M L Gammella Week 18: Another When Part 2 - Jump

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M L Gammella’s Picture Choice: Both

Title: Another When Part 2 - Jump

I approached the time point with the trepidation of a sailor in the middle of a dense fog. There was no clear sight ahead, no way of knowing that this was the proper course, just the intuition that I was doing the right thing.

I hoped I was doing the right thing.

Would Margaret understand? Would I frighten her? If I was able to stop the actions that caused her death, wouldn't that be enough? I could return to my time and she'd be there with me, like she was supposed to be before she was so cruelly taken from me.

The way she looked, laying there like she was asleep, nearly unblemished except ... that. The blood-stained bath mat from our home ... so much blood. I shuddered, the memories as fresh as they were the day it happened.

Per the guidance in the book, I dressed in vintage clothing --my own that I never got rid of-- and had a wad of period appropriate paper currency shoved in an old leather wallet. In the breast pocket of my jacket, I carried Margaret's picture with me.

Finding the money had been more difficult than I realized it would've been. The world had done away with paper currency about a decade and a half ago and transferred everything to electronic credits. It was supposed to be easier to create a world economy that way. I still missed the feeling of a stack of bills in my wallet, another outdated item.

It took a few weeks, but I found a antiquities collector who had a large amount of the old paper currency. He said he bought it from a friend within the government when all of the known currency was on it's way to be destroyed. I paid quite a bit for the worthless paper but it would be the only way I'd be able to do anything when I went through the time point.

I was two steps away from the time point. To anyone else, there was nothing special about the cement sidewalk. Really, there wasn't anything special about it at all. It was what you couldn't see that was special. This was where the timelines merged. I had to walk through at just the right time to jump through time.

The Philosophy of Time Travel didn't tell me how to make the device to see the convergence of timelines, but further research had. Any kind of information was available if you had the credits to pay for it. The device I held in my hand only took a week to put together. It didn't look like much, but it worked, or at least appeared to work. I wasn't really sure how it knew that this was where the specific time line I needed merged with present day, but I honestly didn't care.

I had nothing to lose. Men that have nothing to lose do not ask why ... they just do what is necessary to win.

Holding the delicate device carefully in my hand, I closed my eyes, took a deep breathe and stepped forward. The air shimmered around me, almost like feathers ghosting along my skin. Sound was different, muffled and scattered.

I took another step. The device beeped and the air and sound returned to normal.

I opened my eyes.

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M L Gammella lives in Ohio with her husband and their three pets. She is currently working on her first novel, a paranormal suspense based in Maine. Please follow her at @MLGammella and visit her website at Onward to the Written Word.

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