Perhaps that was looking at it from a somewhat pessimisticangle. I wasn’t dying of a terminal illness. Yes, my days were numbered, butthe potential those days held was enormous. I wasn’t going to get sick andspend a large chunk of my final days dosed up on morphine in a hospice witheveryone feeling sorry for me.
I was going to get younger, having discovered that fountainof youth that had eluded everyone from ancient alchemists to the most advancedmodern scientists. I was going to get a chance to relive snapshots from my pastall over again, including seeing long-lost loved ones again. This was anamazing gift that had been bestowed upon me and seemingly me alone.
If I was to be stuck in reverse gear, then what consequenceswould any actions I took in the past have? If I was destined to keep travellingback every two days, then would each trip back absolve me from any actions Imight take? Had I been given free rein to do whatever I wanted? – even alicence to kill, should I so desire. What better place could there be to hidefrom such a crime than in the past, before it had even happened?
A fleeting dark thought crossed my mind as I thought aboutstabbing Rob to death with a kitchen knife in a wanton and unrestrained act ofrevenge for his infidelity. It wasn’t the first time I had fantasised aboutdoing him in.
For all I knew maybe everyone thought such things from timeto time, but very few ever acted upon these deep, dark impulses. Even if theydid possess the balls to do it, a life sentence in prison was deterrent enoughfor most. But that wasn’t something that I needed to worry about anymore.
I could kill Rob, then jump back in time a year before thepolice could track me down. And even if they did catch me in the act, all Ineeded to do was ride out my time in custody until the next jump back in timecame round at which point I would automatically escape.
Then I could kill him all over again. And then again – everyone of the nine years we had been together. He would be like a cat with ninelives, and I could end every one of them, despatching him in a grisly varietyof different ways. I could be the ultimate serial killer, with the twist thatmy nine murders would all be of the same man and the police would never be ableto catch up with me. What a plot for a thriller that would make!
Much as I was revelling in this fantasy, it wasn’t one I hadany real intention of carrying out. Quite simply, it all boiled down to thetruth that I wasn’t a killer and never could be. I just didn’t have it in meand I was thankful about that.
It didn’t mean there weren’t lots of other non-lethal ways Icould get back at him, though. I smiled as I toyed with various possibilities.
Other than making Rob’s life a misery, what else could I do?I needed to have a good review of my own personal history and start making someplans. Could I figure out exactly what I was doing in each individual year?
There were landmark events during certain years that stoodout, but what about all those other nondescript New Year’s Eves and birthdays?They all blurred into one and I couldn’t honestly pinpoint which year was whichin the random snippets of my memories.
The short answer was no. I couldn’t do it from memory alone.I was going to have to play detective with my own life, using social media andanything else I could to try and pinpoint what I was going to be doing eachyear.
Eager to get started on embracing my new life, I climbed outof bed and headed over to the window to open the curtains. Then I made abeeline for my bag, which had seemingly been discarded on the other side of theroom when I had got in from whatever this version of me had been doing lastnight.
Each time I went back in time I noticed subtle changes allaround me, and this bag was a prime example. It was my old bag which I’d hadfive or six good years’ use out of before the strap had broken.
I had really loved this bag. It was black with a variety ofleaves on it, in various shades of autumn colour. Although pretty, the exteriorwasn’t the most important factor when I had bought it. The biggest-sellingpoint for me was that it had pockets everywhere – and pockets are awesome.
This bag had them on the inside, outside, in hidden flaps,with zips and buttons everywhere. In total, there were fourteen pockets andevery one had its own little function – right down to my emergency condompocket. It was hidden by a tiny zip just enough to hold a single Durex in caseI got lucky unexpectedly.
I seldom did, but it was best to be prepared, even if inrecent years, in the heat of the moment, I hadn’t always been as careful as Ishould have been. Perhaps that was down to the biological clock, too.Tick-tock… and then pregnant by a one-night stand and a single mum at my age?It wasn’t that unheard of. By accidentally on purpose forgetting to ask mypartner to rubber up, was I subconsciously fulfilling some primeval desire toget pregnant?
This hadn’t happened in my case, which was probably just aswell considering my current situation. If I had had a baby in the last coupleof years, how heart-wrenching would it be to be parted from him or her by mybackwards time-travelling? I couldn’t even begin to imagine, not having been amother myself.
Rediscovering my bag had instilled a real sense of nostalgiain me. Temporarily forgetting why I had picked it up in the first place, I putit down on the bed and cast my eyes around the room, looking for more changes.Seeing some discarded garments of yesteryear scattered around
