Time And Time Again

The girl is cute. And shorter than most in the room. I don't know her name yet. I will when she gets her name-tag though. Just like I am getting mine now. Of course. They spelled my name wrong, as always. It's one N. ONE. Oh well. No use trying to explain it to them.

I hardly doubt they really care if a five-year old is happy with how his name is represented to the world. While waiting to find out what the girl's name is, I wander over to the banner of gold-glitter covered letters on the classroom wall shouting "WELCOME CLASS OF 1986".

"Glen? Your dad is here. He's over by the door sweetie", my teacher helpfully points out to my attention.

I look over at the door, and don't see my dad. I see a man, but this man is not my dad. I begin to try and tell the teacher this, but then, something stops me. Somehow, I know this man. I can't explain it, but he seems......familiar somehow. I slowly lope over to the door, wanting but not wanting to really do so, to meet this man I know but don't know.

"Glen. Hey there buddy? Come with me for a sec, will ya?", the man says to me in a pleasant voice as he offers his outstretched hand.

Not wanting to do so, I take his hand. I can't seem to shake this feeling like I KNOW him. Really know him. Like I've known him my entire five years of life and then some. Visually, I know I have never seen this man before. Emotionally, he seems as familiar to me as my Ninja Turtles sitting on top of my toy box in my room, perfectly posed to fight the battle with Shredder that will commence upon my arriving home from school and deciding which turtle will be the cool one and finish Shredder off.

His hands are large. VERY large in fact. As I take his hand he leads me out of the classroom, down the hallway to the double doors that lead to the playground outside. As we walk, he occasionally smiles down at me. We reach the doors. And then, I walk with him to the middle of the playground. He then stops. Suddenly. He stoops to my level.

"Glen, do you know who I am?"

"No", I answer, not really believing my own response but knowing it to be true.

"You will."

"What do you mean?"

"Nevermind that," he says. "I need you to do something for me. You have to promise you will do it when you get home from school today."

"Ummm...ok" I reply hesitantly.

"Good. That's good. When you get home today, your step-brother is going to want you to go riding with him and his friends on your bicycles. Tell him no."

"Why would I do that?" I ask incrediously. "He never lets me go riding with him!"

"Just promise me you won't go" he says, a bit more forcefully this time.

I nod. I don't know why I nod. But I do.

"Good. That's good buddy. I have to go now. But we'll see each other again. Real soon." He says warmly.

"What's your name?"

"I'm a friend Glen. I'll see you around buddy."

He stands up and walks away. I try to say something else but can't think of anything else to say. Or ask. Weird. I've never been short of something to say before. As I stand there in the warming rays of the early morning sun, the yet-to-be evaporated dew making the grass field around the playground look as if someone has spilled a jar of glitter across it, the bell rings, snapping me out of my reverie.

I run to the double-doors that take me back into the school. As I reach the doors, I look back. Oddly, I realize, the man is not walking toward where all parents enter and leave the school grounds. He is walking into the field surrounding the school. Which, from my forays during recess, tells me only ends up turning into forest.

After getting home later, I am in my room finishing my epic battle with Michelangelo (He was the coolest today) and Shredder when my older step-brother comes into the room.

"Hey dweeb. Get your bike. You're going to go riding with my today."

I shake my head no. After yelling at me for constantly whining to ride with him, and then not taking him up on the offer, he leaves. I find out later that day I would have been their test dummy for some rather dangerous new "Jumps" off the roof of the abandoned white shed down the road......

My senses come back to me. Slowly at first. The smell of the familiar assaults my nostrils. Funny. The same sensation I had going in. Only more distant. Then my vision. Blurry at first. Then, it too reboots, as it were, to normalcy.

I remove the ridiculous looking contraption from my head. Slowly I sit up. Then I stand. I smile. I tell myself it couldn't have been real. Just an illusion. There is no fucking way I just did what I think I did.

I run to the bathroom. Look at my reflection in the mirror. It's gone. Holy shit. The scar on my left temple is gone. Like it was never there. Like it never even happened. Like I had never tried so hard as a five-year old to impress my step-brother by accepting his dare for a bicycle stunt.

I run back to my contraption. I'm laughing out loud now. Can't help it. Who WOULDN'T want this kind of power? They say hindsight is always 20/20. I have just figured out a way to laser-correct my "vision", as it were.

Now, to take care of a few other things that never should have happened.

I punch in 1995. I decided against going drinking with my best friend at the time.

I excitedly enter 1997. A "Friend" advised against me getting in the car to head to the river with some friends.

I input 1999. While talking to my friend Roxanne on the phone, I took the advice of a "Friend" and decided not to go over to her house that night to meet a friend of her's that I had never met before. Roxanne's friend would be getting picked up by her dad shortly anyways........

When I arrive back....my life changes dramatically. But in ways I will never realize. Because, well, they never happened. The life I now live is one I think is original. Un-edited. Little do I know how much I know.

I decide to go to a party my cousin is holding tonight. He thinks it will be a good place to meet new people. I knock on his door and come inside. I hang around on the periphery for a little bit. Then I see her.

The girl is cute. And shorter than most in the room. I don't know her name yet. I will when she gets her name-tag though. Just like I am getting mine now. Of course. They spelled my name wrong, as always. It's one N. ONE. Oh well. No use trying to explain it to them................... ;)