Callback

Lewis chucked his rucksack down in the hallway, in the way of his own feet, and flicked on the light. There it was - the washing from breakfast. And the night before. Still sitting there, politely reminding him it needed doing. Nice birthday present from past Lewis.

Maybe just leave it ‘til the morning. Future Lewis might appreciate the chance to feel useful.

Lucky Lotus was calling his name, anyway. They were so oldschool they numbered their dishes on the app. No need to browse: he went straight for eleven, forty-two and fifty-five. And because he was thirty-two today, he threw that one in as well. A nod to the occasion. Money bag dumplings? Nice.

He kicked off his shoes and headed to the bedroom, where yesterday's joggers lay in a louche invitation on the floor. They hadn’t seen the wardrobe in years.

All day, he'd been giving birthday thoughts the swerve. Except the office had made that impossible.

Salma, his line manager, had - unfortunately - remembered, and sent a card around. It featured a picture of the prime minister wearing a party hat and a blower. Lewis’s impression of him was so note-perfect, people asked for it in meetings, like he was the in-house entertainment. The inside read, “To our resident funny man, who’s much better at his job than this guy”.

When people asked what he was going to celebrate - and of course, they all did - he lied and just said, ‘going out with a few mates’. He knew full well no one considered themselves enough of a “mate” to be offended.

Lewis had some strong feelings about birthdays and small talk. It was still considered socially all right to ask him about what he was doing to celebrate. Then he was supposed to smile and pretend as if he wasn't about to be reminded that his existence had a beginning date and therefore an expiry, his guest list shrunk as the years increased, and if he'd shown this version of himself to him-as-a-teenager, he'd have experienced a full-on Death Of All Hope.

Lewis ran his hand through his hair, then compulsively checked his hand, as though every time might be the time the first ones fall out.

His phone went - another WhatsApp ping. Another meme. It wasn't like his friends weren't out there. They just refused to be organised. Too many five-a-sides that would fall apart without them. Too many last-minute work emergencies. Too many favours needing to be called in from partners who’d already done two solo nights of childcare that week. They couldn’t commit. In the end, the fear that everyone might cancel became enough of a reason not to ask in the first place.

He grabbed a beer, slumped onto the sofa. He'd known he was spending the night in front of the TV and still hadn't bothered planning what to watch. No matter how he tried to turn his back on the expectations that birthdays should feel special, there it was in the back of his mind. If you’re going to watch TV, better be good TV.

It took him twenty minutes to decide to watch Police Academy 10.

Ten minutes in he was on his phone, opening anything that might deliver a notification.

TikTok, Hinge, Insta, Hinge, Reddit, Hinge, BBC Sport. He'd gone through the lot.

A notification: one new email.

Subject: FROM 16 YEAR OLD YOU! OPEN THIS NOW!

He was about to bin it - looked like spam - but he could see the first line of the message.

Hey future me. Happy birfday, init!

His thumb hovered over it, prepared to swipe it into oblivion. Something stopped him.

He thought back to what felt like another lifetime - the old PC in his teenage bedroom, a huge second-hand thing that took up most of the desk, and sounded like it might take off every time he booted it up.

The memory felt so fuzzy, it was like one of those he wasn’t sure is real. One of those he might have collaged together from what’s been put in front of him. It happens - Lewis had heard a podcast about scientists who made people believe they’d been to Disney World and met Bugs Bunny.

Still, there was something there. A one-night craze with him and his friends, maybe? All because Gmail had launched a new feature: scheduling messages for the future. They’d loaded up a bunch of stupid messages, supposed to be a kind of ridiculous ambush. Except nobody ever checked their email, so that was that.

Had he really sent one to himself?

He opened it.

Hey future me. Happy birfday, init. You’re 32 today!

‘Happy birthday,’ said Lewis, because it felt rude not to reply.

I should be revising but everyone’s discovered scheduled emails and I thought it’d be pretty mad to write to you. It’s basically time travel, right? You’ll be able to tell me if this was a good idea or not.

Lewis thought about his haul of exam results, a collection of Bs, Cs, and - admittedly - one or two Ds. Okay, two Ds. He’d called them his double-Ds - it was the only way to own them.

‘It probably wasn’t, mate,’ he said.

If time travel exists, reply back NOW. I promise I won't tell anyone. I won't mess up your life. I will ask you for a twenty. Mum and dad said I have to get a job if I want any more money.

You're 32 today. I picked 32 because it's twice my age and it isn't that old. It's probably old enough that you're settled, and hopefully rich

Lewis thought of his bang average salary. Enough to keep him in a regular Lucky Lotus. Not enough that he was ignoring his leaky toilet, as if it might get better on its own without professional help.

and happy

Lewis thought about the number of times he’d stared at a blank email, and instead of scheduling a meeting to discuss another meeting, he'd drafted his resignation.

I hope things are wild there. Like when you want to learn things it's like in the Matrix when people plug things into your head and it all downloads.

‘Revision on the brain, Lew?’ he said.

Sixteen year old Lewis was overwhelmed with learning. Even at that point, when it mattered more than ever, he hadn't been able to bring himself to pick up a set of flash cards. Even before that, he'd always been the kid who looks for shortcuts. What qualifications he’d ended up with, he should be crediting to Google Translate, Wikipedia and his mum. She never let him forget the time she did his Geography coursework, after a weekend of alcopops in a field which left his brain undergoing its own tectonic plate subduction.

I hope everyone’s realised that RnB is not an actual musical genre.

He'd never been a kid with his finger on the pulse.

What’s it like being able to buy alcohol? Do you still love Tyskie?

He snorted. Back in the day, a preference for Poland's number one lager made you “interesting” and “exotic”. No doubt it had been a calculated move to look more sophisticated for “the ladies’.

So far, so inane.

I hope you’re not smoking.

He paused. At that point in his life, he was watching his grandad struggle through late-stage emphysema. First taste of loss. He looked guiltily at the vape resting on the arm of the sofa.

I hope you're still tight with The Canal Crew. Those guys have got your back more than an actual throne, and they're all royalty. You better be seeing them all the time.

The Canal Crew. Aidan had just got married, a family thing on a beach in St Lucia. Dom was really into bikes and had set up a studio back in their home town. Tyrone, true to nature, had become a sparky - and was still getting into arguments with anyone who'd take the bait.

That was all he knew, though. What you can learn about your old friends on Facebook doesn't exactly tell the whole story.

How many years had it been since he'd actually seen them face-to-face? Seven?

I hope you’ve got a sweet job

Lewis sighed.

and you’re married to someone funny. And fit.

Just getting past the two-date mark would be a win.

And if you don't pass your exams, then I hope at least you're still making people laugh. You’re really good at that. Maybe you already made something of it. You made grandad laugh so hard the other day you almost killed him.

Lewis had been doing an impression, sending up his mum. She wasn't born with a bedside manner and, growing up, had shown less than no interest in developing one. Now poor Grandad had her as his main carer. He was cantankerous. She gave him short shrift. He joked she was on emphysema’s side.

Lewis had been getting into full flow as “mum” - happily berating Grandad for watching TV, putting on his underwear, even raising his eyebrows. He was building to a proper frenzy of ridiculous accusations when his grandad started gasping and had to reach for the oxygen tank. It didn’t seem to help at first, and Lewis almost called for an ambulance - but after a tense few minutes, Grandad’s breathing eased back to normal.

Later on, Grandad said he’d have been happy to laugh himself to death because of Lewis. Mind you, he had looked pretty relieved to have made it through the day.

Lewis smiled at the memory.

You might be a complete loser. But even if you are, remember. Keep laughing.

See you in 16.

Lewis imagined himself writing that. Keep laughing. He knew himself back then - would have just chucked the words out there. Being flippant came naturally to him.

But you add a whole life again onto the man, and he knows the meaning of something in a different way. What else could he do, when the going got tough? Or when everything was just so “fine” it was intolerable? Laugh.

It’s the only way through, and the only way out. Him and Grandad, they’d known it. Laugh right in the face of death.

‘You could have timed the email for something sooner than sixteen years, Lew,’ he said. Teenage Lewis’s words were throwaway. A distraction for him when he should have been doing the hard mental lifting of revision. But thirty-two year old Lewis picked that half-formed thought out of the mental waste-paper basket, uncrumpled it, and thought.

There were ways to make people laugh right now - with nothing more than the phone that was already glued to his hand.

He paused Police Academy 10 and opened up Notes.

Maybe he could do one video a day. Be disciplined about it. One video a day, every single day. No days off, no excuses, no shortcuts.

He started typing.

Split perspective. Birthday “small talk” at work… versus my brain.

Police Academy was long forgotten. The takeaway sat untouched on the side.

He talked through it. Reworked it. Turned up the existential dread - then turned it up some more. Picked out costumes for his increasingly frenzied brain. Experimented with back combing.

Two hours later, his stomach was still empty, but something else had filled up instead - something he hadn’t realised had been missing, or that he could get back just by mucking about with his phone. He had all that, and one complete video.

When he finally sat down to his reheated birthday meal, Lewis devoured his foo yung and money bag dumplings. Between mouthfuls, he typed furiously - ideas spilling out faster than he could write them. The jokes that had got him through the toughest times, the observations that killed the WhatsApp chat, the impressions he was work-famous for, all took on a new life. He’d had the callback. This was the setup - and the night was young.

He paused, fingers hovering over the screen. Then opened a new email, addressed it to himself - not sixteen years ahead, no - maybe just a year. Knowing himself too well, he settled on six months. No time to waste. The subject line was simple: “Hello Lewis”. And in the body, just two, simple words:

KEEP GOING