The Only Hope in the World

Johnny entered the cold library and found Vienna at the computer in the back. She was rolling the ball at the bottom of the mouse. She didn't even know how to turn the screen on.

“You need some help?” he asked her.

She looked up at him and remained silent. She put the mouse down and began moving it in circles.

He shrugged, “I can help you with the computer.”

The computer was off, and she struggled to find the power button.

She pressed all of the keys on the keyboard that weren’t letters. She figured one weird symbol would do something. She pressed the “enter” key several times. She tapped the screen four times.

She sighed loudly and put her hands on her head.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” she said.

“What?” he asked.

“I tried looking for an aisle of newspaper archives but I couldn’t find any. I asked the lady at the front and she told me that they’re on the ‘computer.’ I asked her what a computer is and she just started laughing. She pointed to this thing. I don’t understand how you could find old newspapers on a small television--typewriter thingy.”

“Just let me help you,” he said.

She sighed, rolled her eyes, and let him take over. She watched as he pressed a button on the back and the screen lit up in solid white. Her eyes widened.

Vienna thought of what she might see on the cover of the news pages - revolutions, protests, scientific discoveries, murders, deaths, and destruction.

“Are you really going to look at every day of the New York Times between then and now?” he asked.

“Is that bad?” she asked.

“Well, that's like sixty years, so we might be here for a very long time.”

“I just want to look at the headlines. I'm almost certain John cured cancer.”

John was her best and only friend from the orphanage. Upon finding suspicious documents in the headmaster's office, Vienna left John behind in 1963 in hopes of finding her long lost mother in 2021. It was a depressing day, as Vienna would never return. Her mother was a time traveller, but her father was not, so while she could travel forward in time, she could never go back. So, Vienna told John that he shouldn't wait for her and that maybe, when he's 74, he'd meet her again. They exchanged keepsakes, and she vowed that when she got to the future, she would look through the newspaper archives day by day to encounter the news of his medical discoveries firsthand. He wanted to be a doctor, and she was his biggest supporter. She truly believed he would cure cancer. So, with the help of her new friend Johnny, look through the newspaper archives she did.

“Okay…” Johnny said, “well I can tell you right now he didn’t cure cancer.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

Vienna sighed.

“Darn it John,” she paused, "Well, I'm sure he cured something else."

Vienna sat down on the chair and Johnny pulled up a chair to sit beside her. He took control of the mouse.

“What’s the first date you want to look at?”

“September 14th, 1963. That's the exact day I left.”

“Okay…” he said as he navigated the electronic archive.

Johnny pulled up the first headline. Vienna was shocked to find depressing news so soon.

“Boy Struck by Car and Killed In NYC,” it read.

“Depressing,” Johnny said.

“Maybe the next headline will be happier,” Vienna consoled.

Just as Johnny was about to exit out of the September 14th newspaper, Vienna stopped him.

“Wait,” she said.

She read the first couple sentences of the text.

“A young boy was struck by a car at 11:34 AM today while using the crosswalk between Vallerie’s Market and the Farmer’s Market. The car drove off and the suspect has yet to be found. Kid was said to have been living at the orphanage three blocks down 4th street. He had a marigold in his pocket.”

Vienna's heart dropped. Her mind went blank. She closed her eyes and saw millions of marigolds. She opened them wide and gasped. When she closed them again, she saw the single marigold she picked from a bush and gave to John before departing.

“No,” she said.

“What?” Johnny asked.

Vienna couldn’t answer him. She stood up and started walking toward the exit of the library. She felt like she was going to explode. When she got outside, she fell to the floor and began sobbing. John wasn’t 74. John was dead. He didn’t live a day after she left. That’s why cancer wasn’t cured. That’s why the world was so cruel in the future -- because the only hope in the world died with John.

Johnny continued reading the news article and tried to make sense of the situation, but he couldn’t. He ran outside.

“Vienna!” he said, rushing to lift her off of the ground.

“No!” she said, shoving him away.

“What happened?”

She sobbed loudly.

“I don’t understand! What happened?”

“John died!”

“That was John? How do you know?”

She stood up and yelled, “Do you think I’m stupid or something? I know my best friend, dead or alive! They said he was from the orphanage! They said he had a marigold in his pocket! The marigold that I gave him before I left!”

“What does that mean? I don’t--”

“Of course you don’t understand! Because you don’t believe me! Well, believe this! John is dead and it’s all my fault! I killed my best friend!”

All Vienna could think about was how reluctant John was to let her leave. How he wanted her to stay so badly. How he gave her all of the money he had. How he would’ve used that money to take the bus, which they always took from the market back to the orphanage. How he wouldn’t have died if she hadn’t left. And how she couldn't go back in time to save him.

“Vienna, it’s not your fault,” Johnny said.

She stood up and cried, “Yes it is. Stop lying! Don’t lie! Yes, it is my fault!”

She started running away and Johnny chased after her.

“Vienna!” he yelled.

She ran four blocks to the crosswalk from the news article. Vallerie’s market was still there, but there was no sign of John -- just the gravel, street signs, and marigold bushes that filled Vienna with regret and guilt.

“No --” she cried, “it didn’t happen. It didn’t happen.”

She ran three more blocks and made it to the orphanage, which was no longer an orphanage but rather an apartment building.

She was crying, panicked, and out of breath. She sat down on the steps, sunk into her knees, and had a panic attack.

Johnny was out of breath when he got to her. He sat down beside her.

“Johnny--” she started, “you don’t understand. He was my best friend. The only good person in the entire world. He didn’t deserve what I did to him.”

“You didn’t do anything to him.”

“He gave me all of his money! So he walked back to the orphanage and got hit by a car!”

Johnny paused. As he tried to console Vienna, he realized that all this time he was actually beginning to believe her.

“I believe you," he confessed.

She yelled at him, “Of course you believe me! You just saw it in the news!”

“Yeah, but I mean I believe everything.”

By that, he meant he finally believed that she was a time traveller.

Vienna was silent. She remained still. They sat on the apartment building steps for what seemed like an eternity -- or the amount of time John deserved but never got. Every five minutes, Vienna would stop crying. After about thirty seconds of silence, she'd start crying again. She felt as though she was reliving the moment she found out over and over again -- repeatedly realizing the devastating fate of her best friend, replaying the last moments she had with him, and reminiscing the life that she cut short.