A Ribbon of Time

Think of the timeline like a piece of ribbon. Like the one a little girl ties into her braids in August, or maybe the large bow that keeps the Christmas present together. It’s flexible, it can twist and fold, but it still keeps a distinct shape. One twist and maybe someone likes tea more than coffee, fold the ribbon and then a war ended three months after it did originally, pull a thread and someone never even existed. Nevertheless time moves on, unforgiving yet dependable. But cut the ribbon, and everything changes. The future is no longer supported, everything after the cut is lost, crumbled, erased. Hopefully the ribbon can reweave itself, but still the injury never heals right; a scar, an ache that lingers, it just doesn’t work the same anymore. But then again, maybe that was the plan all along.

A young woman named Jordan walks down the street. It’s crowded, she’s nearly invisible among the throng. Or at least she feels that way. She’s always had big dreams, granted they’ve changed throughout the years. She thought about becoming an actress, then an astronaut, a chef, an artist, a doctor, a forensic scientist, and for a week, a clown. She went to college and left with a degree that she slowly lost interest in. She has a job, but only so she can afford to eat. She had so many plans for her life, and yet she still feels lost and alone. Maybe that’s why she was chosen.

Jordan warmed her hands with her coffee, winter hadn’t quite set in yet but a chill hung low in the air. She had the day off, and she wasn’t quite sure what to do. Her family was in another city, she hadn’t made any close friends in her new neighborhood, so she just decided to walk back home. Maybe home was too stong of a word. It never felt right, like someone else’s sweater that she was just borrowing.

But she had no where else to go, so she walked back, climbed the steps, and almost didn’t notice the package with her name scrawled across it. She took a step back, considered the brown box, and sorted through her memories trying to think of what she had ordered. Nothing came to mind, but the box had her name clearly written on it. Perhaps it was a gift.

Jordan held her coffee with one hand and picked up the box with the other. It wasn’t too heavy and she easily held it under her arm as she climbed the stairs to her apartment. She shifted her coffee to her other hand, unlocked her door, and pushed into her apartment.

It was a simple studio, all she could really afford. She had some furniture and even fewer decorations. It kept the space light and airy, and it kept her unattached to it. She walked over to the small wooden dinning table, her confusion regarding the box shifting into curiosity. She pried the tape off and opened the box to find a little black notebook. The paper cover was new and shone in the light. Jordan felt as if it was full of opportunity, mystery, and promises. She gingerly lifted it out of the box and froze. The top of the box was filled with stacks of one hundred dollar bills. She hesitantly took the bills out, scared that they would disappear when she touched them. But they remained, and Jordan quickly estimated that she had around twenty thousand dollars. Under the money was a small metal case. She left it alone.

Jordan went back to the notebook, hoping to find an explanation. Maybe it was an old, rich relative she had never met who died and she was in the will, or maybe it was a prank and someone with a camera was about to jump out at her. She opened to the first page, the spine slightly cracking, and she read.

Dear Jordan,

I’m sure this is a shock, but we are your great-great-great grandchildren. We need your help. Our planet and our lives are in danger and we need you to save it.

We need you to build a time machine. There are instructions in the notebook, some rare materials you will need and the money you will require to build it. After you build the machine, you need to send it back to August 7, 1002. We tracked the beginning of our dire problems to this date and if the time machine makes it then and carries out it's programming, our futures will be saved. We can’t do it ourselves, the dictator in charge regulates the timeline, it was a great challenge and risk to even get this package to you.

Adlai and Caralle

Please believe us.

And Jordan did. Maybe she really did trust these people, or maybe she just wanted to believe that she was important.

Jordan opened up the metal case, inside was a small glass vial of a color shifting liquid and a small flash drive. She went back to the notebook and flipped through. Inside there were pages and pages of detailed instructions and drawings to build the machine. Jordan shoved a stack of bills into her backpack and set off to find the materials.

Her shopping for the materials took her around the city. To a heavy machinery shop, a small hardware shop, and a medical store. And don’t forget the back alley deal that wasn’t the most legal exchange.

After Jordan crossed off the last item, twenty feet of copper wire, she went back to her apartment. There were boxes and bags littered across every surface, and some spilled onto the floor. She checked her purse, only a couple twenties left. Jordan looked back through the notebook’s instructions. They were detailed and seemed simple enough. She went about carefully unpacking everything and set to building the time machine.

〜

Jordan looked over the time machine’s bolts, checking their tightness. Then she scrolled through the small screen, making sure she programmed it right. All was good, Jordan held her breath, sent the machine off, and then sat down and took a deep breath.

The machine travelled gently across the ribbon until it made it to August 7, 1002. Or at least that’s what the screen said. The machine actually went to where there was no date, for humans had not invented the calender yet. They hadn’t even known about fire then. It was a quiet peaceful night as the machine released a small virus. It spread gently in the wind, like the seeds of a dandelion. It would spread quickly. And it will kill even faster. A quick death, merciful even. It was just enough to prevent the human race from evolving.

The machine cut the ribbon right at the beginning of human history. New York City has already unraveled into oblivion, Constantinople is next, The Great Wall of China slowly unbuilds itself until the stones are returned to the mountains. Rome, Athens, Tenochtitlan, Babylon, and the Indus Valley. Gone as if it never existed. Of course, it never did. Ink floats off the Declaration of Independence, footsteps on the moon are spread even, the Raven never speaks “nevermore”, and paints and canvases return themselves to the earth as the ribbon tries to reweave itself. To fix and mend what Jordan had done.

But was it all her? Perhaps there was another hand involved. Perhaps this hand had done this many times before. Perhaps Jordan was tricked. Perhaps.

The Ghaoruegh have won. We could be called conquerors, not in the traditional sense however. We have never spilled any blood, but what we actually do could be worse. We are not a steel sword, we’re foxes. We learned about the timeline, the strip of ribbon. We studied how to manipulate it. We were never the strongest race, and there was war on our doorstep. It pounded on our door until we finally perfected our method. We tested it on our enemies. It didn’t work. The timeline resisted our direct attack. The war had broken through our door and as one last desperate attempt, we tricked one of our enemies into sending the machine back. We didn’t think it worked, but immediately the pounding stopped. It was silent, gloriously peaceful for a moment. Until we found out that we weren’t the only ones building a master weapon. Theirs disrupted our planet’s core. We needed another one. It was a question of our survival. That doesn’t excuse it, but I’m not entirely sure I regret it. The Earth fit our requirements, our biology. We used our machine one more time, the last time before we destroyed our research. We manipulated poor Jordan Yun. She was a dreamer who got lost, it made her the perfect candidate. I wrote her story down as a way to remember humans, and as an apology to Jordan. Their accomplishments won’t be forgotten, even if they’ve already been re-weaved.