Time Will Tell

I woke up to the familiar marimba ringtone on my phone. I felt as tired as I expected I would, on this Sunday morning after daylight savings. “Spring forward” always caught me off guard. I always questioned why we even bothered with this annual unnecessary time change, but that was my reality, so I begrudgingly accepted it.

I went to the kitchen to fix myself a cup of coffee. I was nonfunctional without caffeine on the best of days; God knows I needed my coffee this morning of all mornings! I opened my fridge, and, to my shock, found it completely empty. Strange. Especially since I went grocery shopping yesterday. Saddest of all, my coffee was all gone.

I urgently scoured the rest of my kitchen for any sign of coffee. There was none to be found anywhere. What was going on?

I concluded that I was probably just sleep-deprived because of the time change. I likely just imagined stocking up on coffee. I’ll have to do a quick stop at Starbucks on the way to work, I thought.

I went into the parking garage and found my car. There seemed to be more rust around the wheels than I remembered. I turned it on, and the engine protested weakly before finally starting. I saw that the “low battery” light was on. So weird, my car was working just fine yesterday. I must have been suffering from a severe case of caffeine withdrawal.

I drove the 5 minutes to the Starbucks that was conveniently right next to the hospital where I worked. I parked my car, and went to the main entrance.

It was weirdly dark inside. I pulled on the door handle; it didn’t budge. I looked inside. All the chairs were upside down. There was no one inside. This was starting to feel creepy. I looked at the door again, and I saw an eroded “Closed” sign. Starbucks, closed?! How could this be? I needed my coffee. The strangest thing was that it looked like it had been closed for a very long time.

It had been ages since I’d gone to Starbucks. I figured I just didn’t notice that it had been closed. I got back into my car. I needed to get to work. I could easily get fired if I showed up late again.

I drove the short distance to the hospital, where I work as a nurse. I pulled into the staff parking lot, and found my spot.

 The parking lot was strangely empty; even on a Sunday, we had a full shift of nurses and doctors taking care of patients. I only saw a handful of other vehicles. Had my alarm woken me up too late? That also didn’t make sense; the hospital was a busy place 24/7. There were always patients who needed care, and we were always short beds. The staff lot was always full.

I checked my phone. 7:47am, barely enough time to scrub in before my 8:00am shift. I was likely going to be late again.

I looked more closely at my phone. 7:47am, 2022?! That didn’t make sense. Last I checked, it was 2016. Weird. My phone must have a glitch, I thought. Maybe the time change threw things off.

Nevertheless, I felt a bit uneasy. I ran through the parking lot in a likely futile effort to show up to my shift on time. The automatic doors opened. I walked up the stairs to the second floor, where my shift was to take place. I checked my phone. 7:53am. I really needed to hurry up if I had a hope of reporting on time.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing there?!” a voice yelled.

I turned around, and saw a figure dressed in a full-bodied hazmat suit. This seemed more than a little unnecessary for a pulmonary patient ward.

“I’m showing up for my shift. Who are you?” I asked.

“The more important question is who are you, and why aren’t you wearing any protective gear? You’ll catch the plague! I’m going to have to report you to…” the hazmat suit’s voice started to crack.

“Report me to?” I ventured.

“Sorry,” said the hazmat suit. A woman’s voice. “You look just like my friend Angela, who died last year while taking care of patients. She was always so dedicated to patient care..”

Weird, because my name is also Angela, and I definitely worked here.

“Anyways, I’m going to take you to my supervisor. We can’t have anyone walking around here unprotected. It takes a few weeks for the vaccine to kick in. We’re not out of the woods yet.”

“The vaccine for what?” I asked.

“For the plague,” replied the woman.

“What plague?” I asked hesitantly.

“You know what,” said the woman slowly, “I think you’re supposed to be in the psych ward. No wonder you don’t know about the plague. I’ll go page them right now.”

This must have been one big misunderstanding.

“Wait!” I yelled. “My name is Angela Rodriguez, and I work here! I do NOT need to go to the psych ward. I am a nurse, but not a psychiatric nurse.”

The woman came closer, and I finally recognized her. It was my colleague Maureen. She looked like she had aged twenty years since I last saw her yesterday.

“Maureen, it’s me, Angela,” I said.

“How…how did you know my name? I don’t have my name tag,” asked Maureen, confused.

“I would always recognize my best work friend,” I said cautiously.

“But it can’t be. I saw you take your last breath. I held your hand as you died. You fought to the bitter end.” She looked genuinely upset and confused.

“Wait Maureen, what’s the date today?” I asked.

Maureen still looked almost too shocked to answer. “It’s March 13 of course.”

“Just humor me for a sec. What year is it?”

Maureen let out a nervous laugh. “Why, 2022 of course. 2 years after the plague started.”

“And you’re not messing with me, Maureen?” I asked.

“Why would I be messing with you? You’re probably some sicko pretending to be my dead friend.”

“Maureen, you’re not going to believe me, but yesterday was March 12, 2016 for me. I have no idea what’s happening. This is going to sound crazy, but I think when I set my clock forward an hour last night, I somehow forwarded myself six years in the future.”

The idea sounded utterly ridiculous, even to me. My head was really starting to pound from the lack of caffeine.

Maureen also looked shocked. I mean, time travel was technically impossible, wasn’t it?

“So, you really don’t know about the plague? How it started as a relatively harmless virus, and mutated into something far deadlier? How 95% of the world’s population has died?”

I shook my head. That many people, dead? How was that even possible in the age of modern medicine?

“I’m not sure if I believe you, but the world isn’t a safe place right now. Have you been vaccinated for the plague?”

“No I haven’t,” I said as calmly as possible.

“Well then, I have an extra dose of the vaccine on the ward. Don’t go anywhere. The vaccine roll-out was just last week, and it takes two weeks to become effective,” she left in a hurry. I didn’t dare move. If there was a deadly contagion, it would be pretty easy to catch it right here in a hospital.

She came back with a vial and a needle.

“All right, I’ll just sanitize your skin here,”

“WAIT!” I said.

“Angela, if that’s who you really are, this is not the time to be afraid of needles. I can assure you that the plague is much worse.”

“No, hear me out Maureen. If I managed to travel forward in time, that means that I should be able to travel back, right?”

Maureen hesitated. “What are you getting at?”

“What if I take that vial with me back in time? Back to 2016? Could that potentially save lives?”

Maureen paused for a second. She hesitated, then gave me the bottle.

“You know, Angela, if that’s who you really are, this whole morning has been strange. My dead best friend just shows up at work with no idea what’s going on? I’m not sure if I believe you, the whole thing sounds too fantastic to be true, but I want to. I need to. I lost my husband, my kids. I lost everything. If there’s a chance, even a sliver of a chance, I will take it. Here, take this,”

She handed me the vial. “I have no idea if it can be preserved for 6 years, but we need to take this chance. I can’t spare more doses than this; we somehow have to find all the survivors and vaccinate them. But if you’re somehow right in all this, then this is the only chance we have. Now, go! If anyone sees you without protective gear, you’ll be admitted for sure.”

I took the vial, and ran out of the hospital. I made it to my car, and drove quickly to my apartment.

I went to my bedroom, and tried to recall what I did the night before. I looked at my bedside clock. I had set it forward the night before; what would happen if I set it back an hour? Would I go back to the past?

I set the clock back an hour, held the vial in my hand, and went to sleep. Lord knows I was exhausted.

I woke up later, the vial still in my hand. At least I still had the vaccine.

I checked my phone. 11:41am, March 13, 2016. Had I actually done it? Had I traveled back to the past?

I hesitantly left my bedroom and went to the kitchen. I opened the fridge. It was full and, thank God, there was coffee! I had successfully gone back in time.

I put the vial in the fridge. I realized that I was so late for work, that it would probably be the last straw for me. But that was the least of my concerns. In my fridge, I held the potential to stop the world from succumbing to the plague. I had the power to save people’s lives. It was the only way to save my own life too. But how could I possibly convince the powers that be that this is vital and necessary? Would scientists be able to reproduce this? Only time will tell.