How I time travel

A few times a week I host an informal meeting. It’s a small, semi-private affair attended by me, myself and I. Just the three of us.

No, don’t call the nice men in nice white coats just yet. It’s not like that. At least I don’t think it is.

The attendees are not variations of the current me or echoes of my id. It’s not quite that simple.

In addition to myself, the meeting is most graciously attended by the me of before and the me of next.

Grab some popcorn and prepare to watch the zoetrope. Celebrate the moments of your life!

Still here?

Yeah, I only recently discovered that I had gained this somewhat unsettling ability. I’m already getting used to it and we like to get together often and shoot the shit.

I’m beginning to realize that the nature of time has changed as I get older. In my younger days I was aware of time, of course, but it seldom made its presence known. Now it constantly nags at me and remains perched on my shoulder evermore. It follows me and lingers overhead. Time is one omnipresent motherfucker.

I struggled to think of an analogy to use as an example of this phenomenon. I ask you to consider the humble zoetrope.

A zoetrope is a device that produces an illusion of action from a rapid succession of static pictures. The term zoetrope is from the Greek words “zoe”, “life” and tropos, “turn.” It may be taken to mean “wheel of life.” Source: Wikipedia.

Unmoving, the zoetrope is just a series of pictures. In this state the zoetrope represents my existence in my younger days. Back then the wheel turned too slowly to notice. Each experience was vivid and distinct.

What I’m learning is that the wheel slowly gains speed the older I get. It has recently reached a speed where the successive series of images begin to take shape as something that moves. That moving is still just a blur, one that leaves me feeling bewildered and confused. But I’m starting to sense that there may be some sort of meaning behind that blur. I feel like I’m on the verge of some new awareness. I can’t help but wonder what will be revealed when that blur becomes a movie.

Time has gotten downright crazy for me. Blink. I’m sitting in my car in my driveway and it’s Monday morning before work. Blink. It’s Friday evening (the holy time) and the world is my oyster. Blink. I’m sitting at my desk at work, looking at my watch, wondering how time can move slower than molasses. Blink. It’s the weekend and I’m out doing something with my wife, thinking to myself, “Remember this moment, dammit.” Blink. Oh, shit.

Meanwhile, the zoetrope has provided access to temporal versions of myself. I am unable to guess if this is by happenstance or design. So far the temporal forces only seem to reach a couple of days in both directions. I theorize this may increase even further as I near the end.

The “meeting of the me’s” never has a set agenda. We’re just not that organized. But the me of now always gets there first. Nothing like the immediacy of the here and now to make one show up on time.

The me of before is always next to arrive. God, he’s a real piece of shit. He disgusts me. And every damn time it’s the same damn thing. “Hey, slacker,” I say as a greeting.

“Fuck off,” he says simply. “I hate you.”

You think we’d learn to mix it up but we never do.

Last but not least the me of next finally makes his entrance. He’s the most mysterious of us all. You can look right at him without ever seeing him clearly and you can never look him in the eye. He actually appears to be glowing just a bit. You can’t help but wonder what he has to hide. It’s like he’s there and not there at the same time. With him you never know what you’re going to get.

“Hey, losers,” he says.

The meeting has started.

Depending on the day of the week, the meeting can go one of two possible ways.

One way that it can go down is that I’m kickin’ it, chillin’ in my house in my favorite chair, holding a cold one and actually in a pretty good mood. The me of before is at work, looking angry and pissed, and glaring at me.

We both sit wherever we happened to be at the time and we connect. We are keenly aware of the totality of each other. We achieve a state of grok. Imagine two versions of yourself separated by only a couple of days reaching a state of total understanding of the other. It is never a pleasant moment.

The me of next is present and observes the moment, but he does little more than smirk. We both feel he doesn’t even need to be here, but if he isn’t, the whole thing unravels and soon the meetings won’t happen any more. It’s some kind of space-time continuum dealio. I guess if we uninvited him it would destroy the universe as we know it. I tell him “fuck off” and “I hate you” just to make sure the whole thing works like it should. And he responds, “Hey, slacker” just like he’s supposed to. Protocol satisfied, the circle remains unbroken.

The other possible way the meeting can go is, of course, the exact opposite of what I just described. In this scenario I’m at work communing with the me who is kickin’ it at home. I hate that guy.

Other than that, we share precious little information of any actual import. The whole point of the exercise seems to be one of gloating and torment. At that it is remarkably effective. We’ve come to think of it as “the circle of strife.” Sure, we could all put our heads together and discuss stock prices and shit, but that would make too much sense. And too much money. Somehow I think the introduction of actual money could also disrupt the whole arrangement. So we remain free of the ravages of wealth.

Oops. Time to go. I’m late for a meeting with some real boneheads. Wasn’t it meetings that brought down the Roman Empire? I think it was. Remind me to bring up a dire warning about that during “new business.”