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The Grandfather Paradox

- All we need is time.

By Travis AkbarPublished 3 years ago 10 min read
1
"As the sun rises, time slips away"

Jay was struggling.

Not living on the street kind of struggling, but almost. He’s 35, today, too old to move back in with his parents, if he even had any. Rent in arrears, bills overdue, payday still another week away and a landlord constantly breathing down his neck.

But all is not lost.

Jay was pretty damn clever.

In fact, in the spare room of his apartment he’s on the verge of creating something brilliant. A time machine.

If he could just work out the final piece of the puzzle.

After a full day of fiddling in his spare room, or what he calls – the workshop, no luck. Jay grabs a birthday six pack with his last twenty bucks and sits down beneath a tree in a nearby park and smashes them all, alone, shedding a few tears on account of his apparent failure.

Waking up early the morning against the tree, Jay makes the walk home to find a package on his doorstep. It’s a black notebook.

Jay sits on his third hand couch and reads the contents; it’s his life. A retelling of every moment of Jay’s life up until he received the book, and every moment since. According to the book, Jay lives until he’s 83, dying of cancer. He never finishes his time machine, but he finds love and happiness, has kids, they never get rich, but he dies happy.

Not all that bad Jay thinks to himself before falling asleep again, this time on an old couch. A bang at the door wakes Jay up; another package. This one is much bigger.

Opening it up, Jay can’t believe it. It’s money. A lot of it. Millions.

Jay buys every newspaper he can get his hands on and reads them all. He knows if he starts spending it, and it’s come from somewhere that will get him in trouble, he wont last long. He searches the internet too, everywhere he can. After an entire night of internet searches, nothing. The money is his. No way he’s turning it in when it aint even missing.

Hell, maybe the diary is wrong. Maybe in a years’ time, or even two, or even two weeks’ time, he finished the time machine, and came back in time to give himself a break.

Jay quickly calls his landlord, Merve; no answer “Hey Merve, I got your fucking money, I’ll leave it on the bench for your coz I’m getting the fuck out of here.” He enthusiastically yells into Merve’s message bank.

Packing all his clothes into his busted up, 2005 model Mazda with 600,000km on the clock, Jay leaves everything else behind. He doesn’t even bother with his time machine. It’s all parts, he has the theory in his notepads and audio tapes. With this money, he can get himself set up and buy all brand-new material and start again.

Jay book into the biggest, hottest, most luxurious hotel he can. Penthouse. Paid cash. Room service, sex workers, a tailer and a new suit. He felt so fucking good.

But Jay was no joke. He knew he couldn’t waste the money.

The next day, Jay hit’s up a real estate website and finds a house to buy – and does he find the perfect one or what. Three-bedroom, big yard, self-sustaining with several large water tanks and solar power, and an actual workshop.

$2 million.

Jay thinks on it. Two million dollars for zero power and water bills and a place to live for the rest of his life, and room for his future family.

Jay buys the place and moves in. He only has a few bags of clothes and his notepads and tapes.

Jay puts his clothes away into the built-in robe in the main bedroom. It’s a beautiful room. Gorgeous, with an amazing view.

Curious about how he meets his wife, Jay drives to the liquor store and buys a bottle of fine wine, and some wine glasses. He grabs a fold up camp chair from a service station on the way home too. He sits quietly as he sips his wine and reads about his future.

But this time it’s different. The words have changed. It’s horrifying. His life isn’t all roses. Now it accounts for a messy divorce, and kids that are angry at him and his suicide.

What the hell is going on?

Time to get this time machine sorted. Killing himself is not how he wants to go out.

Jay heads down to the local hardware store and buys up all the tools and materials he needs. All this flash new gear should help make a difference.

The workshop is ready, and Jay grabs his tapes to put on his new stereo. But something is wrong. The first one is blank. Nothing. Jay panics and puts the next one in. Nothing again. It’s the same for the next one, and the next one, and the next one. They’re all blank.

Jay is devastated. He get’s up and runs for his notepads. Thousands of diagrams that can help get him started once more. But they’re all blank. All brand-new notepads.

“What the fuck is going on” he screams to no one.

That night, Jay is passed out into his camp chair. A dozen empty beer bottles around him. Waking up, Jay is still devastated. He will never be able to recreate what he’d built without those notes. Without those tapes.

Suddenly, he jumps out of his chair. His prototype is still in the old house. He quickly gets dressed and speeds over to his over residence and kicks the door in. No keys; no problem.

But the place is empty. Merve made quick work of his stuff. It’s only been a few days. He tries to call Merve, but the number is disengaged. He is uncontactable. Jay searches the shitty place top to bottom hoping to find something. But there’s nothing.

Jay sits in a corner and grabs the dairy out; he’d brought it with him. Clearly his future is changing depending on exactly what he does in the present.

The book has changed again.

It retells the meeting between him and his wife. The birth of their children, his divorce and suicide. But there’s new details. Jay became obsessed with a company named M-Tech.

As he read more and more, it became clear the M-Tech has created some sort of technology that reflected Jays time travel theories. But the company was so secretive, and hidden through hundreds of shell corporations, that he could never find the owner, or their manufacturing facility.

But that was then, in the future.

Jay had this information now.

He returns home, swinging by a computer shop for a new laptop on the way, and starts his research, and straight away, he finds that a company has just been registered called M-Tech. There’s a phone number, an address, and a name. Merve.

His landlord.

Furious Jay jumps back into his car and goes back to his old house. He rips the place apart. Breaks the walls, the cupboards, goes full demolition derby.

What he finds sickens him. Surveillance equipment embedded in every room. Merve has been watching him this entire time.

Even more furious, Jay drives to the address on Merve’s new business registration. Merve, a young, entitled entrepreneur had the nerve to register his home address. A big mistake.

Reaching into his boot, Jay grabs a tyre iron, and forces his way into the home through a window.

Merve isn’t home, so Jay hides, and eventually, Merve comes dancing through the front door. Alone.

WHACK! Merve is out cold.

He wakes up with dried blood on his face and a roaring headache.

“What the hell was that?” asks Merve to the blurry figure in front of him.

“It was my tyre iron”, replies Jay.

“Jay is that you?” asks Merve, before continuing with “What’s going on here, what is this?”.

He’s clearly scared.

Something comes at Merve and stops right in front of his eyes. As the blur fades, he can see it’s a photo of a time machine.

‘What is this?” Merve insists.

Jay tells him, “You know exactly what is going on here. You surveyed me, illegally, and stole my designs”.

Merve, clearly nervous, denies every accusation. “You have no proof, it isn’t possible”, Merve exclaims.

But Jay isn’t interested in excuses.

He pulls out the diary, “I know you know what this is, but why did you give it to me?”, Jay asks.

Merve looks for a moment, and after some back and forth, and a crack to the jaw, Merve folds, “Yes, Yes, I planted the diary, and the money.”

“But why”, Jay asks.

“I got a friend of mine, a tech genius, to get your design to work, and I went into my future and noted down your entire life and gave it to you, so you could see that you were happy, and wouldn’t try to stop me. I even convinced my future self to give me the money, so I could give it to you, and you wouldn’t even need to continue your work” Merve replies, before asking “How did you know?”

Jay pulls up a chair and tells Merve what happened “when I read the diary, you were right, I saw that I was happy. I didn’t want to change that, but I was determined to finish my work. But as I made decisions in the present, it changed my future.”

Merve asks, “How?”

“The diary literally rewrote itself, to the point where it told me that I had become obsessed with your company. But I couldn’t find the owner. It destroyed my life, my family. But I couldn’t find the owner. It destroyed my life, my family. But what was hidden in the future, was out in the open in the past. A quick search on the net, and I found your company. I found you.” Jay explains.

Merve laughs.

“What’s so funny?” asks Jay.

“Well”, Merve responds, “I stole your tech, but I tried to make sure you were as best off as possible. And that very action was my own undoing”.

Jay laughs as well “I suppose you’re right”.

‘What do we do now?” asks Merve.

Jay sits back and think on it, and then leaves the room.

Merve screams out “What are you going to do? Are you going to kill me?”

No response. As Merve sits there, he can see what’s happening. Lights are flashing from another room, the power dims, and with a deep thud comes complete silence.

“where are you going” Merve asks.

Jay appears before his old house, only a few days earlier, and knocks on the door.

Jay answers it. Astounded that he is now staring at a different version of his own self. His future self throws a letter into the house, through the door.

“It’s better that it comes from me” He says, before disappearing as quickly as he arrived.

Arriving back in the future, Jay appears in what seems to be a low-cost hotel room. First thing he does, tries to find the diary; but it’s gone. Nowhere to be found.

He searches for Merve on the internet.

A local news headline reads, “Pervert jailed after tenant finds illegal recording material”.

Turns out Jays a local hero.

As he eats breakfast, he receives a text message.

“Dear Jay, I have reviewed the proposal, and if what you are saying is correct, I will gladly accept. Please call me back ASAP to discuss”.

Suddenly Jay feels a jolt in his brain as he recovers several new memories. A visit from himself. A note to contact Merve’s friend and work out the problem to Jay’s time machine together. Advice about illegal surveillance equipment.

He forgets about the strange bag of cash, and the strange black book, and it really doesn’t matter, because now he knows everything, he needs to make it all work.

science fiction
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About the Creator

Travis Akbar

Travis has been writing ever since he was able to hold a pen and has been a film buff ever since he first watched Jurassic Park. He writes opinion, film reviews, profiles, poetry, short stories and has several screenplays in development.

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