Regret

August 28, 2019, 9:00 PM

 

It’s raining. I’ve got mud on my shoes. I feel afraid, after many years I feel anything at all. In 10 minutes I’m going to take a life.

I’m about to kill a man for the last time.

Myself.

August 28, 2019, 7:30 PM 

I’m sitting at a party I don’t want to be in. It’s my ex’s birthday and since we decided to “stay friends” unwillingly I’m here, so is her new boyfriend, who is better than me in every way, shape, and form. She’s been talking, more like monologuing for half an hour now and everybody’s either too high to care or too good of a friend of hers to tell her to shut up. I’m neither because I’m invisible at this party. My ex’s dead plant has more presence in this party than me. Maybe it’s bad that I showed up, but that’s the thing, sometimes there’s no right choice. Had I not shown up, I would’ve been the guy who’s still hung up on the break-up, now that I did, I’m the guy who shows up to his ex’s parties. This has been just a bad year. Couldn’t land a job, didn’t get into the research program in my uni, had an awful breakup.

“What’s the point?”, I think to myself as I feel the shape of my revolver tucked in my coat.

August 28, 2019, 9:30 PM 

After 2 hours of emotional and mental dread, I ran away, I doubt anyone would notice that I’m gone. My phone’s dead, I guess I’m walking back. Walking back to where? The same old life that I hate? No. I walk past my house, to the nearby park. The park is as old as the city, some say it’s even older than that. I don’t really have any good memory of the park either. I remember when I was 10, wandering into a cave on the south side of the park one evening, after hearing some strange noises. I don’t really remember what I saw, a jogger found me fainted outside the cave. For some strange reason, I felt drawn to the cave today.

Nihilism had given me a strange sense of courage.

 

If nothing matters, I might as well see the monster of the cave. If anything happens, I have a gun with a single bullet with me. I take out the gun from my coat and load it. I walk towards the cave and as I enter it I feel light as if some weight has been lifted from my back. As I keep walking more and more it feels like a tunnel and less like a cave. I was so lost in my thoughts I didn’t even realize that it was pitch black, my phone’s dead and I have no source of light. I think maybe it’s best to go back.

Just then I hear a faint voice, a voice I almost remember but can’t really place. I walk towards it, further into the cave and I can feel a certain coldness in the wind as if it’s winter. I see a light and a small figure standing near it, as I walk towards it I suddenly recognize the voice, I see the small figure in front of me, it’s a kid.

As I go near the kid, he steps back and faints. Afraid probably of a strange man with a gun. I now remember. I remember the monster I saw come out of the cave.

The kid is me. I saw myself come out of the cave. I was my monster.

January 23, 2004, 5:35 PM

Somehow I was back in time, as an older version of myself. The minute the 10-year-old me fainted I ran away. Everything has changed and yet everything is the same. I was standing in front of my childhood home. I wouldn’t have believed it if I wasn’t living it. I went and sat on a bench in the other corner of the park. I decided once night falls I’ll go back to the cave. I could’ve gone right away, but I remembered what happened that day when I fainted as a kid. My dad and a couple of his friends were looking for the “monster” near the cave. It wouldn’t be safe right now.

It’s still time for the night and I’m hungry, so I walk around town. Unlike when I was a kid, now I have enough money and independence to eat whatever I want. I went to the bakery I used to love as a kid and ordered a caramel milkshake. It tasted soothing. It also helped me calm down a bit. Wandering around a town I once used to know, I didn’t even realize the time passing. Once it was night and the streets were desolate, I walked back to the cave, hoping to go back the way I came. As I was walking back I suddenly realized what I was walking back to, 15 years from now my life would have no meaning, I would be lost. Standing at the entrance of the cave I recall all those daydreams I used to have, of going back in time and fixing my life. Now that I have the chance, I’m throwing it away? I have nothing to go back to. But right here, I have a lot to stay for. If I change my past, maybe, just maybe, I’ll grow up to be happy. And that’s when I decided to stay back and change what no man can change, rewrite my past, erase my mistakes.

And that’s what I did.

August 28, 2019, 7:00 PM

I’ve been stuck in the past for 15 years now, I saw my other self grow up. And I changed his life without him even realizing it. It doesn’t take much to change people’s life. Catching a bus you missed earlier, being with a different group of friends, picking up a different book, going to a different school, scoring enough marks to build up confidence. I didn’t make a drastic change in his life, I want him to have free will. All I needed to do was change subtle things, give myself hints, whispers. Enough to let my younger self draw his own conclusions, even if the conclusions are what I wanted him to draw. It’s a big game of manipulation, but I know how to manipulate myself. 15 years have passed and I haven’t aged a bit, I’m exactly how I was when I traveled back here. I don’t get hungry, I don’t need to sleep. And people don’t seem to notice me. I feel as if I’m a ghost.

A time ghost, if you will.

I influenced his life for 5 years. And when he seemed genuinely happy, then I figured I’m not needed anymore. He has finally figured out his life. So, I travelled, I saw the world, I saw wonders I can’t even describe and I have traveled for the past 10 years. But then last month I came back to this place and today, on the anniversary of when all of it started I came back to see how my other self was doing.

He doesn’t look so well, he seems sickly and pale. He’s wearing the same clothes I wore all those years ago. He’s sitting alone in his home. As the clock struck 9:30 he got out and started walking a familiar path. He went to the park, to the same cave. He drew out the same gun and started walking towards the cave, so I followed him.

January 23, 2004, 5:35 PM 

I see him, He saw him, our younger self, I see him run away and I follow him.

He’s doing the same things I did when I first got back here. He went to the same shop, ordered the same milkshake. He’s a ghost, just like me. I see him change his past, influence the decisions of his past self. And after five years when he has changed everything , I see him deciding to travel the world. This is the best time to get rid of him. I know after now there will be no consequences of him on his past self. So, one fateful night, I revealed myself to him and before he could react I killed him, and then I waited. For the next 10 years, hoping that I grow up happy. That was the first time I had killed him, the first time I had killed myself. After that, I’ve lost count. No matter how the story is changed I always end up here. I feel like I’ve been alive for a century yet time has barely passed. It’s an infinite loop of regret, where my 25-year-old self is so sick of his meaningless life that he travels back in time hoping to change, influences it for the first 5 years, and then I kill them. All of them change different things, schools, friends, people I fell in love with. But no matter the change, I grew up regretting the past.

August 28, 2019, 9:30 PM

So today I decide to change things. Even though I’ve traveled through time multiple times, it’s always been the same route. August 2019 to January 2004. I never used the cave to come back to the future because after January 23 2004 it won’t let me go back, The cave closes. So, if I have to go back it has to be on January 23, 2004.

I follow this version of myself from his parent’s house, one look at him and I knew where he was going. He goes inside the cave and I follow him.

January 23, 2004, 5:35 PM

As soon as he traveled back to January 23, 2004, I killed him.

I went outside once so that my younger self could see me, so he could remember the cave and the monster that came from it. And then I walked back. For the first time in years in the unknown. I don’t know in which August 23 I’ll end up, but whenever I do I have to make peace with it. I walked back, and I remember the first night when I walked through this cave. I feel light and I reach back to a present that is for me both past and future.

???

As soon as I get back I ran outside the park, I ran to a restaurant. They have a T.V. on the counter. I check the date and time.

August 28, 2019, 9:00 PM 

I have half an hour to find and stop myself. However, a slight disadvantage, I have no idea where my other self is right now. I have to make a guess and for some reason, I chose my ex’s birthday. I hide outside her building and I wait for 9:30. Praying to God that I’m right. And then I see myself. Same as all those years ago. This is the night when I travel through time for the first time. I see him going to the park and I follow him.

As he’s about to enter the cave, I yell

“Stop right there!”

He turns around and jumps back, he’s visibly freaked out.

“What the fuck! Who the fuck are you! What is happening.”

“Hey! Stop shouting.”

“Wha-

“I’m you and I need you to listen to me very carefully.”

“What the fuck do you mean you’re me?”

“I’m you from the future.”

“Stop bullshitting”

“You don’t believe me?”

“Of course I don’t”

“Well if I’m not you then how do I know that while you were sitting at your ex’s birthday party you thought to yourself Sometimes there’s no right choice. Had you not shown up, You would’ve been the guy who’s still hung up on the breakup, now that you did, You’re the guy who shows up to his ex’s parties”

“How is this possible?”

“It’s the cave.”

“What?”

“The cave takes you to the past, You, I mean I went through it and ended up back on January 23, 2004.”

“The day I saw the monster in the cave.”

“I am your monster, or to be more precise you will be your monster.”

“Oh my god.”

“That’s not all.”

“What did you do? What am I going to do ?”

“Take a wild guess.”

“You changed things.”

“Yes, we did, countless times.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means no matter what is changed in our life, we always end up here. Regretting the past, always eager to change it.

“How many times have I changed the past?”

“I lost count a long time ago.”

“So nothing really matters, I’m never going to be happy.”

“Yeah, do you know why?”

“Because apparently universe hates me I guess.”

“No, because you’re stuck in past.”

“What?”

“The first time I changed our past, after 5 years I left. I started traveling. I did new things, I wasn’t looking back. For the first time in my life, I was looking forward. And all those years when I waited for other-self to grow up. I read books, I picked up hobbies, I did things even, kept myself busy as I kept looking forward to see my other self grow up. And every time I was disappointed. No matter how I improved our life, the other-self will grow up filled with regret, not gratitude. He would grow up hating himself and hating the world.”

“You think you’re a nihilist? Bitch, please.”

“You like saying nothing matters because if things matters, then you have to care about them. And when you care about something, chances are you’ll get hurt. And you, we are just so afraid of getting hurt that we go around spewing the bullshit that nothing matters to you.”

“What now ?”

“You have to stop living in the past, there are mistakes that no man can fix, there are relationships that are supposed to stay broken, there are opportunities you are going to miss. And that’s okay. As long as you don’t get hung up on them. The world is a big place and there are too many things for you to see, feel, experience, learn love. If you go through that cave, you’ll be forever stuck repairing your past. And you’ll fail each time. You have to let go of it all”

“And do what?”

“Live”

“I only know what happens in your past, and the different versions of it, if you go through the cave. But if you don’t. Then therein lies the future. And that’s uncharted territory. A field of impossible potential, new stories, new people, new experiences. The future is the way forward, and that’s what you should think about. And you should be grateful for what you have, I’m not saying bad stuff didn’t happen to you. I’m just saying that not only bad stuff happened to you.”

“There was a lot of good in your life, try to remember it.”

“I will”

“So you’re not going in the cave?”

“No”

“Thank you”

“What will happen now? Where will you go?”

“I think I’ll be erased from existence”

“What”

“I’m the version of you that went through that cave, I’m the version of you who changed the past. If you don’t go through the cave, I don’t exist”

“I’m sorry”

“Don’t be, in a way I’m hundreds of years old. I’ve lived a long life. Now go, I’ll just remain here for a while I guess. Go on go home. Sleep it off, you’ve had the weirdest night of your life”

As I saw myself walk back in the night. I knew he would be okay. I will be okay. I could feel myself slowly disappearing, being erased from time and space forever. I had no regret now. Well, maybe just one.

Should’ve had that caramel milkshake one last time.

 

The end.