Backwards

The first thing the Venus fly trap noticed was that it was yesterday. That it thought, was very unusual, usually the day after today was tomorrow, but it was definitely yesterday, today, which didn’t make any sense. It would have told someone but being  a Venus fly trap gave it limited capabilities, mostly photosynthesis and catching insects. 

 It looked forlornly at its human owners, they’d find out soon enough. 

 It must be stated while time travel is possible, time paradoxes are forbidden. When one does occur it creates a scar in time and space, which if not resolved, can grow and destroy the entire universe, even Time itself. And that’s what was happening now. Or rather would, had and was happening, simultaneously and not, all at once. 

“I already told you” he bemoaned, it was usually a turn of phrase but in this instance  he had already told her, it just she didn’t remember. In fact he had the vague notion that he was only sane man left on earth, everyone else seemed be acting like today hadn’t already happened, but it had, and yesterday, which would be tomorrow had as well. By his account this whole week had already occurred and reoccurred and quite frankly, considering he’d already been to work, he’d rang in ill today. Plus he wasn’t quite sure how he’d even be paid if this continued or if it mattered anymore, there didn’t seem to be any causality anymore, anything he tried to do became undone, it was as if universe was erasing any changes, like trying to reformat a hardrive that kept reverting to its original state. 

 “And I told you if keep talking like that the men in white coats are coming for you” she laughed not taking him seriously. 

It was no use, no one believed him. I do the Venus fly trap thought, but he couldn’t put this into any sign the human would understand. 

Meanwhile in tomorrow, that is the day after the world went backwards, the remaining humans were having a very bad time, a very bad time indeed. 

Time was a constant, that was a given, a law of the universe, although it was also stated that time was relative, and right now that relativity depended on all of existence. 

 A small reading group sat alone in what was left of “time” as we know it. For some reason, everyone else had started going backwards, they alone like weary travellers plunged into the future, and despite having read a lot of science fiction, didn’t really know what to do about it. 

 “Stop him!” A voice called but it was too late, ironically as the place they were in was the Time Investigative Matters Embassy, and the figure was about to create a time paradox. He didn’t mean to, it was just, he’d cocked up a bit, he’d gone back to study an extinct plant, the Venus fly trap, but in doing so had accidentally saved a passing butterfly from it, which had meant Hitler 2 and many other terrible things had doomed humanity to a future that made 1984 look like a Holiday resort in comparison. Not a paradox in itself, but what he was going to do next was, and would make the previous aforementioned Hiter 2.0 world look like a 5 star resort in comparison. 

“I’m telling you it’s all backwards!” He yelled, incase the exclamation mark didn’t explain that. She began to think her mother was right they’d married too early, and left for work. 

Meanwhile the forwards man was pondering if he was a psychic or whether all psychics’s simply were people like him, stuck going backwards in time, you don’t need to see the future if you’re travelling backwards in time, you just have to remember the past. 

 It was at that moment he appeared. The bastard. The butterfly. He didn’t see why people blamed him for everything, the butterfly effect indeed, why not the dinosaur effect, they were here long before he was anyway. 

 The Venus fly trap looked on hungrily. Just then, a whirlwind appeared and sent the butterfly hurtling out the window, and a man appeared from the whirling mess of atoms, looking as greedily at the Venus fly trap as it had at the butterfly. This can’t be good the Venus fly trap thought, it was right. 

 Just then an identical man appeared and stood in front of the other man, “wait! Where’s the butterfly?!” 

 “What?” He looked baffled. 

 “Who are you?” The forwards man asked the two identical stranger now in his living room”.

 “No time”, he chuckled “to explain get that butterfly!”. 

 He raced outside and returned with a butterfly clasped in his hands. And promptly fed it to the Venus fly trap.

Thank you it thought. 

 And that’s when everything went wrong, all of time, or most of it, went wrong. 

 “Oh dear” the first man thought as he slowly dissolved. “Oh dear” the second man or rather second version of same man also thought as he began to atomise back to the present. Tasty thought the Venus fly trap. Weird thought the forwards man. Bother thought no one. 

The reading group was interrupted in thought by the appearance of a man who had appeared to appear from nowhere. “Where am I?” He asked 

 “The future, or what’s left of it” said the chairman of book meeting association. 

 “We’d better have a chat”.

 They concluded that it was all his fault. He’d caused a paradox, by going back in time to stop himself he’d inadvertently removed any reason for him to go back in time, therefore he didn’t stop himself, and so had to go back in time to stop himself and you get the idea. 

 "But what do we do about it?”.

 Only one of them had the answer, but the sunflower on the window wasn’t saying anything. 

The Beginning? The End? The end of the beginning or the beginning's of the end? This definitely isn’t me stalling trying write few extra words to hit the word count definitely not, whose got time for all that.