The Time Travelers

1.

“Just say it,” you told yourself. Somehow you knew you’d regret it if you didn’t. So as the Greyhound’s engines started and rolled away towards downtown, you crossed the street, hitched your backpack which was heavy with copies of your canvasses carefully tied with a ribbon, stuck between your books. 

Ryan was sitting on the park bench with his back to you. Birch trees provided shade, birds sang in the boughs, clouds drifted above and the sun’s not as hot as the weatherman said last night on TV. Once again, the weatherman was wrong.

You looked back the way you came and there on the green acres sat your house, with the hedges, the broken-down Ford GT, yellow paint peeling, brown and rusty with age. Across the crumbling picket fence was Ryan’s home, screened off by the flourish of Birch. But you know his house was back there. His dog Alfie’s incessant bark continued forever. His parents lived there as well.

Did they know what you knew?

Ryan must have sensed you coming for he looked back. Or maybe you weren’t as stealthy as you thought. He scooted over and you sat on the park bench. The air here was fresher than the overused one in your room where you’d been doing time with your bed and paintings.

“You wanted to ask me something,” he said.

“Yeah.”

But now that you are with him, what didn’t make sense before —because it wasn’t possible even if it were possible to conjure— began to grow sprouts of meaning. 

What if you'd made a mistake, you asked yourself. What if there was a natural explanation to it all?

You opened your mouth. You closed it again. How do you even begin? 

“Aria?” 

You had been staring at his face, open-mouthed. His eyes were the shape of two almonds placed too close to each other. His lips were the shape of little girl lips. You’ve told yourself Ryan was handsome. But you’d never say it to his face. 

“Erm…I mean. I saw you leaving your place,” you mumbled, your voice returning from whence it went.

“Uhuh.”

“Twice.” 

“What?” his brows —they climbed slowly.

The back of your neck tickled with the fright you felt the first time you saw what Ryan did, or what you thought he did because honestly, you aren’t sure what you saw anymore. For right now, sitting here under the birch tree, swallowing morsels of the same air with him and the birds in the trees making all that sweet noises, and the trees waving at heaven, now all of that thing you saw seemed like a dream.

Your hands flail in the air. “I’ve been watching you since you moved here. You leave for school, then minutes after you get on that greyhound, I see you coming out of your place again—”

Ryan jumped off the bench. Red-faced and fists clenching and unclenching, he stepped away from you. His head turned on a swivel of a long neck, his eyes searching the park, the sides of the trees. 

“You didn’t see anything!” he hissed.

Then he stumps across the grass, across the road and was soon swallowed by the shadows of the trees and was gone.

You exhaled.

“Well, that didn’t go well…” 

The birds continued to sing in the trees. 

—

2.

Back in your upstairs room, you peeked through the curtains and saw Ryan, his silhouette, that was. He was pacing the floor of the room. The color of his bedclothes was a shade of blue and some flowers, maybe pink. It was too far off for you to be sure. There was a small flower pot on the window holding the sill in place. The flowers were gladiolas and the stems dangled out over the edge. 

His dog barked. Alfie always barked. Was he hungry? Or did Ryan unsettle him too? 

Nothing was unsettling about Ryan himself. 

It was what he did.

—

The first time you noticed it was the day Ryan and his family moved into the next apartment. That house had been vacant for some time until last week when the realtor —Mr. Jenkins, was what your mom called the man built like a corn stalk. He had driven into the curb in his black Buick with broken mud flap that kept making sounds like a torn fan belt. Mr. Jenkins, you noted, looked like he's missed breakfast and dinner all his life. His brown mop of hair scattered in the wind, he held his oversized jacket against his body or the wind, you were quite sure, would have torn it off him and then you would have seen the scrawny body. And god forbid that, right.

He uprooted the sign in front of the house that said, FOR SALE. Then he proceeded to put his back to his car, light a cigarette, and pollute the air. He whispered between puffs, the tune of the happy salesman.

Just when you got tired of watching Mr. Jenkins, and shortly before your mom called you from somewhere in the house to come get your dad’s shoes, you heard the unmistakable sound of a truck coming. 

You connected the dots quickly and knew instantly what was about to occur.

You went back to your window, but all you saw was the back of a loaded van. 

When you came downstairs to the window in the living room, you saw that a new family was moving into that apartment. Mr. Jenkins was shaking hands with a medium-sized man in a yellow anorak, bald-headed, black reading glasses, and plenty of teeth to smile with. A woman was hustling about the back of the truck. Her long brown hair dangled from the back of her head in a ponytail. Her white and brown gown was tied with a sash around her small waist. Ryan’s head was only visible for a while in the cab of the truck. He just sat there, staring through the windshield. 

You watched him for a long time until he suddenly turned his head and those blue almond eyes looked your way, all the way across the road, over the picket fence and up the ascending side of the house into the window. You pulled the curtains into place.

“Aria?”

You turned sharply. “Mom?” 

“What’s going on out there?” 

She pulled the curtain again. “Oh, he sold it. At last.” The boy was out of the cab. He was looking up and down the street, squinting, and did he look so handsome? Very. 

Your mom was back in her favorite spot on the couch where she did her knitting in the evenings. Your dad was in the bathroom singing Sting’s Love is The Seventh Wave song, off-key. 

You presented him with his shoes when he came out. He too was at the window instantly to see about the voices in the street. 

When you went back to your room you did a rearrangement of your room so that your bed was just by the window. You could just prop yourself on your elbows and see the next house. You heard them move things around there. You heard furniture scrape on floorboards, silverware singing in the kitchen as they shuffled against each other, doors closing and opening, life settling in anew.

Then quiet.

The quiet was too finite. The world seemed awash with sounds except in that next house. In your mind, between your closed eyes, the isolated quiet of the house kept appearing, nudging you to get up and look. So you raised half your body on your elbows and peeked.

Your mouth fell open.

There was someone down there. There was a dog too. You heard the familiar huffing and puffing. You saw the boy walking around the house. He wore white matching pajamas and he was looking at something on his wrist. It looked like a wristwatch. 

The dog's tail wagged everywhere, it’s tongue hung from his mouth almost a foot long. It had short furs like a muff, short limbs, and small ears. 

“What kind of dog is that…” you whispered to yourself.

Then something happened. 

The boy walked by the house in the direction of the street and went out of sight, followed by his dog. Then just seconds after he disappeared from view, he came out of the back of the house again.

“What…”

You frowned. You calculated the distance and concluded that he couldn't have gone around the house and appear again that fast. There had to be two of him to be able to achieve that. You know, one here, and another on the other side of the house waiting to take the baton, like a relay. But they'd have to look exactly alike, pajamas and all. And of course an extra dog. A twin dog.

But how likely was all of that?

He did it again. And again. And one more time before you couldn’t take it anymore and you covered your mouth with a trembling hand on account of the scream bubbling in your throat.

—

3.

The boy Ryan was a looper. That much you were sure of. He had found a way to navigate the time loop. At least the books in the library said so. You had spent the whole of the next afternoon at the local library. Especially the one with the missing rib, that smelled like it had not been opened in a hundred years. Dust clouds puffed out of it when you dropped it on the table. There were weird kinds of drawings in it, strange scientific words, and these calculations that had to be worse than calculus. 

You took this away from your read: it was possible to be at different places —in other people’s eyes— at the same time— if you could beat the time barrier. 

You were sitting on the porch later that evening. Just thinking about stuff only fifteen-year-olds thought of; your blooming fascination for boys, your inordinately long hands and legs that’s begun to lengthen recently. And the fine fact that you could now sing in the shower better than your dad.

That was when he walked past with his bicycle. He glanced your way and quickly averted his gaze. There was something curious about the way he smiled afterward, looked again, and waved. The gesture, the smile, and the way his eyes crinkled at you, all of it warmed your heart strangely.

And then another time he just stopped and said, “hi.” 

You both talked. About what, you don’t now remember, even though it’s been barely a week. But you remember he told you his dog's name, Alfie. He was nice to talk to. His voice sounded like paper rubbing over paper, low but present. You thought maybe there was comfort there, but you weren’t sure if in real life, things were as sweet as they were in the harlequin books you always read, all of that mushy stuff.

Yesterday you saw him live on the greyhound. You waved but he didn’t see you. And that’s how you now know you saw, what you saw. Because you waved, a conscious action that couldn’t have been figments of your imagination. 

So when you saw him about three minutes later from your window, crouching before his dog at the back of the house, and then he was feeding the flower in the pot with water, you knew you had to talk to him.

—

You didn’t see him again for a day or so. Silence had grown around that house since. So when night fell, you snuck out the back of the house. Mom had fallen asleep on the couch, her crochet was on the floor between her legs. Dad didn’t see you because he was watching the TV show, True Blue. Nothing could take him away from True Blue, not even the Lord Jesus, should he blow the trumpet that minute.

Outside it was warmer than the weatherman said. Probably 30 degrees. 

You went over the fence and round the house, gently stepping on dry branches because you aren’t sure Ryan’s dog was rabid or not. Either way, you didn’t want to find out. The windows were dark. When you looked around and found no dog house, your intuition started whirling.

Finally, you rounded the house. Yet you found no one. You could have sworn that the house hadn’t been moved into just some days ago.

You went back the way you came, in through the kitchen, and back up to your room. It was upon getting on the landing that you knew you weren’t alone.

You remembered switching off the light in your room.

The light was on now. It was a thin long line on the floorboard. Your legs turned to water because you were very sure someone was in there. And somehow you knew who it was, and just now, you weren’t sure you wanted to meet him anymore.

I should go back, I should call dad, your head screamed, I should call the cops!

But no, the mind of a teenage girl couldn’t resist the seductive beckoning of the inscrutable. 

You turned the doorknob slowly and opened the door.

Ryan was standing in the middle of the room.

“Hi.”

“How did you get in here?” 

“I saw you, looking for me. So I came looking for you.”

Yeah, but how did you get in?

You relaxed a little, shut the door and rested your back against it. He looked harmless, frightened even. He looked out the window, down at his own house. When his face turned to you again you saw spittle on the corners of his mouth. 

“What are you doing?” 

Ryan was fingering the little dial on his wristwatch. He stepped closer to you. 

Your back pressed into the door, your heart did a backflip.

Your lips trembled. “Plea…please don’t hurt me—”

“I would never hurt you, Aria.” 

“What do you want?” 

“I want to show you how I do it.” 

“Do what?” you asked. 

“Shush.” 

He took your hand and put it on his shoulder. “Hold on tight, alright.”

You nodded desperately, your heart screamed, “Aria, what the hell are you doing?!” 

He fiddled with that dial again and the next two second —or milliseconds, you weren’t sure— felt like zipping through white tunnel. 

Instead of your room, you were in front of your house, it was daylight and Ryan was sitting on the park bench under the birch tree in the distance. 

You turned around when you heard the sound of the greyhound pulling out of the curb on its way downtown. 

Ryan touched your shoulder and you jumped, letting out a small yell.

“We are back to yesterday.” 

“What?” a pounding headache was on its way around your head.

“This watch, my father made it for me—”

“Where are they now?” 

He sighed. “On a mission. Back in time. They have to correct something in the past, somewhere around 1965.”

“Oh God…” you mumbled.

Then it occurred to you. That curious hunger for what your life would be like. What did the future look like with you in it?

“Can you go to the future?” you blurted out, your eyes two eggs on your face.

Hesitantly he said, “Yes. Why?” 

“Take me to— 40 years from now,” you beamed.

Suddenly his face clouded. He exhaled and looked away. 

“Come on. It would be fun, think about it. Us, me and you, forty years from now. We’d be adults. Let’s go see what we are doing. Don’t you want to see?” 

“I have seen.” He was suddenly morose.

“Then what’s the problem?” 

He looked at you, held yours with his almond eyes, and said, “I have been there. I barely made it back. Everything you see now was gone.”

You frowned, “what are you talking about?” 

He went on more urgently. “There is no future, that’s what I’m saying. There is nothing here forty years from now. Everything is destroyed. It's all gone. We destroyed all."

"We? What'd you mean 'We'?"

You sat down hard on the curb. 

Seconds after you are back in your room, the next day. And Ryan was gone.

But it couldn’t end this way, you thought. 

“Do you want to know how it happened, the end? What if we could change it?"

"I don't think we can."

"Why'd you say that?"

“Because it was us, you and I, we both did it.” 

My God, she thought.