Second Chance

The year was 1989 and on a faraway island in the east of Africa was Noah Griffith, an unhealthy-looking 16 years old guy attired in a torn, filthy white shirt and a pair of jeans turned into shorts. Noah has had a terrible life ever since his parents passed away in a horrible car crash, at the age of 12 while coming back from the hospital with their new-born baby; his little sister. His parents left him with nothing but debts, and now he had to be responsible to pay off the house mortgage and all the other bills. Being only 16, he felt like he was already a full-grown adult with enormous responsibilities, little education, and no one to seek for guidance or support. He was an apprentice in a boat trying to be a fisher and thereafter be prepared to sell seafood for a living. When he was not on the boat, he worked in a diner, washing dishes. His life was deeply miserable until one day, an incident twisted his life around.

It was a Saturday night, and this was the only night that he was off from work after two months. Suddenly, while preparing a peanut butter sandwich in the kitchen, he hears a loud noise coming from the basement. “What’s causing this ruckus?” Noah wondered. He stormed down while still chewing on his sandwich and was horrified to discover that one of the water pipes had burst and water was splashing everywhere, swamping everything in the basement. He rapidly grabbed some duct tape and wrapped the severed part to avoid more leakage. “Well, this will hold it for a while.” He whispered. “Great! This is just perfect! Now, I need to clean on the one night that I’m free.” He was outraged. He grabbed a rag and started cleaning the entire section when he noticed an ancient wooden crate in the room's corner. The crate was covered with spider webs and ants were crawling on it.

The crate was crammed with pictures of his parents when they were younger and the letters they exchanged, baby pictures of him, and some magazines about engineering. Then, underneath all the magazines, he saw a little black notebook popping out. To his amazement; he saw his name written on the cover of the book. “What’s this? I don’t remember ever owning or writing this black book!” He opened it and on the top right of the first page was the date June 1st, 2021. Noah became even more curious as the handwriting on the book looked totally like his own.

The book started by saying, “Hey Noah, this is you from the future! I understand that this sounds unreal right now but hear me out and I promise that this is not a joke but a real, sad truth. I have limited time left and I’m making it quick.” Noah was rattled and started shaking with fear while sweating heavily. The book continued, “Let me tell you when it all started, which was at 20. As you already know, I was working extremely hard to clear off the debts that our parents left us, but fishing did not turn out to be that successful because of regular storms. It was not until I received the offer to serve on a sailing ship as a crew member that things started getting better. The compensation was remarkably good, and I could travel across the world which is a dream we both shared. Coming from a small island in the Indian ocean, I was elated to travel to the west living my life freely. I worked on the cruise ship for 15 years while coming back home every now and then when the ship made docks. Then finally, on one trip, we went to the united states for business for two days and I was thrilled as this was my chance to see my dream city. After sailing for 20 days from Africa, we ultimately made it to New York City. Since we could go out to visit the city, I decided to make the most out of it. I went to all the famous places like time square, central park and had an excellent taste of all the exquisite food in New York, living the American dream. I was wandering across the streets alone from bars to parks to restaurants as my co-workers shared other interests and to be honest, they were not very fond of my straightforwardness and my opinions differed largely from theirs.”

Noah was delighted that one day, he will travel the world and explore what’s beyond his little island. He was also a bit reassured that his life will get better as he grew older. After grabbing himself a glass of water, he continued reading.

“Then, on the last day of my trip, I was traveling back to the docks in a cab when my worst nightmare happened! Mesmerized by the skyscrapers and lifestyle in the city, I ignored where the cab driver was taking me. After about an hour’s ride, we arrived at a forest, and he pulled over. In the flash of an eye, he reached out a revolver from the glove box of the car and positioned it at me. Then, he dragged me out of the vehicle and grabbed my backpack, which had my passport, wallet, and other important documentation and souvenirs before speeding away. Panicked, lost, resentful, scared, whatever sentiments you can mention, I felt them all while watching the car driving away from me. Eventually, after walking for a few miles, I was able to arrive at the docks after a day, but it was too late. The cruise was gone! Therefore, I did what anyone else would do in this situation, which is to go to the police station to find a solution. After I struggled to explain to the police officer my plight, the way he was watching me, I got the notion that this endeavor was futile. He yelled furiously, “Listen, young man! You assumed you can just show up here, tell me all sorts of lies and expect to get away from this! Do you realize what the consequences are for illegal immigrants in the United States of America? Jail, Yeah right! You heard me; I could send you to jail right now for years for not having a status here! Just think twice before telling me all this nonsense! I don’t have any money for you and don’t come back here to waste my time. Go make a living, you moron, instead of asking charities! Get the hell out of here!” That’s exactly the things you would hear them saying to a black man seeking help in the states at this time. I was traumatized and could not trust to mention my dismay to any law enforcers or anyone else again. I was lost, all alone in my dream city living my worst nightmare!”

Drops of tears started rolling down the notebook’s page as Noah continued reading.

“I looked for jobs to sustain myself and try to get a place to stay. Eventually, I got some random jobs, however, every time my employers got the hint that I was illegally staying in America, I was fired instantly. Having a place to stay was even harder and I would stay in the parks for summer and when winter came, I tried to find indoor places to get some warmth before getting kicked out on the streets again. I spent more than a decade living this miserable life until one day while I was trying to find some food off the garbage outside a lavish restaurant, a man in a black suit turned to me. I was overwhelmed as no one would talk to me, but he started asking me all kinds of personal questions. Then, he said, “I can help you! You don’t need to know my name. Just call me sir, don’t ask questions and get in my car.” I was in a state where nothing worst could happen to me and therefore I got into his car and we drove away from the city for about 2 hours. The car stopped in the woods and the rest of the road was by trail. After about half an hour, we reached a door, camouflaged by trees and bushes which led to an underground tunnel. Once down there, he had to input his palm on the recognition device, which you will learn about later in your life, to grant him access to the place. The door opened, and I was astonished to discover all these people inside in white lab coats, which to me seemed like scientists doing experiments with heavy machinery and solutions. I could not believe my eyes and it seemed very much unreal to me.”

“Eventually, the man led me to a screening section where they asked me a bunch of questions about myself and informed me about the entire project. It was a classified operation and was called ‘Project 14’. I had limited information about it but basically, some scientists found a formula to travel back in time to a place you want to go, for 5 minutes. The success rate was not good, but they wanted to make it better so that they could reverse engineer the formula to travel to the future. I was a suitable candidate for this classified operation since I was an illegal immigrant and if I die, it would not matter to them as I never existed in America. The compensation was 20,000 dollars but if I made it back to the present after traveling to the past, there were risks involved like genetic mutations, organ failures, and death. I had to accept the deal because if I did not accept it, they will have to kill me anyway since I know a lot about the operation now. After freshening up and putting on some fresh clothes that they gave me, they assigned me to a room where they gave me some Moleskine’s notebooks to register my everyday moods and thoughts as it was imperative for the psychological aspect of the experiment. For the next 2 weeks, they prepared my body thoroughly for time travel by giving me medications and some fluids to drink, which was crucial to minimize the risks. Then the day before the final day, I got the idea to write this notebook and put the money in it. The plan was to sneak it in the suit that I would wear and if I’m able to travel to the past, I would leave it to you to get ourselves a better life.”

Right at this page was a little envelope made out of paper and when Noah opened it, there were 20,000 US dollars in it, which was close to a million in his local currency. He was astounded while holding the money in his hands and could not believe what he was seeing. He did not know how he felt about this as on one side; he was sad about what his future-self had to do to bring this money to him, and on the other hand, he was pleased that he could change his life and avoid all of this. Keeping the money aside, he read the last page of the book. “Please make sure you use this money to settle the debts and get an excellent education so that you don't have to live a despicable life. I’m pretty sure that I will not survive this operation, but I’m glad that you will not be experiencing this now. One last thing, in 2009, there will be something called Bitcoins. You NEED to buy 2000 dollars’ worth of it and keep it until the year 2021. You will be a billionaire from it. Be a better man than me! Noah Griffith”