porch as fast as we could, we became at ease once we found ourselves getting up from the snow where we had left our phones three hours ago. Our stories were very much alike. However, the car was still parked in the same place while my ticket and Nick’s mom’s spare keys were gone.