If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.

“I told you it wouldn’t work. Now will you leave me alone? I’m trying to get something written.” Ken Carson sat staring at a blank Word page on the computer screen without an idea of what to type.

“We just need to refine the process.”

When the Time Traveler first appeared in Ken’s home office, he said, “Just call me Ray.” Ray was a head shorter than Ken, slender and with a face that could have have been a mix of a lot of backgrounds.

“Refine, my ass. Every time I go back, I screw things up. Sure, the first date with Barbara goes fine, the first few years of our marriage, but then I fuck it up.”

“You needed to stop drinking. That might have helped.”

“I knew that wouldn’t work when you sent me back the last time, so I broke up with her.”

“Then had a pity party, hooked up with that woman at a bar…”

She was actually a friend, which made it worse.”

“…she became pregnant, decided not to have an abortion…” Ray continued.

“I know. I was there. That’s my point. I can’t fix my past so I’m stuck in my present. No matter what I do, I make life worse.”

“Worse than it is now?”

“My life is what it is. I’m 70 years old and finally getting my writing career off the ground.”

“You finally stopped drinking.”

“My stomach didn’t give me much choice.”

“What about your divorce or the fact that your daughter won’t talk to you anymore. They weren’t enough?”

“Apparently not and neither am I. Now if you don’t mind, I feel enough like a piece of shit. Why don’t you go back to wherever you came from?”

Naturally Ken didn’t believe Ray was anything but an unwanted intruder at first. Then he (Ray said his pronouns were beside the point for this mission, but he did look rather androgynous) walked through his desk in proper hologram fashion, proving, if not time travel, at least that he was rather unusual. That was before the first trip back, though.

“I can’t. I told you. I can’t go anywhere else until your life is put right.”

“Yeah, there was a great TV show about that once. The remake sucks.”

“What about this? Maybe we start with those moments you fondly remember. If you could live inside of them for a while, maybe you’d see you really could have more of them. Then you could build on that to make real changes.”

“Nostalgia is fine, but real life doesn’t work like that.” Ken’s irritation was growing, but throwing a punch at a hologram would be less than useless. “People remember the good about the past and ignore all the painful parts. I can’t live inside a fragment of a life. Now will you please get lost? I’ve got a deadline.”

“What will it take to convince you that you can change?” Ray tried to put his hands on the desktop but they went through. Where ever he really was, he managed to correct his movements in time so he didn’t fall on his face.

“Even if I went back and didn’t screw it up the way I originally did, I’ll screw life up in some other way. We’ve already proven that.”

“We’ve proven that you make mistakes, but then everyone does.”

“Your mistake was coming here. Get lost.”

“Don’t you want to be happy?”

“Where the hell did you get the idea that happiness was guaranteed? People like me don’t live happy lives. I’m fine. I’m sober, I’ve got two published novels that are doing okay and, if you’d let me, I’d get started on the third.”

“You have no friends.”

“People are a pain in the ass. You’re a great example.”

“You mean besides your sons, your daughter-in-law, your grandchildren?”

“I love them and they love me. That’s enough as far as I’m concerned.”

“The fact that you stopped drinking, are in recovery, are a successful author, and spend time with your family proves you have changed. What if you go back and change earlier?”

“You just said that I’ve changed in the here and now and I’m not happy. I could change in the past with the same result.”

“Even some improvement would let both of us move forward.”

Ken stood up so he could see Ray better over his monitors. “I don’t know what sort of success you’ve had with other people, but as far as I can see, even if I could change my past, it’s just a different version of the same old bullshit. The only reason I might want to go back 30 or 40 years is to avoid all the political bullshit that’s happened in the past ten years.”

“What do you want?”

“For you to go away and for me to get on with my life.”

“What kind of life is that?

“The one I’ve made for myself, fuck ups and all. Going back isn’t any kind of answer. All you can do is just keep going forward and try to get things better the next time.”

“Is that your final word?”

“It’s been my final word ever since you showed up.”

“That’s encouraging.”

“What’s that supposed to mean.”

“It means good-bye, Ken. I’m leaving.”

Ken paused as Ray’s image began to slowly fade. “Hey, thanks for the look back. It wasn’t all bad.”

“No, it wasn’t. Nor are all the roads forward. In the past or the future, the choices are the same.” Ray fluttered like an old window shade and then vanished.

Ken sat back down and stared at the screen again. He closed Word and looked at a computer desktop dotted with minutia. There were story ideas, titles, concepts, and character sheets glaring back at him. Then he saw he’d left Gmail open. His ex had sent an email to him early this morning.

“Call Chelsea. She wants to talk.”

He hadn’t had a civil conversation with his daughter in over two years. His iPhone was sitting to the left of the keyboard. Barbara had included Chelsea’s phone number “in case he’d forgotten.”

“Nor are all the roads forward, he said,” Ken muttered. “Roads. Or to quote Yoda, always in motion is the future.”

Road One: Ken lingered over the email for a long time. It would never work. Chelsea had every right to hate him. He closed Gmail, reopened Word, and then started to rough out a plot for his third book.

Road Two: Ken lingered over the email for a long time. It would never work. Chelsea had every right to hate him. He closed the app, got up, and walked outside. He let the falling snow soften his world.

Road Three: Ken lingered over the email for a long time. It would never work. Chelsea had every right to hate him. He closed the app and got up. He put on a jacket and some shoes and went into the garage. The closest liquor store was only a few minutes away and the snow wasn’t too bad on the main roads. “Fuck it. My life doesn’t matter anyway.” He got in his car and Ken backed out of the garage.

Road Four: Ken lingered over the email for a long time. It would never work. Chelsea had every right to hate him. He closed the app, opened his desk drawer, and pulled out his Dad’s .357 revolver. He opened the cylinder. It was empty. He thought about calling his son and asking if he and his grandson could go target shooting with him this weekend.

Road Five: Ken lingered over the email for a long time. It would never work. Chelsea had every right to hate him. He closed the app, opened his desk drawer, and pulled out his Dad’s .357 revolver. He opened the cylinder. Six shells. He closed and spun it thinking of roulette. “Fuck it. My life doesn’t matter anyway.” Ken pulled back the hammer and then slid the barrel into his mouth. His thumb was poised over the trigger.

Road Six: Ken lingered over the email for a long time. It would never work. Chelsea had every right to hate him. He closed the app, and then remembered Barbara’s words, “She wants to talk.” He picked up the phone and dialed her number. Chelsea answered, “Hello, Daddy.”

Written for #SciFiFri on X (formerly known as twitter).