I don’t know who I’m addressing this to, but I imagine it will be a professor of physics or perhaps even a TimeSpace™ specialist.
My name is Jaelys. The time is 2300 on Earth at about 70 longitude. The date is Feb 29, 3053, and this is my native timeline. I am writing this letter to document an incident that happened earlier this evening. As I write this account, my emotional state could be compared to a butterfly caught in a hurricane: furiously flitting between abject horror and tenuous delight as I consider the ramifications of what’s happened to me, for I believe I have experienced something previously believed to be impossible.
I hope that someday, someone will read this letter and learn from it, because if that doesn’t happen, it means that the consequences of my actions were just as dire as scientists currently believe them to be.
I am not a physicist, nor do I have any mathematical qualifications that may lend understanding to the litany of warnings showered on time travelers from the moment they apply for a license. But for the past 11 years of my life, I have been more than careful about this miraculous gift that science has given us. Never once have I breached the legally designated boundaries of time travel, and trust me, I’ve wanted to. And never once have I violated any of the Traveler’s Treaty or various bylaws governing TimeSpace™. I understand that time travel is a privilege, and I pride myself on that. Every historian’s dream is to go back and relive history, and with my Time-Ex™ 3000, I just have to click a few buttons, and I’m there. I also understand that with this privilege comes responsibility. It is my duty to practice restraint and caution, and I have, to the fullest extent of my abilities, fulfilled that duty.
But today… I’m afraid I’ve made a horrible mistake. Or, I suppose I could say that I will make a mistake? I’m honestly not sure how to describe it.
Around 5 pm Earth Standard Time (EST), I traveled to The Nexus Interstellar Bazaar within the Alpha Centauri system using my Time-Ex™ wristwatch. I had recently received a rather large commission from a piece that I procured for Dvark’s Postmodern Museum of Premodern Art (one of the largest Pre-TimeSpace™ Museums for 20th through 23rd century art replicas from the 24th century), and my intent was to browse through the Bazaar’s rather extensive selection of 21st century art replica prints to see if I could find a copy of that piece for my own home.
I know it might sound sappy or perhaps even a bit smug, but I have a tradition of displaying copies of the originals that I’ve procured in my home, to commemorate both the journey itself and my own personal accomplishment. And in case you’re not familiar with the intradimensional art market, rest assured that finding genuine 24th century art replicas is a great accomplishment due to the demand problems faced during the century directly following the legalization of TimeSpace™. Almost all famous replicas originated between the 24th and 27th centuries, and the older the artifact, the better the price.
Sadly, my usual store didn’t have any historically accurate copies of Banksy’s Girl With a Balloon readily available (as their shredder was “on the fritz”), so I resolved to return next week after the repair technician came by. Finding myself with excess time and plenty of money, I meandered to my favorite food cart for a bowl of Henry’s HyperChicken Hut™. It was there, standing in line when I saw him. Emerging from the crowd and walking for the same food cart was undeniably… me.
It was uncanny, truly. I didn’t get a long look at him, but for the brief seconds I was able to study him, it felt like looking into a mirror – until the mirror looked back, of course. The brown eyes, the lanky limbs… everything down to the cleft in my chin was a perfect duplicate. The only logical conclusion is that somehow, I had mistakenly encountered another version of myself time traveling back to this day, even though I can’t even begin to imagine how this could have happened. Every Time-Ex™ product is supposed to have safety sensors to prevent this exact kind of problem! Hell, every TimeSpace™ enabled device is supposed to have these safety sensors, so how could I have run into myself?
Before I had even a second to process, I realized he was already staring at me with an intensity I couldn’t fathom. We locked eyes for a breath as my expression flashed from listless boredom to surprised confusion to abject horror. At the exact same time, we both screamed and ran in opposite directions.
The first and most important warning they teach all Time Travelers is to never ever visit the same location in TimeSpace™ more than once. According to what they taught us in class, doing so could rip apart TimeSpace™ as we know it, and the entire universe will be destroyed. They showed us simulation after simulation during our training, and I don’t understand what those fourth through ninth dimensional models were meant to represent, but I definitely understood the diagram detailing the untold mass destruction: everything there ever has been, is, or will ever be violently shredded into nothingness.
Not the cold, dark of space.
Not silence.
Not stillness.
Nothing.
Of course, no one has been reckless enough to test this theory, so this theory is yet just that: an educated guess based on countless centuries of TimeSpace™ modeling and exploration, and considering that these theories are the only reason we can travel TimeSpace™ in the first place, I’ve always assumed that they were accurate.
But the fact stands that I’m here.
And I’ve just looked out the window and checked. The universe is still here as well.
So, this is why I’m writing. Somehow, in the future, I must have mistakenly traveled to the exact same location, The Nexus Interstellar Bazaar within the Alpha Centauri system, at the exact same time. Yet despite this fact, the universe survived.
My head is swimming in possibilities, but despite my anxiety, I’m exhausted, more drained than I’ve felt since Grad school. My consciousness has been slowly fading in and out as I finish this letter, and with the darkness pressing into the edges of my vision, I think it’s time for some sleep.
I’ll post this letter tomorrow, so do mind that the date is again Feb 29, and not March 1 as the post date will surely indicate.