A Note From My Future Self: A Time-Travel Science Fiction Story

The flimsy Q-Mart bag in my right hand holds a gallon bag of popcorn (dinner), a Kit Kat bar (breakfast), and 80 aspirin pills (always every 4 hours). After a long stay in the lab, I drag myself home and find a torn piece of spiral notebook paper taped to my apartment door, along with an uncapped blue Bic pen.

The note is written in my terrible handwriting:

Dear Me — It’s me, you. I’m you, and I’m from the future. Unfortunately we can’t meet (because of the boom), but a written note will work. Write your response (actually write it on paper), go to the bathroom and look, I’ll leave your answer there. got it? Yes, I’ll go. – myself

There are three obvious possibilities here: hallucinations, pranks, or… no way. Unless?

It may seem a bit silly, but I switch my groceries to my other hand, grab the pen, and write:

Hello?

There’s another handwritten note taped to the bathroom mirror.

Dear Me — Kool, “Hello?” is officially the first communication text across time and space performed by humans. We really stepped up to this momentous occasion and earned it 5 stars. Anyway. Darts tonight. — me you one more person

Of course I check for hidden cameras, but if this is a prank, that would suggest someone cared. Facts not in evidence.

I peel the paper from the mirror, turn it over, and scribble on the back.

Why are you writing to me? What’s a good place to reply? I’ll try the sock drawer.

Dear Me — I actually don’t know? But I’m not that interested in breaking causality since it’s my first time doing it. By the way, don’t forget to memorize these notes, because you don’t want to mess up the universe. — Still here (so far)

A Message Across Time and Space

I shrug off my coat because it is clearly time to get back to work. There’s another note in my pocket, reminding me again that it must be a historically significant dart.

Maybe they’re trying to keep me away from the lab because they want me to solve time travel on a specific day in the future instead of tonight.

There’s no one left in the workroom, so the lights go out until the motion detector picks me up. The wheezing overhead lights flicker back on. The Tempo Travel prototype I’ve been bumping my head into is back in the corner near the only 110A socket we have.

My first step is to make sure no one is messing with it. No one else has decided to leave a new note about darts. Other than me.

I turn on the prototype. The first thing I try is to go back in time and send a note to the toilet. I write:

Is this still working?

But when I go to the unisex bathroom, I find only notes like this:

darts! ? ! ! ! ! !

So I think it’s from the other guy. I check my watch. He really wants me to go on this matter.

Or maybe God wants me to blow myself away for work. This is what I should do when people harass me. This is probably why am I single?

The Tempo Travel Prototype

But I know I’m either hallucinating or close to a breakthrough. The possibility of leaving this laboratory is almost zero, zero, zero.

So I sit next to the machine, my back against the concrete, my laptop on my lap, and think. I take data. I mess around.

It is probably a few hours before I wake up shivering. There’s a little drool on my shoulder and a message from me on my stomach.

That’s stupid.

When I return to the bathroom to wash, a new note is waiting for me, propped up against the mirror.

Dear Me — Just to clarify, you were supposed to meet a girl tonight. Devi. she’s cool — Dart Champ WITH a Girlfriend, aka Not You

Who could think about girls at a time like this? Other-Me is cracking. I crumple up his note and try to throw it in the trash.

Hang on.

I uncrumple the note.

How does Future-Me know about this girl Devi?

I didn’t go. We — I didn’t meet.