A Cancer in Time

        It had been a week since the incident, one day since the funeral, and my grandfather had yet to reach out. Every text and call I made to him went without response, and then today my phone finally dinged and showed his name pop up on the lock screen. He was coming over. I had considered going to his flat before hearing from him, but he had always handled grief in his own very specific way. Mom had once told me that when she was a child and she had first been diagnosed with cancer, he couldn’t even stare at her for whole week. She thought it must’ve been something she’d done. Getting sick must have been seen as such a failure, a weakness to someone who was always a perfectionist about everything. After a week though, he came to her and apologized. He assured her she had done nothing wrong, and that he was just so scared of losing her, but he let that fear steal more time from her than the sickness might already take away.

               He had always responded like that, whether it was her, a close friend, the death of a pet. They called me a miracle. By all accounts, I shouldn’t have been born, because she should have died by the age of fifteen. Instead, the doctors received an experimental drug trial. One day it didn’t exist, and the next day, as if it was just for her benefit, it was there. They had enough time to test it, for him to sign a waiver in case anything went wrong, and thankfully it worked. For twenty-five years she was able to have a normal life again, a life without having to struggle with the pain of her own body fighting itself. She was able to live, to graduate, get married, and have me. It worked until one day it didn’t.

               About six months ago she began waking up nauseated, puking, and collapsed on the bathroom floor. There hadn’t been any signs we’d noticed leading up to it. Maybe she had been hiding them, maybe she was in denial, there was no way to know for sure. What was certain though, the doctors had told us, is that she wouldn’t survive much longer without another miracle, and unfortunately her body no longer seemed to react positively to the original drug that had been used to save her. And so, at a certain point, she decided she didn’t want to fight anymore. She accepted what none of us could, and she lived until she no longer could.

               There was a knock at the door as I sat there lost in thought. I shuffled over to the door from the recliner and opened it. Grandpa was there, wearing his grey beret and matching overcoat that had seen better days, its ends beginning to fray.

               “Grandpa,” I said, moving out of the way and letting him in, his gait slow and short like a zombie going through the motions. “How…How are you?” I said. A meaningless question given the situation, but the only thing I knew to say in the moment.

               He pulled the cigarette that had been hanging from his lips and blew smoke into my otherwise smoke-free apartment. “Not great kid,” he said, “that’s why I needed to see you, to let you know what’s going to happen next.”

               I shut the door and looked over. “You don’t have to worry about any of that you know,” I said, “I was planning on handling all of the paperwork and anything else with dad. You shouldn’t have to—"

               “I’m going to save her,” he said. I looked into his eyes for a moment. He was serious, matter-of-fact, which worried me even more.

               “Grandpa, she’s already—”

               “You don’t understand,” he said, shaking his head and taking a drag of his cigarette. 

               “Mom would hate those, you know that right?”

               He shrugged. “I know. I used to think she got it because of me, kid. It’s why I stopped doing it around her, but then it just kept happening….”

               “What do you mean it kept happening? Wasn’t this the first time she came out of remission?”

               He blew a puff of smoke into the air. “In this timeline, yes.” He reached a hand deep into the pocket of his coat and pulled out a spherical object that I had never seen before. It was comprised of interlocking gears, a dull blue in its center, encapsulated by translucent steel that seemed out of place as if it shouldn’t exist either here or now, or both.

               “What is that?” I asked, pointing at the mysterious object. I shook my head in disbelief as the words he said fully hit me. This timeline? “I think we might need to call someone,” I said, “you’re worrying me.”

               “I’m not the one who needs help,” he grumbled, “I know what I’m saying, and I know it sounds crazy, but I’m not crazy. This,” he said, holding up the object, “is something I’ve never told anyone about. Just you.  So listen to me before I go, will you?”

               “But what you’re saying doesn’t make any sense,” I said.

               “Then pretend.”

               I breathed in and let out a sigh. “Okay,” I surrendered, “so what is that?”

               He pressed a button in its top center and the gears slowly turned, the blue center pulsing as the shifting gears increased their speed slowly but surely. The dullness of the blue, which each pulse, grew brighter.

               “To say it’s a Time Shifter,” he said.

               I cocked my head.  “A Time Shifter? You mean like a time machine?” I hated this playing pretend, it made me feel sick. Why should I give in and pretend with delusions? Although with each pulse I wondered, was this a delusion?

               “Yes and no,” he said.  “It can travel you back to the past, but it’s the past of an alternate timeline.” He must have seen the confusion still on my face because he continued. “One where your mom is doesn’t have cancer yet. One where I can still save her.”

               I gulped and forced my tongue against the roof of my mouth as hard as I could in an attempt to stop any tears. “Grandpa, that’s not possible,” I said in a hushed tone.

               “It wasn’t possible for her to survive her childhood either,” he said, “but who do you think invented the drug that saved her then?”

               “No one knows where that—”

               “Me,” he said, his voice rising, “keep up kid. Do you know how many times I had to do this just to get that right?” His voice broke and he wiped away a tear before taking another drag. “I’m so close,” he blew. The blue light shone brighter, the pulsing speeding up even more. “But trying again means I’ll have to leave you.”

               This no longer felt like pretend. It sounded impossibly insane, but deep down I could feel my gut twisting up, a mix of hope and despair. If what he was saying was true, then could that mean…would that mean….

               “Are you telling me that you can still save my mom?” I asked, my voice slipping into a near whimper.

               He stamped his cigarette out onto his shoe and shoved the extinguished butt into his pocket. “I’m sorry, kid,” he said. “That’s not how this works.”

               I ignored the tears that came, heat invading my face. “Then why the hell are you saying all this?” I cried. “What’s the point of it all? Why did you even show me that thing to begin with?” I yelled waving at the hunk of junk that continued to spin, the gears clacking quickly against one another now and the light shifting colors.

               “I care about you,” he breathed. “I never had a grandson before…but I can’t just stop now. I can’t just give up now.”

               “Oh my god! You just said—”

               “I know what I said,” he snapped back before recomposing himself. “Kid, this doesn’t take me back into the past of this timeline, it’s going to shift me into another one. I can’t save your mom, but I can save her for another you. I’m telling you all this because I don’t want you to be lost not knowing where I went. In a few moments, I will cease to exist here, and my consciousness will be transported into an alternate past version of me.”

               “And what happens to them?” I said. The room felt as if it were spinning beneath me.

               “From their perspective,” he said slowly, “I suppose it would be like death. I’m certain though that, if they knew why, that they would choose the same path. They would choose to sacrifice themselves for me, for your mother.”

               “And what about me?” I screamed, reaching for his Time Shifter and catching his wrist.

               “What about you?” he asked.

               “I thought you said you cared about me,” I said.

               “I do.” He placed his hand on mine attempting to pry it from his.

               “Then why am I not enough?” I said. The light alternated from blue, green, and red, bleeding out of the orb with each pulse now.

               “Maybe in another life,” the stranger that had never been my grandpa said. “You need to let go,” he ordered. “Now.”

               “No.”

               He struggled more frantically now, scratching at my hand and eventually trying to shove me. We toppled over onto the floor, his grip still tightly on the Time Shifter, and mine still on him.

               “Let go, Kid! If you don’t let go, you’ll end up—”

               A wave of red exploded from the Time Shifter filling the room and snapping itself back taking both of us with it. He spent his life, and countless others, clinging to hope and leaving me, and probably countless others like me alone to deal with their grief and confusion.

               I sit here now with my mom, once again on her soon-to-be deathbed, and I’m watching him closely this time. If it’s you, if we were sent to the same timeline, what will you do this time?  Do you know it’s me? Do you know what’s going to happen next, or should I be the one to tell you this time?