If I Could Turn Back Time

[MikeHales67]

I blame Corvus for this one. She asked about stories about going back in time and fighting your former self. It got me thinking, and I came up with a story based on Harlan Ellison's 'One Life Furnished in Early Poverty '.

For further reading on how bad our memories are, just Google 'Elizabeth Loftus false memories'.

If I Could Turn Back Time

If I could turn back time
And if I could find a way
- Cher

Oh Boy!

It fucking worked!

I look in the mirror in the restroom I find myself in.

I see a late-twenties redhead dressed in a red strapped halter top, denim shorts, hmmm, nice pins. And perky breasts! I remember those! And that ass! Not sagging around my ankles! Fuck! I'd forgotten what it was like to be hot!

 But who the fuck am I?

I look in my pockets and find a driver's licence. Ashley Clark. Oh, there's an ID; it says Ashley Clark, Instructional Assistant. The name rings a bell. Okay. I'm a teaching assistant at...

...Pitman College, bingo! So, I'm a teaching assistant; I don't dress like one, obviously not a Math teaching assistant, streetwalking educational assistant? Nah, Physical Education, must be. Can't blame her though, if I had a body like this, I'd show it off too! I put the card back in my pocket and go out into the hallway. Halfway along the hallway I realise I forgot my glasses.

Hang on -  I don't need glasses!

I take off down the hallway to the canteen to find myself...literally, I'm looking for me. I need to talk to her.

Perhaps I should explain.

I'm not Ashley Clark. I'm Jennifer Hillman, a cleaning assistant, a cleaning lady to you and everybody else. I'm fifty years old, and my life sucks. I'm here to put my life right.

Temporal Mechanics.

That's the phrase Seth used. He's a sweet kid. He works late, so I often see him in the office when I'm working. I used to go to his office last. If he were still working late, he'd make a coffee, and we'd talk through the night; I'd have no one to go home to. Neither has he. He'd just gone through a difficult divorce. Nothing sexual. I was just someone to talk to. Don't be stupid. I'm at least twenty years older than him. I think he saw me as a mother figure; yeah, I'm used to it. I saw him as a human being--someone to talk to. And we did.

 "Bet you wonder what we do here?" He asked one evening. We'd run out of war stories to tell, and we'd had a couple of coffee pluses.

No, I don't. Who gives a shit?

 "Time-travel", he grinned.

 Okay, I'm interested.

 "An actual time machine?" I queried. You've gotta be shitting me, right?

 "No", he said, "That's beyond our technology, not like a TARDIS".

So not a time machine then, figured.

 "You can't bend the fabric of time and space. It needs more energy than is possible, maybe a black hole; 'Interstellar' got that bit right". But not an actual time machine then?

"Noo, we do the 'Quantum Leap' approach".

 "Quantum Leap?" I repeat disbelievingly.

What?

 "Yeah, Little Jenny...", He always called me that. I'd told him people called me Jenn, but he ignored me; he said it was what he used to call his mother.

"...it was an old TV show in the nineties...".

Yes, I remember it.

 "...It gave me the idea. You could swap consciousness with someone from the past. You don't need stupid crazy amounts of energy; you only need a terawatt. You can flip consciousness just like you can flip the state of a wave-particle in a potential well to a new state. After all, consciousness is just an information engram; you can describe it just like a Hamiltonian matrix. And flip..." he smacked his hands together.

 "... The person from the past goes into your body here in the present, and you are inside their body in the past."

 "Does it work?" Sounds like bullshit technobabble to me.
 
 "Yes!"

I wasn't expecting that answer.

 "But we're still trying to work out the laws of temporal mechanics".

 "Temporal what?"

 "Temporal Mechanics. The Laws of time travel. Basically, can you change the past? There are two theories: the 'Carved in Stone' version, if you went back in time to kill your grandfather. You can't because you already went back in time to kill your grandfather, and you failed..."

Okay.

 "Or the Everett Interpretation. When you kill your grandfather, you create a separate reality where you killed your grandfather and another one where you didn't".

 "Which one is true?"

 "We don't know", he smiled sadly, "But we're leaning towards the 'Carved in stone' version. You can't change the past 'cos it's already happened. It's all very complicated..."

"Then there are memories..." he sighed.

 "...if you go back in time and say 'Hello' to yourself. In theory, you should always remember that time a future you came back and said hello to you. The future you would know they're going back in time to say 'hello' and would already have a memory of the event. However..."

 "...and this is the weird bit..." he leaned in towards me to make his point.

 "...you don't;"  he gave a puzzled look, "you won't remember the event until you go back and say 'hello' to yourself. At which point it becomes a memory..."

 "...isn't that weird?" He leaned back in his chair, grinning.

 "And this is what we are currently researching... " he was really getting into this now. I was surprised he didn't start scribbling on his whiteboard.

 "...We can't do time-travel until we understand the rules... "

 "...We gotta know which butterflies we can kill", He added.

Yeah, I read that story.

"Where's this machine?"

He gestured towards that weird lab room I'd cleaned a million times.

 "You need this card to activate it", he showed me his lanyard. He always left it in the top-right-hand drawer of his unlocked desk. I know, I'd cleaned it a million times.  It was a weird room, empty except for a desk, a computer, and a barcode reader. It always seemed to get a lot of dirt and dust.

 I remembered 'Quantum Leap'.

"And so, Doctor Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, striving to put right what once went wrong"

That bit about striving to put right what once went wrong.

I don't remember much from that time. Shit, it was thirty years ago. I remember being a good student at college. Then I became disenchanted with Community College. I stopped working, went to parties, and failed my computer course. I can't remember why: parents, the school, the drinking. Drifted from dead-end job to dead-end job, got married, drank a lot, did drugs, and drove my husband away. And now I live in my pokey little flat with all my unpaid bills and my cat, a ginger called Sam.

If I could put it right, if I could tell myself not to...

I had to try.

So, one night after I'd done the cleaning. I got into the lab. It's the one thing about cleaners: we go everywhere, and we're invisible, and if you're not a hot young chick, doubly so. I knew where he kept his card. I remembered enough about computers. And here I am. Striving to put right what once went wrong...

I walk into the canteen. There she is sitting at the table, alone, reading a book. The canteen staff have shut up shop. There are only a few isolated students, still eating, talking, some just hanging out. I remember going here to get some peace and quiet and to study.

I sat myself down right in front of young me. I'm not gonna tell her the truth; I'm a time traveller from the future. This should be easy, if anyone could talk to her...

 "Hi!" I say.

 "Hi", she says, hardly looking up from her book.

 "Listen to me, it's important!"

 Reluctantly, she puts her book down.
What is so fucking important? I'm trying to study.

 "What?" she asks.

 "Look, this is an important time in your life; if you get it wrong, you'll regret it the rest of your life". I explained.
Oh, the fucking usual. I'm a wise adult, child. Listen to my wise words of wisdom.

"I know your parents don't help much".

"You leave my mum and Dad out of this. My parents don't understand, but they help as best they can! ", she angrily shot back.

Maybe she's right. Is my view of mum and dad coloured by watching them slowly getting consumed by dementia?

 "But what about the bullying?"

 "I have that sorted "

 "How?" I ask.

 "I stand up to them".

You, Tinkerbell, you've never been in a fight in your life. I never got into a fight until I left college, when I made up for lost time.

 "Thank you for your concern, but I've got everything under control" She smiles insincerely back at me.

No, you haven't. I know what you do. Sometime in the next couple of weeks, you're gonna crash out of college for reasons you won't admit to. You're lying to me; you're lying to yourself.

 "But if you leave college." I caution.

 "I have no plans to leave college", she fires back. She fucking has; she leaves in two weeks!

She speaks with finality, as though the case is closed. But you're lying, you're lying, you stupid shit. I'm trying to help you here. I know in the next couple of weeks you drop out of college; for the last thirty years I've had to live with the result of that shitty decision, but you won't even admit there's a fucking problem. How can I help you? How? I don't wanna be trapped in this shitty life.

 "You're just going to take up with that shithead Rory and leave college!"

 She leans back in her chair. Starts counting on her fingers.

 "One, who the fuck is Rory?"

 "Two, I won't leave college. I'm gonna pass with a distinction".

I raise my eyebrows. You're not listening to me, you stupid punk! You're gonna fuck it up all over again.  You're gonna fuck up my life.

 "All my tutors say I will!" she responds.

 "Fuck, you're kidding yourself" I'm getting exasperated now. It's like talking to a brick wall.

 "You think you've got it all sorted, but you're weak and insecure..."

 "...That's why Rory manipulated you so easily..."

 "Again, who the fuck is this, Rory?" She butts in, denying it. She's acting like everything's fine when it's not.

 "...And that's why you pissed yourself every time Sarah Lonton walked in the room!" I snap.

I shouldn't have said that. At High School, Sarah Lonton used to bully me at lunchtime. And one time when she walked in, she hit me on the back, hard, and I accidentally leaked. I had to pretend to spill a drink on myself to cover up what I'd done. I spent the rest of the afternoon walking around with a wet sticky patch on my crotch. I felt sure everybody knew what I'd done.

I'm still embarrassed about it. I know she is too. Her face is crimson. I hit a nerve there. She's asking herself how I know this.

 SLAP!

She hits me hard. The slap seems to echo round the room. All talking stops; the canteen goes quiet. Everybody turns to look. I hear the whispered chanting, "Fight! Fight!"

Oh my god I slapped the bitch Then a white flash and then I knew who she was She's me She's fucking me I know this I don't know how I know but I know this I know all about her Her pitiful life I don't see that red-headed slut anymore she's a blonde old woman She's what I turn into? This is my future?? All my work and I turn into this! Fucking this! A fat frumpy cat lady! You took everything I made all I worked for and you pissed it away and became a fucking cleaner!

IfuckingHateYou!

[/b]
[/i]
Her face is crimson with anger. Mine is crimson with a handprint. I'm still trying to clear the ringing in my head from the slap when I hear a screech, and then she's scrambling across the table. Her hands latch into my hair as she pulls me off my chair by the hair; shit, it hurts!

The world tumbles upside down. I hit the floor; the back of my head thuds against the hard concrete.

She moves in to stomp me. My foot to the face stops her dead. My boot leaves a print in her face. Lucky, I didn't step in dog shit, eh bitch? She staggers back as I raise myself.

We face each other.

 "You gonna take those fucking boots off, you cheating heifer?" she snarls.

She's only in sandals while I've got boots.

 "Fine! ..." I slam the boots on a table.

 " Fine! " She puts her sandals on the same table.

An idea comes to me.

 "Hey, Tinkerbell!"

I hated that nickname, heh! I was short and thin as a child, and didn't kids love rubbing my face in it. 

"Let's make this more interesting. If I win, you've got to promise to listen to me and do what I say".

She flashes me a look of contempt.

 "Sure, Grandma, and if I win, you've got to promise me to fuck off and never bother me again!"

 "Okay..."  I agree; of course, it's not gonna happen. I'll get her to listen to me if I have to beat her brains out. I'm bigger than her, I do Phys ed, and all the experience I've got in my brain.

 "You ready, Tinkerbell?"

She punches a fist into her open hand.

 "Ready, Heifer! I'm gonna fuck you up worse than I fucked that bitch Sarah"

She fucked Sarah? I don't remember doing that. I remember her making my life hell, and then she stopped... I don't remember why. I do remember beating the shit out of her at a Yaz's party, but I thought that was after college. Did I. She... do that?

No time to think about it now. Head down, she charges. I don't panic; I avoid her flailing arms, grab her head by the hair and slam it into my raised knee. I go for another knee, but she pushes me away.

She wipes the blood from her nose.

 "Bitch!"

 We've got an audience now. All the students are baying for blood. Mainly mine.

I move in for a punch to finish her off. I swing. Wha? I miss. Her uppercut slams into my stomach. I croak.

Her next punch hits me square in the mouth. I drop to my hands and knees.

Her kick to my stomach flips me onto my back. Pain screams from my belly; I puke whatever it is I had for lunch - diced carrots - I Shoulda known.

Tinkerbell is screaming, her foot raised for another stomp. I'm getting hammered here. No, I won't go down like this. My hands reach out for her raised foot; I grab it, and I twist. Her balance is destroyed; she falls, and I pounce.

My hands go for her hair, pulling her head up, then I slam her head down into the hard floor. She screams. Her hands reach for my face; her nails scratch across my forehead. Her other hand tries to tear my cheek off.

I'm just jabbing that face, pounding it seriously into hamburger.

Then I change it up. I hit her chin with my wrist, yanking it up. I grab her chin, tilting her head up. She grunts; just for a moment she loosens her grip on my cheek. That's enough. I get my legs under her and push. She flies back. Her back hits one of the tables, followed by her head. While she's sprawled out, I grab a bowl of chilli and splat it into her face.

 "Fucking eat it bitch!"

I rub the chilli in harder. She kicks up. Her knee hits my crotch.  White hot pain shoots through my body. Fuck I'm a dirty fighting bitch. I stagger back, my hand on my cootch.

Then I feel her on my back; she's riding me piggyback, one arm around my throat, the other scratches my face. The arm around my throat is supporting her entire body weight; my face is turning purple. Her legs are kicking at my body. Bitch.

I fall on my face. I feel my nose open up and those tits painfully compress.

The bitch pulls my head back by the hair; her other hand twists my bloodied nose. I see the red stain my face has left on the floor. Fuck. She's cursing; my bloodied nose makes it hard to get a grip. I blindly reach behind and grasp a tit; I fucking crush it. She screams.

I twist the tit. She screams harder. I think I see tears. I twist my body around under her and launch a punch straight into her open, screaming mouth. That shuts her up. She tries to pull away, but I've still got her tit.  My next punch opens her nose. She grabs my arm, twisting her tit and bites into it with relish. I yelp, and I drop the tit.

We both scramble to our feet; this is not over. Slowly we back away from each other. I hear her hiss.

And then she charges.  I get her in a headlock and fall back. Her face leaves another red stain on the floor. I turn her over, and I go for the face sit.

 "Mrrmmmmmpf!"

 "What's the matter, Tinks? Got something in your mouth?" I'm gloating, as I bounce my perky, firm, not inconsiderable ass in her face. I'm sitting with my back to her face, and my buttocks stuffed down her mouth.  All I can hear are muffled curses. I wiggle my ass trying to get her nose up my bum crack, trying to get that perfect seal.

I hear the ripping behind me. She's trying to rip my top off. Let everybody see them. I don't care; they're not my tits. Then I feel her nails rip down my back and I do care. I scream. She grabs a tit and yanks me off her by it. She's over me. For a second, I swear her eyes light up. She pulls the front of my newly backless halter top off, and then she goes straight for those tits. I scream as she pulses her grip, kneading them. When at least she's not going for...

Fuck! My nipples! She has them between thumb and forefinger now, and she's squeezing the nipples; they're turning white. She's snarling like a wild animal; the blood from her mouth stains her teeth red. Fight fire with fire. I reach out for that summer dress and tear. There's a ripping sound and then those young titties I remember so well come falling out. Come to mama. I get a good grip on those sensitive undersides, and I squeeze those melons.

We're both crying now. But these are not tears of sadness; these are tears of 'I'm gonna kill you bitch'. I squeeze her tits, she moans, then she stretches my nipple, then karate chops it out of her grip. Shit, it hurts. Where did I learn to do tit torture like that? Well, I've learnt a few things about tit torture since then. I dig my fingers in; the flesh oozes between my fingers. The crowd is chanting, urging us on. Well, mainly younger me, I get the impression that Miss Clark was not the most popular of teachers.

She looks down at me, her blood and sweat dripping on my face.

 "Bitch!" she hisses, "I'm gonna wreck those tits!"

Don't care. Not my tits, Skank. I dig in harder.

She starts to whine. I've got the bitch, I've got her. I expect her to start pulling at my hands. Instead, her head slams forward, going for a head smash. I've still got my hands on her boobs. I push. I stop her forward travel dead. Forcing those nipples back into her chest cavity. Oh, the look on her face is priceless. I give her a shit-eating grin, then I give her tits another squeeze; she whines. Then my feet wrap around her neck, and I slam her head to the floor.

Oh, she's really whining now. These legs are really strong; look at the muscles in them. Her face is turning red, with a purplish hue. I prop myself up on my hands. She's gasping, hard rasping breaths.  She starts scraping her nails down my thighs; my god, it hurts. I see the blood bloom from the tracks she makes. I just hold on; it's not my body. Her face is getting more purple; it's gonna be blue soon. I'm gonna put you away bitch. Soon. 

I feel the fingers of her other hand scrambling at the flies of my shorts. Then,

You fucking dirty whore!

My eyes go wide in horror, hers in joy, as she rips out huge clumps of my minge. Fuck it's sore down there. With a triumphant, crazed look in her eyes, she sprinkles my pubes on the floor like she's doing cake decoration. Shit. Before she has a chance to stick those nails up my twat. It's not mine, but it would still fucking hurt. My foot smashes the side of her face, sending her back. I roll and see the scratches she left in my tits.

I look at her. She's a mess; her summer dress hangs around her waist, leaving her reddened tits swinging free. Her face is a purple mess with lumps, bruises and two black eyes slowly forming. Blood from her nose and mouth streams down into her juicy tits, which rise and fall as she tries to get air into her lungs. She finished, but she won't give in. I'm impressed with how tough I am. I need to finish this little shit off and fast, but she refuses to go down the pan. Anybody else woulda quit by now, but oh no, not me. I remember when I used to be that determined, before life beat it out of me.

 "Come", I beckon her.

She emits a hellish shriek and barrels into me again; truth be told, she hobbles at a fast pace. I almost feel sorry for her, although I've got too many bruises to do that. She made a promise, and I aim to collect it. My fist to the face stops her charge dead; poleaxed, her eyes glaze over.

Left hook, right hook, backhand slap. Her face swings from side to side like her hinges are broken. Then she gut punches me. Bitch. I bend over in pain as she hammers my head. Fuck this.

I put my hand between her legs and my other hand on her shoulder; I pick her up and slam her onto the table. The table and all its contents vibrate in sympathy. She's stunned. My hand finds her throat, and I start to squeeze. Goodnight Tinkerbell. I see her eyes open in panic. Her mouth opens, gasping; her arms flail crazily over the table.

I fucking have her. I fucking have her. She's finished.

CRACK!

The empty chilli bowl hits my head like a freight train with a bone-splitting crack. I think I black out. She removes my hand from her neck and rises, and

Fuck!

Another bowl slam, my vision goes blurry, and I try to keep on my feet, but they're like spaghetti. I fall to my knees. She's standing above me now.

 "Looks like someone's losing, bitch..." she gloats.

She has me. She fucking has me. I'm her bitch now. I'm a wreck, drooling, blubbering. I feel the fist. I spew more diced carrots over the floor. Then I start to drool. I'm still on my knees, but I'm swaying.

 "...and it's not me!"

I feel the kick and then nothing else.

I come to, and I'm in the waiting Room. I feel fine. I bet Ashley doesn't. And then the memories hit me.

Why didn't I remember this before?

I hear Seth in my head say, Temporal Mechanics. It hasn't happened to you yet.

I'd seen my future, and I didn't like it. I gave up. There was no point in my working hard when my future lay in being a cleaner. Well, I didn't have much choice after beating up the teaching Assistant; my shellacking of Miss Clark had gotten me banned from school, but it had given me some notoriety. Fortunately, the CCTV had an outage. That was lucky. No cops. Ashley couldn't press charges, seeing as she had no memory of what had happened.

I remember after the fight some guy said I had nice tits; that was when I met Rory. He invited me to lots of parties. I got drunk, and there was always some bitch who needed putting in their place. Rory used to bet on me, and we'd split the winning 70/30, to him. He dropped me in a nano-second when I got my lights punched out by that Russian whore, but by then I was hooked on the 'High-life'. By the time I'd got myself sober, all my youth and options were gone, and then I became what I am today. I feel sick in the pit of my stomach. It wasn't life or circumstances that did this to me. It was me; it was me all along. It wasn't the bullying, or the school or my parents; it was me.

I walk out of the Waiting Room back into the shitty life that I made for myself. Seth is standing there waiting for me.

"Little Jenny", he says.

 "Hi", I reply. I'm in big trouble now.

 "I get alerts when the white room is operational. I guessed what you were going to do. But I didn't stop you. You were a real friend to me when my wife and I broke up. I felt I owed you the chance, then when I read about the CCTV going out I knew what I had to do, it had all already happened...".

He stops.

 "...did you change anything?" He asked, fully expecting me to say 'No'.

 " No", I replied. He saw the tears forming in my eyes.

 "Yeah", he nodded understandingly, "It was one of the first things I tried. When I went back to stop myself from wrecking my marriage, he wouldn't listen. We almost came to blows!"
 
He saw my bottom lip trembling.

 "Listen, you learnt an important lesson. Most people go through life thinking ...if only I'd.... You know now that you can't. The past is fixed. There's nothing you can do to mend it"

My eyes look around his office. For the first time, I actually read his 'inspirational' poster; It had the usual pretty beach at sunset, or is it sunrise? Who cares, they're all the same. I'd never bothered to read it before. 'The Past is a Foreign Country. They do things differently there' by JR Hartley.

Yeah.

 "If it's any consolation, there's one thing you can change"

 "What's that?"

  "The future. It was one of the first things we tried, right? We couldn't jump there. Turns out the future doesn't exist!"

 "Because you haven't created it yet".

 "Do you know what happened to Ashley?"

Oh, that woman I leapt into, and got beaten up in the canteen?

 "No", I answer truthfully. I hadn't given her a moment's thought. Probably destroyed the poor bitch's life.

He held up his tablet and showed it to me. There was a glammed-up picture of her in a suit!

 "Says here she became a writer. Published five books..."

I know. I've read one of her books! 'Driftglass' it was brill. That's where I knew the name! He was continuing...

 "...Two got made into movies...lives with her husband and two children. Credits getting beaten up in a school canteen with finally getting her out of teaching".

 "She changed"

I thought long and hard about this.

He looks at me. Repeats himself.

 "She changed..."

 "...you could too".

 "Have you thought about a job..."

Of course I've thought about a decent job.

 "...here?"

WhatTheFuckingFuck!!??

 "Look, nobody's supposed to know what we do here. We'd either have to hire you..."

He pauses for dramatic effect.

 "...or kill you".

I vote for the first one, please.

Pleased as punch with his little joke. I think it was a joke. It was a joke - right? He continued.

"We need an office manager. You know how to operate the White Room, and we need someone to keep us nerds in line, to keep everything organised and tidy".

Yeah, you do, I think; this place is a shithole.

And then I start to cry.

I'm frightened. The opportunity I'd waited for so long for was here. Except if I fuck it up this time, no bullies, parents or quitting school to blame. It's all on me. Then again, it always has been me, hasn't it?

It was one simple stupid act that set me on the wrong path. Maybe one simple stupid act can set me on the right path.

There are two paths you can go on
But in the long run,
There's still time to change the road you're on.
    • Led Zeppelin Stairway to Heaven

[CuriousCombat]

"Wish we could turn back time to the good old days..."Interesting premise.I liked it!

[CuriousCombat]