I Swore I’d Never Come Here

Fiction by Miranda Nayak

I swore I’d never come here. The building in front of me is a dingy, pathetic-looking excuse for something that is supposed to be a clinic. The state of the building doesn’t surprise me. Time travel has never been a respected art.

My eyes flick over the fading pastel-yellow exterior of the squat building. The dark around the place is only illuminated by the warm street light and a flashing red Open 24 Hours! sign.

My parents would have resented me for staying away from time travel for this long. I never agreed with the practice of moving through time. To me, it felt ethically wrong. We were born into this period for a reason, to change the world here. Why should we go anywhere else? Why should we exist anywhere else when we have the potential to make some small bit of history in the present?

But my parents invented time travel.

Their pure passion for the idea was what I grew up on. Everything in my existence revolved around this theory of moving through time because they lived for it. The idea of using time travel for therapy would enthuse them to no end. One would think that would make me just as excited about the idea, but I’ve avoided this place like the plague. I swore I’d never come here. Almost everything in my life thus far has led back to the idea that time travel is bad. Only my true despair on a rainy morning drove me to come here.

I shove a strand of wet brown hair out of my eyes and make for the entrance of the building. Without letting myself overthink it, I grab my employee name-tag on my blouse and tear it off. It drops out of my hand and into a puddle like dead weight. I quit my job this morning.

My job, my life. There wasn’t a difference, was there? My chest feels empty. Start your own business if they don’t want your ideas. That was my genius thought this morning as I stomped away from the biggest tech company in the world. An hour later, sitting in traffic, I realized just how far-fetched that plan really was.

The faded purple door to the Time Clinic is slightly propped open. Beckoning warm air washes over me as I step up to the entryway, but I don’t go in.

I swore I’d never come here.

Something deep-rooted in me has refused to think about time travel for all of twelve years. It’s not as if there isn’t something undeniably tempting about it. Every person that comes here — to the Time Clinic — comes back in a cleaner and more peaceful state of mind than before. They come back to today, ease in their smiles, like all of their problems have been solved. That’s the point of Time Therapy: to resolve the problems of your life by looking at your own past.

I never had the luxury of being able to relax my mind. Not when I had another test, job interview, or task to complete. Not when I had to focus on the present. The present is all that really matters. I’ve been convinced of that for years. Even with that weight pressing against my shoulders, I carried on. Nothing could ever justify time traveling for me.

I’ve only felt this empty once before: the day my parents left me.

Obviously, that’s not a good sign. Obviously, there is something wrong with me. I couldn’t carry on this time. Not when I’d sobbed in the streets on the way out of my former workplace and mindlessly drove my car until two in the morning. I swallow hard, pushing back against the unease settling in my stomach, and gingerly pull the door to the Time Clinic open.

The inside of the Clinic boasts a long red counter running across one wall and a few plastic yellow benches on the opposite side. There’s a fountain with a sleek black box in the middle. My stomach turns at the sight.

It’s modeled after the first time machine.

“Just go,” I whisper harshly to myself.

I can’t believe I’m doing this. The floor beneath my feet is checkered linoleum. The clicking of the hard bottoms of my flats rings through the nearly empty room. Each step feels like too many — like I’m about to do something terrible.

“Hello, miss, how can I help?”

It takes me a moment to respond to the curly-haired woman at the desk. She has freckled white skin and frizzy hair that looks to have been dyed blue too many times. There’s a small smile on her face, and I want to say that it’s fake, but I honestly can’t tell.

Composing my thoughts and abandoning my doubt, I use my most professional voice to say, “I’d like to book a session.” The woman nods, tapping something out loudly on the blocky keys of her computer. After a moment, I hear a loud artificial ding and my head spins toward the sound. A yellow light now blinks above a bright red door in the hallway behind the desk in front of me. The blue-haired lady gives me another bright smile and opens a gate to her right, motioning for me to come through.

“Just head to the room with the blinking light. I’ll be right with you.”

I do as she says, dragging my feet as I slowly approach the door at the end of the hall. The lights above every other door are a lazily flashing dim green, but mine is yellow. Loud, bright, yellow. My head rings with fear, and my feet come to a clicking stop. All I can see for a second are the yellow lights flashing in my eyes, the alarms ringing. My clenched fist banging against the glass.

“Miss?” The blue-haired lady was behind me now.

Cool breath touches the roof of my mouth as I breathe it in. This is different. Without another thought, I shove through the door.

The inside of the room shares a close likeness to a generic hospital room. The low, paper-covered, exam-bed, and the brochures on the walls. There was a chair tucked into the corner and a small sink with a few baby blue cabinets. Gulping, I take my seat on top of the paper, cringing as it crinkles noisily beneath me.

No sooner than I sit down does the red door open again.

It’s the lady, this time wearing a lab coat with a clipboard clutched in her small hands. My first instinct is to scoff at her doctor-like appearance, to laugh at the insanity of it all. As she pulls up the chair so it’s right beside the bed, I let myself think back to this morning. This morning, when this place was forcefully non-existent to me. When I thought that time travel should never be used as a form of therapy. It’s nothing but dangerous, unnecessary.

“What’s your name?” asks the blue-haired lady, her voice soft and gentle.

“Nova Marie Brantley,” I answer cooly, ignoring the comforting tone of her voice. I keep reminding myself of where I am and what I’m about to do.

The lady’s smile turns slightly amused. “And why did you come here, Nova?” “I don’t think that’s really your business,” I say stiffly.

Again, she smiles. “If you don’t want to share, you don’t need to. Sometimes it helps patients to talk through their experiences before the treatment.” Her voice is lilting and clinical, but I wonder if some small part of her is still curious. “You never know what you’re going to see in there.”
Her words catch me off guard. “What do you mean?”

“Ah,” she says, her lips forming an O. “Would you like me to explain how this works?” Grudgingly, I nod. I don’t like the feeling in my stomach when I admit how little I really know about how Time Therapy works.

“I’ll make this brief since you seem to be ready to get going,” she starts, eyes flicking up to mine. “I’m going to plug you into the machine. The machine analyzes your feelings and thoughts to establish the key factor in influencing your transit destination.” She pauses, gaging my understanding. “Your transit destination — or destinations — are where the machine takes you in your past.” She looks to see if she’s losing me, but I’m following right along now. My mind is piecing together the bits of information I’ve heard about the technology used for this “therapy” with her words. “Then, I’ll let the machine put you wherever you need to go.”

Need seems like a strong word. I don’t think I need to go back to the past. Time travel was invented when I was thirteen. I was there when time travel was invented. Ever since that day, the art of moving through time has been controversial. Though it is accepted by the general population, there have always been a vast majority of people who are skeptics. It’s something that school teachers use for a debate topic in their classes in the same way that they use “are waffles or pancakes better?” They never asked about time travel when I was in class, though. I don’t resent them for that. I would’ve crumpled on the spot.

I never endorsed time travel, even when my parents spent their whole lives inventing it. I always knew I belonged here, in the present. The present is where I can make a difference. Though controversial, time travel is still a part of modern society. The company I worked for — used to work for — was a bustling robotic tech company with a very intense belief that time travel should be illegal. They were undoubtedly against Time Therapy. They recognized that time travel is dangerous.

That’s precisely what I believe, and what I’ve always believed. My aligned belief with the company made working there all the better.

That’s over now.

And there it is again — the sinking feeling in my stomach. If asked a few minutes ago, I would have said this was nothing but unease. Suddenly, I knew better. This is despair, this is grief, this is fear. I swore I’d never come here. But I am desperate.

The lady is moving around me, pressing soft cloths to my head, piercing my skin with a needle. A circular metal ring sits upon my brow like a crown, and it connects to a computer that comes out of a cabinet on the wall. My thoughts are so loud that I barely hear the beep the computer makes as the blue-haired lady taps something on it. I barely hear the whirring sound of gears turning as the wall behind me folds in on itself.

I feel a breeze as the big, black, box-like thing pushes against the air and slides out into the room. “You can’t interact with anything or anyone in the past. All you have to do — all you can do — is listen to the machine and watch the scene unfold, okay?” The woman’s voice comes out soft this time. I watch her blue hair swinging as she dashes around, pressing buttons and sticking wires to my skin.

This is happening. This is really happening. Everything, down to the bones in my body, tells me to get out of this. I can feel the panic of being in a situation I’ve had nightmares about creeping up on me. Adrenaline flows freely now. I feel the familiar thread wrapping around my throat and pulling tight, cutting off my air. I can’t breathe. The whole point of this is to help me, but will it?

What am I doing? I need to get out—

“The machine will start analysis in three, two — ”

Too late.

“One.”

A force erupts through me, so electric and light that it’s as if my body is floating off the table. My back arches and my eyes widen, seeing only white. All the thoughts rush from my mind until there’s only bright, blinding light. The blue-haired lady taps another button on the wall and I feel a tingling deep in the tips of my fingers. Thin and slightly sweaty fingers touch my forehead carefully. The blue-haired lady’s coppery eyes connect with mine through the brightness. “Good luck,” she mutters.

And I’m falling.

If I could scream, I would.

Then, suddenly, I’m not falling anymore. The white paper walls fade and I’m somewhere. If I could scream, I would.

“Hello, Nova.” The voice is mechanical, blunt. Unidentifiable and familiar all at the same time. It’s deep… somehow soothing.

“Hello,” I whisper — no, I think. I hear my voice as if from a distance.

“You quit your job today,” the machine says.

“Thanks for the reminder.”

“What are you planning to do now?”

It’s the same question I’ve asked myself all day. I don’t answer.

“Do you regret leaving that company?” The machine asks after a moment. A direct answer doesn’t seem to come to mind as I mutter, “I don’t — I don’t think so.”

“September seventeenth, twenty forty-five,” announces the toneless voice. “Welcome to your past.” A cool breeze dances across my skin and I’m shoved back into my consciousness. I hear a muffled beeping sound that prickles at the edge of my senses. Familiar, I realize. When my eyes find a glass door with a strong iron frame, my brain quickly interprets why.

I’m standing in a lab. To be specific, a time travel lab. More specifically, my parents’ Time Travel Lab. My breath comes in slow, short bursts, and I can feel it rushing out of my lungs through my dry lips. When I look down at my hands, I see that I’m here, but I’m not. There’s something transparent about the way my skin shines.

“I don’t really think this is — well, I just don’t understand why we can’t just stay in the present,” says a familiar voice from the other side of the opening door. A girl with a mess of limp brown hair and dark green eyes comes through with a taller, older woman. They have the same face shape and the same hair and the same crooked smile. I watch thirteen-year-old-me shrug the backpack straps of her orange bag up to her shoulders as she comes through. That’s my mom at her side, understanding, but not commenting, on her — my — opinions about time travel.

The pounding in my head grows until I can’t stand it. I feel my lips quivering and I cross my arms tightly across my chest as I watch my mom open another door, escorting me into a viewing room. I’m left alone in my own past.

“Why would you bring me here?” I ask the machine, even though I know the answer.

“This is the culmination of all of your ideals and beliefs,” the voice says, with more emphasis than I would have expected from a machine.

The scene shifts around me again and I am in the lab, watching myself sit down in the viewing room. This was the first day of what would become the time travel revolution. My parents were passionate about their life’s work. They started their research before I was born and it consumed their time while I was growing up.

I wasn’t surprised by their choice on this day, and they weren’t surprised by my choice. My mom walks up to my dad, who is bent over a desk near the time machine. The four other members of their team are also in the lab, scurrying around, making sure everything is in its place. Their families trickle in, loud noises filtering in through the back door to the viewing room as it opens. I remember watching the other kids sit down next to me in the viewing rooms, listening to them conspire about the press that waits outside. I watch my younger-self ask my mom why the press isn’t inside the lab. I hear her saying that they aren’t allowed in until after.

“This is the last time you had anything to do with time travel,” the machine explains. The time machine, the very first time machine, was a huge black box. It was sleek and matte except for the shiny black door. My parents dart around the lab, and I listen to the whispers amongst the awaiting families: it’s about to start. My mom gives me thumbs up through the thick glass window and my dad grins.

Then it starts.

“This is what you’ve had nightmares about every night.”

It’s as loud as a vacuum positioned right above my head. Smaller-me covers her ears, but my parents don’t notice. The noise grows and the air in the room feels tight. From my place behind past-me, I see the light glow brightly around the frame of the door on the time machine.

“You were one of the first people to ever witness time travel.”

I watch my dad approach the door of the time machine cautiously. He pulls the door open with a backward yank and the light that the machine emits is nearly blinding. I can hardly see as he throws a round object into the doorway and lets the door slam closed. I learned later that it was an apple that he threw in. The experiment was just that: to see if an apple could travel forward in time.

It did. A few seconds later, an apple appears in a glass box next to my mom. It’s just there as if it weren’t out of place at all. An apple traveled through time.

“You never thought things could go so wrong.”

The alarm startles the younger version of me so much that she has to catch herself on the wall to keep from falling to the floor. The others in the viewing room stand, yelling and gesturing at the flashing yellow lights. Thirteen-year-old-me is banging her hands against the window. Inside the lab, my parents are bustling around chaotically.

“You had to make a choice no one should have to make.”

Younger-me is still banging on the windows as the adults run around. Then they stop, stand in a circle, their heads leaning in. I can guess, now, as to what they are discussing. A moment later, the door between the lab and the viewing room is thrown open and the families come filing out. The adults are gathering their loved ones, eyebrows furrowed, voices quiet. There’s an anxiousness in the room that I remember all too well. I see my past-self facing my parents. I don’t need to walk any closer because the words they said to me in those moments are wrapped around the very core of my being. “Nova, we don’t have much time to discuss this, but we need you to make a choice,” my dad said, his voice hushed.

“What?” I asked, alarmed. “What are you talking about?”

My dad started to explain. “The machine is going to shut off and — ”

“That doesn’t matter. We have a chance to go to the future,” my mom explained.

“The future?” I repeated, quietly.

“Yes. We just don’t know if we are going to be able to come back.”

“You — you what?”

“We’re going to the future. In the time machine. But we,” my dad said, his voice taking on a very calm tone as he glanced over at my mom, “want you to have the choice whether to come with us or stay.”

Later, I learned the time machine was breaking apart piece by piece. The team didn’t know how much time they had left, or if there was even a chance of replicating the machine. They felt like this was their only opportunity to do what they always wanted: explore time.

“But you don’t even know if that’ll work,” I stutter, grabbing my dad’s hands. “It will.” My mom was confident.

The machine’s voice interrupts the scene, blocking out the sound of me stumbling around words, trying to understand. “You decided to stay.”

Of course.

I never believed in time travel, after all.

Now, I watch a younger-me step shakily away from my parents and back into the viewing room. I remember the feeling of sickness in my stomach and the tears that started flowing down my face as they waved at me from the other side of the glass.

I was the only one out of all the people in the lab that stayed in the present. I was the only one that stayed. My ears ring as I watch the scene unfold from behind younger-me. One-by-one, each person steps through the door, the light swallowing them whole. My mom glances over her shoulder once before she steps through, tears gleaming on her cheeks. My dad tries to smile at the little girl in front of me. He waves at her. Younger-Nova is shaking too hard to wave back.

Then, I’m alone with this other version of myself. She crumples to the ground, sobbing. The time machine goes dark and quiet, finally breaking beyond repair. She’s from my past, but she’s equally as broken. White swallows the room. I press my palms to my eyes, trying to contain the tears that are falling down my face.

“You never saw your parents again,” the toneless voice says.

“No,” I mutter. Irritation sparks from somewhere deep within me. “You shouldn’t have taken me there. I — I never wanted to relive that.” I was yelling now. “I didn’t need to see that.”

“You did,” it says simply.

“No, I didn’t.”

“Do you regret staying in the present?”

I feel myself hesitating even though the answer is right there in front of me. “No,” I answer, my voice softening.

“And the company you worked for?”

The machine’s words make me do a double-take. I suck in a breath and I feel the soft whisper of air against my mouth. “The company?”

My surroundings shift and I’m standing in a crowded room. The scene sends a fresh wave of fear through my body, making my fingers curl into fists and my shoulders tense. Fifteen men take their seats around a slender wooden table, and I see a young woman with carefully straightened, shoulder-length brown hair push through to the front of the room. Her dark green eyes are dull with frustration as they catch on a man sitting in her chair. Not wanting to make a fuss, she steps back to stand against the wall. There she is, right next to me. I could reach out and touch her subtle frown or her twitching fingers.

She’s me from this morning.

The Head Executive of the company (my boss), walks into the room a moment later, her dark hair swinging at her back. She takes her seat at the head of the table and lifts her chin in acknowledgment of us all.

Glancing at her clipboard, she says, “Nova Brantley?”

Past-me steps forward, restraining her nervous smile. “Hi, Executive Brent.” At her command, the Nova of this morning starts her presentation. It’s a project — a really big project. Something I worked on for years, something I had been planning since the day my parents left.

If all went well, this would have been my last step to get to where I wanted to be: at the top.

Even watching myself present my work sends pride through my body. A smile creeps onto my face and I watch myself perfectly recite the lines I’d been memorizing for two years. They sound natural and unrehearsed. Confident. I was confident.

When I finish, satisfaction flickers across my face. The heads of all the men in the room nod in my direction. They’re impressed.

The scene freezes and I’m not even surprised by the machine’s voice this time. “You knew your idea was a good one. You wanted to impress them, and you did.”

“Yeah,” I agree.

“Yet, they denied you permission to pursue the project.”

The hollow feeling that has been haunting me ever since that moment returns. “So I left,” I say without prompting. “My parents told me to always go for what I want.” The machine is quiet this time, letting me draw conclusions for myself.

“I regret ever working for that company. I will always regret working for that company. They wasted years of my time only to let me down,” I say softly, shocking myself at the small revelation. I’ve always thought that my deepest regret was something completely different.

Working at that company is my deepest regret.

My old job. Not separating from my parents. Confusion mingles with panic mingles with fear and I feel my body shaking.

“Why do you feel so empty after leaving?”

I’m quiet.

After my parents left me, I spent years trying to figure out how to live my life. “You have always wanted to justify living in the present. You wanted to justify the sacrifice you made by staying.”

Getting a job at the biggest tech and engineering company in the world had been my dream even before my parents left. When I got a lower position there, I was determined to fight my way up the chain. That project was supposed to prove my worth. That project was supposed to get me to the top. And getting to the top meant that I succeeded. That I hadn’t wasted away here while my parents left me for the future.

They left me hollow, a shell of myself. They took apart the pieces of my heart. I managed to thread them back together with dreams and goals and plans to make this life in the present worth it. I was healing. I was okay.

When I quit my job at the company, I knew what I was doing. If they were going to undermine my ideas while still acknowledging their brilliance, I wasn’t going to stay. The belief that my time-travel-inventing parents planted in me says that I can do this without a big company behind me.

Yet, I still quit. Quitting my job meant dropping down to zero. My chances of making this life into something worthwhile died with my status at the company. My broken heart shattered and I felt empty again. It was a choice, a sacrifice that I didn’t have to make.

I could’ve gone along with the company without being able to pursue my goals. “Just as you could’ve gone along with your parents even though you wanted to live in the present,” the voice intones.

I take in a small breath, my mind spinning as the connection forms.

I can make choices. I can choose. I have the power to choose my own course of action. I decided to stay in the present because I believed it was the right choice. I had a strong conviction that this time was the one for me. Thirteen-year-old Nova Brantley didn’t want to time travel. She just wanted to live her life. So, I sacrificed a life with my parents for a life in the present, with my friends and my extended family and my scarred heart.

When I decided to leave the company, it was because I believed it was the right choice. I had a strong conviction that my idea was a good one and that if I wanted it, I would have to take a chance. So I sacrificed my plan to keep pushing my way to the top in exchange for another chance to do something new, starting all the way from the bottom.

My parents live in the future, but my heart lives in my chest. My choices have power. My choices are mine.

With a start, I realize that I don’t regret either of the choices I made.

Somewhere deep inside me, I could find that same hope.

The machine purrs and the white walls fade to black. When I open my eyes, the lady with the blue hair is perched on a stool in the corner, her hands woven together tightly. My body feels the slightest bit fatigued, but I sit up. “Miss Brantley?” She asks, standing.

“Who’s in charge of this place?” I ask, the smallest of smiles lifting the corners of my mouth. “I think I have a new project idea for them.”

I swore I’d never come here, but I came anyway. Sometimes the choices that scar are the ones worth making.

Miranda Nayak is a high school sophomore in central Washington. You can regularly find her building robots, making videos, playing the cello, or binge-reading YA fantasy novels. She loves writing anything from emotional book reviews to short stories.