He opened his bag and pulled out the two wands, handing oneof them to me. “Take hold of this and I’ll explain how we are going to travelto the future.”
He pressed a red button in the base, illuminating thedevice. Pressing some further buttons on a small keypad he entered a date andtime on a tiny screen built into the top of the device.
30th July 2035. 4.40pm.
“Now it’s primed,” he said. “Hold onto that and don’t touchanything.” He then did the same with the second device. “Now we are ready togo. All you need to do is copy everything I do.”
He held the device out in front of him, and said, “All youneed to do now is press the green button and you are ready to go. Like this,”and he pressed the button. If I was expecting some spectacular-looking vortexto appear, I was disappointed.
“Nothing happened,” I said.
“Oh it did,” replied Josh. “You just can’t see it.” Now,remember what I did, and copy me. He stepped forward two paces and vanished.
I did the same: pressed the green button on my wand, took adeep breath and stepped into the Bubble.
Instantly, I could see the change. The jungle was moreovergrown than I’d ever seen it and the light was brighter, with the sun muchhigher in the sky. Josh was waiting for me.
“Pretty cool, huh?” he said. “It only took me about 30 yearsto work out how to do it.”
I could hear the sound of children laughing and playing fromthe garden. “Come and take a look,” said Josh. “But stay out of sight.”
I peered through a gap in the bushes to see an idyllicfamily scene. I recognised Sarah instantly, older, but still beautiful, with amiddle-aged man standing beside her, flipping burgers on a large gas barbecue.
After a few seconds, the realisation dawned that it was me.It was 2035, ten years after I’d died, first time round, but I looked fit,tanned and healthy, better than I can ever recall looking in those final yearsof my life.
Stacey and David were sipping white wine from glasses,chatting away with Sarah and my older self. And two little boys were runningaround on the lawn, full of energy.
“Are they…?” I began to ask.
“Yes,” Josh interrupted. “They are your grandchildren.”
“Can we stay a while,” I said.
“Of course,” said Josh. “Stay as long as you want. Just makesure they don’t see you.”
I couldn’t tear my eyes away. Just being here had answeredso many questions. I truly had made a difference. Both Sarah and I were stillalive, Stacey was happy with David, and we had two beautiful grandchildren.
I’d probably never know why I’d been given the second chanceI had, but I had used the time well. My future was secure, my family werehappy, and I could go on with my life now without having to worry anymore.
Josh had an extremely futuristic-looking digital camera withhim, and took a couple of snaps through the hedge.
“I thought you’d like a memento,” he said. “As I figured youwouldn’t have been able to bring any pictures back through time with you.”
“And I still won’t be able to,” I said.
“Trust me,” he said. “You will.”
Reluctant as I was to leave, there was no more I could dohere. If I’d walked out onto the lawn and introduced myself, there was noknowing if my future self would have any clue at all about the life I had led.In all likelihood I would be taken for a trespasser, leading to an unpleasantscene. I didn’t want to disrupt their day that way.
Josh primed the wands again, and took us back to 1990. Thenit was time for him to go back to his own time. But he had one last thing totell me before he left.
“When you get back home tonight, go into the garage, andfind the loose brick underneath your dad’s workbench. I’ve left something therefor you.” And with that he vanished.
Intrigued, I made my way back to my parents’ home in Botley.It was dark by now, but I flicked on the light in the garage, and made my wayto the bench at the back as he’d instructed. I reached right underneath, and,true to his word, there was a loose brick there.
Underneath, I found a faded white envelope, crinkled andyellowed at the edges with time, with my name written on it.
Inside there was a note attached to the back of aphotograph, which read “Thought you might appreciate this. Best wishes,Josh. 12th September 1973.”
I turned over the photograph to see the picture of myfamily, enjoying that sunny afternoon in the garden, 45 years in the future. Atlast I had something to remember them by.
Youth
August 1987
I was stretched out on a sunbed next to the swimming pool ina caravan park in the south of France.
It was a gloriously hot day, and the sun beat down upon methrough an unbroken blue sky. I had my eyes closed and was listening to musicon my Walkman.
It played only cassettes. Although CDs were around at thistime, they were the preserve only of the rich. My music collection had shrunkover the years and I was making do now with only a handful of pre-bought tapesand numerous blanks upon which I’d recorded music from the radio.
It was one of those tapes that I was listening to now. Itseemed that first time round as a teenager I had been in the habit of recordingthe weekly Top 40 show from the radio on Sunday afternoons.
This particular tape, a TDK D120, had been around a while,and the content changed on a weekly basis as I taped over it again and again.
I enjoyed listening to the Top 40. It was a hugely popularshow and many of my friends recorded it, too. It was a very common traditionamong teenagers at the time, and the only way many could afford to have theirown copies of the latest hits.
Whether it was legal or not was a bit of a grey area, but asfar as I could see it was harmless enough. It certainly wasn’t in the sameleague as all the illegal peer-to-peer file sharing
