Time Travel Machine

“Breaking News; time travel has finally become a real thing.” 

Current time, in 2092, every news outlet didn't miss the chance to make those cliche sentences to the front page of their respective newspapers, or should I say, e-news. Every single soul in the world is kind of waiting for this to happen- for time travel to be a reality, not just an element from a science-fiction movie. Scientists from Japan somehow made it possible, and the news has been spreading worldwide like wildfire. 

First of all, my name is Leo. Leonardo is my first name (not much of a ‘modern’ name, huh?), just Leo for short. I mean, Leo. Not ‘just Leo’. You know what I mean. Anyways, back to the topic. Well, you see, back in the old times, a time travel machine was imagined to be this square box where people can fit into, where it has a ridiculous antenna at the top that could zap some lightning from Zeus or from the sky, in particular, to generate thousand watts of electricity and somehow bring your body particles into a different time zone. 

In reality, it wasn’t anything like that. Zero percent accurate, I would say. I don’t exactly know the details of it, like the scientific explanation on how it was possible or the complicated process scientists go through - I don’t know. The thing is, it looked nothing like a square box. It was just a normal phone. I mean, the cordless phone where it actually has buttons on it, like the ones they have back in the 2000s. If you don’t know what it looked like, Google it. Everyone has been crazy about having this thing in their homes, my mom was not an exception. She had been lining up in front of the Walmart since five in the morning, where they announced it would be selling starting from a hundred dollars. Reasonable? I think so. 

Nevertheless, I didn’t get what all the hype was about. I mean, yes it is cool, time travel, see your future, yeay! But the idea of knowing when we’ll die kind of freak me out. Of course we’ll know how and when we’ll die with this device, right? 

“Leo! I’m home!” Mom’s voice boomed through the whole house. I could tell she was excited as I saw the big box she was carrying in her hands. 

“Mama, this thing is heavy, you should’ve called me.” I got up from the couch and gave a hand to mom with her big box. 

“No time, Leo! If you still didn’t notice, I’m excited!” The glow in her eyes tells everything. 

We put down the box in the middle of the living room, and mom made me call all my siblings to come down. Even though I put on a face, mom ignored me. As always, she wouldn’t accept ‘no’ as an answer. If this machine does work, I might as well want to see everyone’s gaping mouth. 

“Layla! Eric! Come down here for the time travel machine, mom’s order!” I shouted through the stairway. They went down faster than I half-expected, skipping 3 steps at a time. Eric almost broke his ankle. Lucky him I caught him in time. The four of us sat in a circle, sitting with some kind of a performing a ritual position, with the box at the center. 

Mom chimed in, “Behold, the long-awaited-”

“Let me do the honor!” Eric cuts mom off and grabs the box, excitedly, before getting slapped in the hand by mom. 

“Who said you can touch that?” The expression mom gave him almost made me break out laughing in front of his face, but I eventually held myself back. I don’t want to see him weeping here. 

“Let me do the honor.” Mom started the unboxing process. The three of us peeked our heads inside the box, trying to get a clearer look inside it. It was the same one as advertised. A time travel machine, with the look of a cordless phone. 

Mom held it up high in her hands, making it look like some kind of a trophy or something. I could see her grinning from ear to ear. My heart was thumping loud, half-excited and half-scared about this thing. I don’t exactly know why, but I had a bad feeling about this whole thing, and every time this feeling comes, bad things definitely happen. 

“Ooh, let me try it first!” Layla held the machine, or the phone, in her hands. Her being the youngest in the family made me realize, double-standards in families definitely exist. Mom didn’t even swat her hand like what Eric got, I feel bad for him now. 

Anyways, the machine doesn’t need a battery, nor needed to plug in to a power source. I read an article about this machine previously, so I knew some bits about it. To use it, you simply have to put the phone onto your ear, hearing into it, word by word it spoke to you. Some people said it was the ‘future’ you, telling you things that would happen to you, or what you’ll become in the future. Some things like that. It was almost similar to fortune telling, so I somehow doubted the trustworthiness of this machine. Could it be a scam? Maybe. 

Layla held the phone towards her ears, pressing it way too hard until her ears became red. Is there even any volume button on the machine? She seemed to be hearing it so intensely, her eyes focusing on the wall. I mean, even I would freak out if future me would start talking to me through that phone. The three of us looked directly towards her direction, a stare deeming some kind of explanation as she was still listening to the future Layla talking to her. 

When her session ended, she put down the phone and grinned. We started storming her with questions, eager and excited to hear about her future. 

“So what does the future you and the current you talked about?” I asked. 

“She said I would soon be smart and got accepted into a prestigious college in the US!” She squealed with her hands up. Mom jumped with excitement, telling Layla she was proud of her. Layla barely got an A in her exams. I wonder what made her future self change to become smarter. 

“Cool! Let me try next!” Eric grabbed the phone and pressed it towards his ear. I watched him intensely as he listened to word by word his future self was explaining to him. A minute passed. Two minutes. Nearly ten minutes. Then he hung up the phone. 

“Why? What did he tell you?” I held his shoulder. I noticed he was shuddering, but not because of the weather. It was 40 degrees out there. 

“He- he-” Eric stammered. He hugged himself with his arms and took a deep breath. “He basically told me everything that happened in my life. Things that will happen, I mean.” 

We waited for him to continue. 

“The time I called him, he was- I mean, future me was on my deathbed, waiting for my time.” He looked at mom. The rest of us were quiet. I knew he was scared at that moment. 

“I- I was on the verge of death.” He stammers again. I came and hugged him, so did mom and Layla. I was not the one that usually give out hugs, especially not to Eric, but this time I could tell he really needed it. Hearing the future you talking to yourself on the verge of dying is really something I would have nightmares of. 

“Does he tell you exactly when?” I asked, half-whispering. 

“Seventy years from now.” He sniffled. The rest of us let out a breath of relief. At least we know Eric will live for another seventy years, still a long way to go. “He said I would become someone rich and known, but I would face hurdles along the way.” 

I patted his back. “No success comes from simple work, buddy.” 

He let out a smile and handed me the phone. “Your turn.” 

I hesitated. I definitely don’t want to know when I’ll die. Eric’s one kind of freaked me out. At least he was lucky that his death is not happening in seventy more years. He still has plenty of time to do everything he wants in life. 

Eventually, I took the phone, and I immediately regretted it. I couldn’t even tell if I could trust this machine a hundred percent, but then I realized, with time travel being a real thing, the world would never be the same ever again. If everyone knows about how and when they’ll die, people would try to avoid it. Based on my experience by watching movies, preventing death is something that you would not want to mess with. Changing your fate will eventually lead to something worse. 

“Go on, Leo.” Mom said. I took a deep breath and sighed loudly. Might be the first and the last one I’ll deal with this machine. I pressed the phone to my ear. 

I was silent for the whole few seconds. I don’t know if I should press any button or anything but when I put the phone away from my ear, it started to ring, as if waiting for the other side to pick up. 

I waited. Waited and waited until a voice boomed into the speaker. 

A voice definitely not mine, sounds like a robot and definitely auto-generated, saying, “Sorry, you have no future. You will die shortly.” 

Talking about reassurance. I was about to say, ‘This thing is total trash’, until I felt an excruciating pain inside my chest, as if a thousand knives were stabbing my heart at one time. I couldn’t control my breathing and was out of breath, and the last thing I saw was mom, Eric and Layla panicking and calling the ambulance (I suppose), and then I blacked out. 

But hey, ever wondered how I wrote this story?