Back to 1999

The first thing that hit Jamie was the smell.

It wasn’t the sharp, metallic scent of the present, nor the hum of technology that seemed to buzz everywhere in the world he knew. No, this was something different. The air was thick with the scent of fresh-cut grass, gasoline, and something warm and nostalgic—like the kind of sunburned afternoons when summers felt endless. He blinked and squinted against the harsh sunlight that bathed the streets.

It had worked. It had really worked.

The small, wrist-sized device in his hand—made of sleek, brushed metal and sporting an array of buttons—was still flashing with an unfamiliar sequence of numbers. He couldn’t quite believe it, even though the proof was all around him: the cars, the clothes, the people.

He wasn’t just back in the past. He was twenty-five years back, to the year 1999.

He glanced around, taking in the sight of the neighborhood. The sidewalk was cracked in places, and the houses—older than the ones in his time, but still full of character—lined the street with well-kept lawns and picket fences. The sounds were different, too. No digital chirps or humming drones of modern tech. Instead, he could hear birds, the laughter of kids riding their bikes, and the distant hum of a lawnmower.

It was a simpler time. Or at least, that’s how Jamie remembered it. He didn’t know why or how the time-travel device had worked or why he had been chosen, but he had been given a chance to relive the past. But now, standing in it, the weight of it all was heavier than he’d imagined.

Jamie glanced down at his phone, instinctively reaching for it, but he quickly realized there was no phone in his pocket. No smartphone. Instead, a pager, one he could barely recognize from his history books, sat there, a relic of another time. For a brief moment, a pang of loneliness washed over him. He hadn’t really thought this through. In a world without social media, without instant messaging, would he be able to find the people he knew in this time? Would they even recognize him?

The sound of a car’s engine approaching snapped him from his thoughts. It was an old-model sedan, a blue Pontiac Grand Am that looked like it had seen better days. As the car pulled to a stop, the driver rolled down the window, revealing a face that was so familiar yet so different.

“Hey, Jamie!” the driver called out, his voice thick with the accent of a younger version of the man Jamie used to know.

It was Mike, one of his best friends from high school—the same Mike who had been part of all those late-night adventures, the one who always knew how to make him laugh, even during the toughest times.

Jamie’s heart skipped. Mike hadn’t aged a day. Not yet, at least. His hair was dark and tousled, a reminder of the days when they’d stay up too late talking about their futures, not knowing yet what they would become.

“Mike?” Jamie said, his voice cracking for reasons he couldn’t quite understand.

“Yeah, it’s me,” Mike replied with a grin. “You okay, man? You look a little... out of it. You need a ride?”

Jamie’s head spun as he processed the situation. This was Mike—his Mike, but twenty-five years ago, back when they were still kids, still figuring out who they were. The friendship had long faded over time, and now Mike was here, smiling at him like nothing had changed.

“I—I’m fine,” Jamie stammered. “I just… I didn’t expect to see you.” He took a deep breath. “You know, I was just thinking about high school, about how everything seemed so easy back then.”

Mike chuckled. “Yeah, the good old days. Well, hey, hop in. We’re going to grab some pizza. You still like pepperoni, right?”

Jamie hesitated for a moment, then nodded, a faint smile tugging at his lips. “Yeah, pepperoni sounds good.”

As he climbed into the car, the air inside felt like a time capsule. The smell of fast food wrappers, Mike’s old cassette tapes crammed into the glove compartment, the radio playing classic rock songs from the '90s—it all hit him with an intensity he hadn’t anticipated. He was back, back in time, and it felt like a dream he wasn’t sure he wanted to wake from.

They drove down the streets, the familiar landmarks that once filled his teenage years flashing past. The local mall, the old movie theater where they had watched countless movies for pocket change, the park where they’d spent hours playing basketball or just sitting on the swings, talking about the future.

“So, man,” Mike said as they pulled into the pizzeria parking lot, “you ever figure out what you want to do after high school? You still thinking about college?”

Jamie’s throat tightened. He hadn’t really thought about it before, but now that Mike was asking—now that he was back in this time—he realized how different the future had turned out. How uncertain it all was.

“Yeah, I guess,” Jamie said, his voice betraying him with a hint of hesitation. “I think about it sometimes.”

Mike didn’t press him. Instead, they grabbed their pizzas and sat down at a booth in the corner of the restaurant. The pizzeria, like everything else, felt smaller than he remembered. Or maybe it wasn’t the place that had shrunk—it was him, now seeing it through the lens of time.

As they ate, Mike spoke about the friends they used to hang out with—most of them had already gone their separate ways by now, Mike included. Jamie listened intently, wishing he could have somehow stayed in touch with all of them. Wishing he could turn back time and stop them from drifting apart. But it was too late for that.

After the pizza, they went to the park. It was a beautiful, quiet night, and the sky was sprinkled with stars. The sound of crickets chirping filled the air as they sat on a bench near the pond, picking up where they left off all those years ago.

“You ever think about where we’ll all be in twenty-five years?” Mike asked, his voice quiet as he stared up at the stars.

Jamie didn’t answer immediately. He thought about it. He thought about the device on his wrist, the device that had taken him back in time to this moment. He thought about all the paths their lives had taken, the ones they hadn’t known back then. The places they had ended up.

“I used to think about it all the time,” Jamie finally said, his voice thick with the weight of the years. “But now that I’m here, I don’t know. It feels like everything changes too quickly.”

Mike nodded, looking off into the distance. “Yeah. I guess you’re right about that.”

There was a long silence between them, and Jamie suddenly realized something—something he hadn’t expected. The past was never as perfect as we remembered it. The nostalgia was always tinged with a certain sadness, a longing for what couldn’t be reclaimed. Jamie had tried to rewrite his past, but he couldn’t change the fact that things had moved on. The people, the experiences—they all evolved into something different, something he couldn’t hold onto.

As they sat there in the quiet night, Jamie’s mind raced with thoughts of what had come before. The people he had left behind, the choices he had made that led him to this moment. He thought about his family—his parents, who had passed on, and how much time he had wasted with regrets. The days when he had been close to his friends, but never fully present. The moments he wished he could return to and relive differently, but now, faced with the truth of time’s passing, he realized it was impossible.

The weight of it all settled on his chest like a physical presence. The feeling of longing, of wanting something that was gone. Mike was right—it was impossible to go back, no matter how much he wished he could.

After a while, Jamie stood up from the bench, feeling the weight of the years on his shoulders.

“I should go,” he said softly. “It’s getting late.”

Mike looked at him, eyebrows furrowed. “Yeah, man, sure. We’ll hang out again sometime. You take care of yourself.”

Jamie smiled at him one last time before he turned and walked away, the night air feeling heavy around him. The time machine was still on his wrist, a quiet reminder of the impossible journey he’d taken. But now, he wasn’t sure he wanted to go back. Because even though the past was tempting, it wasn’t real anymore. The future was waiting, uncertain as it always had been, but there was no going back to the way things were.

And sometimes, he thought, that was okay. Time moved on for a reason.