Note To Self

The clock read 2:21 p.m., and Luke Keegland’s mind was focused on two things: Pac-Man and his own impending death.

Luke couldn’t concentrate as the teacher droned away about integers and fractions. The classroom clock looked too much like the video game character Pac-Man. The two hands were positioned to form a gaping mouth within the circular frame, and Luke felt like one of those dizzied blue ghosts trying to avoid being eaten.

Pac-Man was also the nickname given to Chris Sherman, not just because he was big and round, but because his mouth was always flapping. If he wasn’t telling people how things should be, he was mocking them or roughhousing them. Pac-Man was so full of arrogance that it seemed to erupt from his face in clusters of shiny red bumps.

Luke sat at his desk with a ballpoint pen and quickly scribbled a message on loose-leaf paper. However, his focus was constantly broken by heads turning to stare at him. Luke was usually a lone wolf, someone who flew under the radar, but in the last couple of hours, he became the most talked about person in school.

The boy at the neighboring desk leaned in and whispered, “Hey String Bean, are you going to fight or run?”

“I guess I’m fighting,” Luke replied. “Getting pummeled to death by Pac-Man is probably better than being called a coward and then hunted down and pummeled to death.”

The boy chuckled. “What are you writing? Your last will and testament?”

Luke covered the paper with his arms, embarrassed someone might have seen the words he had written. “This might be the only thing that saves my butt today.”

Luke carefully folded the letter and slid it into an envelope. He wrote his name in bold block letters and slapped a “Y2K Ready” sticker on the front.

The clock hands were now horizontal; it was 2:50. The end-of-school bell rang like a death knell, signaling every student that a funeral was about to happen. When Luke stepped into the hallway, he felt his invisibility cloak being torn away. A swarm of teenage eyes followed his every move, and amidst the whispers were remarks like, “Dead man walking” and “That’s the guy Pac-Man is fighting.”

Luke wasn’t a fighter. His biggest battles involved searching for pants with a small enough waist and long enough inseam. Even putting on his backpack made him look like a struggling Olympic weightlifter. And he was far from being a social butterfly, so he couldn’t explain why he spoke up in the lunchroom.

Pac-Man was sitting at the table behind him, potato chips flying from his mouth as he sang along to a nearby boombox. Luke recognized the song—'Bohemian Rhapsody' by Queen—and began to hum.       

The table legs screeched across the linoleum floor as Pac-Man shot to his feet and squawked, “Saving his life from this warm sausage tea.”

Luke’s perfectionism eclipsed his social anxiety, and he was compelled to interrupt the singer, “You know, the actual lyric is, spare him his life from this monstrosity.”

Picking a fight is that simple. The other cronies at the table began to tease Pac-Man, causing his arms to go limp at his sides as he slowly turned. The giant mass loomed closer and Luke felt the gravitational pull, it rooted him in place, and he was unable to run.

“Three o’clock at the tennis courts behind the swimming pool,” Pac-Man announced. “Be there or I’ll hunt you down.”

Luke now had just over seven minutes left to live. He pushed open the rear doors of the school, and the afternoon sun hit his face, causing him to recoil from the pain in his eyes. He thought, if ultraviolet light hurts that much, what would Pac-Man’s fist feel like when it connected with his face?

Luke shuffled across the football field. Freshly fallen leaves tumbled across the grass, crackling underfoot like brittle bones snapping. That sound echoed behind him, as a growing mob of bodies and backpacks joined his death march.

At the far end of the field, Luke came to a secluded green space nestled between the swimming pool building and the empty tennis courts. The towering spruce trees formed a natural barrier. No roads, sidewalks, or adult witnesses came anywhere near the hidden battleground.

Pac-Man was waiting. He leaned against the tennis court's chain-link fence, which stretched and groaned under the strain of his weight. Pac-Man looked less like a video game character and more like a snowman. His skin was pale with a round head atop a round body, crammed into baggy jeans that could double as curtain drapes.

Luke approached cautiously as the crowd of kids huddled, forming a tight circle around the two fighters.

“Alright smart guy,” Pac-Man called out. “Tell me if these LL Cool J lyrics are wrong: I’m gonna knock you out. Mamma said knock you out.”

His atrocious attempt at rapping drew a huge cheer from the crowd. Pac-Man took a combative stance and raised his fists to his face.

Luke's backpack slipped from his shoulders to the ground as he lifted his arms, the skinny appendages flailed around like a clumsy marionette puppet. “I really don’t want to fight,” he called out, drawing boos from the crowd.

Pac-Man ignored the plea and started to advance, drawing one arm back, ready to unleash a punch. But he paused at a bizarre hissing sound at his feet, quickly followed by a series of black cylinders popping out of the grass.

Pac-Man was bombarded by powerful jets of water from the underground sprinklers, all concentrated on the very spot where he stood. Pac-Man lost his footing and collapsed backward, struggling to find his grip in the growing mud pit.

Shrieks erupted from the crowd as two squirrels darted between the spectators’ legs. The rodents synchronized their actions and dashed up Pac-Man’s baggy pant legs. The boy squealed as he thrashed and flopped around like a plastic shopping bag in a hurricane.

Luke watched in stunned silence as Pac-Man began to cry in front of the crowd, prompting a wave of laughter. After a tremendous effort, the mud-covered boy crawled to his feet and shook the squirrels loose.

At precisely that moment, the sprinklers stopped and the wailing of a police siren cut through the giggles. Dozens of teenagers began to scatter in every direction. It was as if a cue ball struck a rack of billiard balls. People crashed into each other and then vanished until only Luke remained.

From around the corner of the swimming pool, a large, well-defined man in a tailored three-piece suit stepped into view. One hand clutched a small cage, while the other held a boombox. The police siren fell silent as he pressed one of the buttons.

The man strutted forward with a gleaming smile. He was a muscular, charismatic figure, like a professional wrestler. “Hello Luke, how’s your day going?”

“Have we… met before?” Luke asked, his eyes narrowed in confusion.

The man placed the cage and boombox on the ground and reached into his jacket pocket. He pulled out an envelope marked with the name Luke in bold block letters and adorned with a “Y2K Ready” sticker.

Luke reached into his backpack and removed the exact same envelope.

The stranger started reading from his letter: “Dear Luke Keegland. If time travel is ever invented in the future, please help us. You’re supposed to fight Chris Sherman at the tennis courts behind the pool on October 4^th, 1999, at 3 p.m. Please travel back in time and stop this fight, and if you can, make it look like I somehow win.”

“Holy shit!” Luke yelled.

The two squirrels then darted between his legs into the waiting cage.

“Don’t ever stop believing in yourself” the older Luke said. “You're destined for great things.” He picked up the cage and boombox. “By the way, you have a smokin’ hot wife who trains squirrels. And I highly suggest you buy some stock in Apple.” Then he was gone.

As Luke walked home, he spotted a sign on one of the buildings across the street. In bold letters, it said, “Queen’s Boxing Gym,” and their slogan was “Saving Your Life from a Monstrosity.”

Luke crossed the street and went inside.