Tevun-Krus #14 - Time Travel

Take a Hit Backward, Man

Take A Hit Backward, Man
An original short by @MadMikeMarsbergen
 
 
 
 

1

It was an oddly warm day in winter, when I inadvertently helped turn Adolf Hitler into a world-renowned artist. Yes, the same jerk of a man responsible for bringing about the Jewish Holocaust. As I'm sure you can imagine, however, the temperature was hardly the oddest part of that day.
        So take a seat and get comfortable, grab a drink—maybe a snack, too—and let me tell you my story. You need not worry—there won't be any questions afterward. This is not an exam. This is simply the story of my life, recalled for you from the deepest depths of my memory, so that you might begin to understand the whys of the world we live in. And believe me, there are many.
        My life took a serious turn for the weird on that warm winter's day. The sun had cut through the cover of clouds, and we were all amazed that we could comfortably wear tee-shirts and shorts without catching a chill. My best friend at the time—we'll call him Jimmy, even though his real name didn't start with a J, or even a G, for that matter. My best friend Jimmy came over with this new bong he'd purchased. He wouldn't stop raving about it, claimed it could transport us anywhere throughout time, and that we had the power to change the past, present and future.
        Where I sit now: an old man inside the Gables Institute For The Stupid, Deranged, Impaired, Elderly Or Otherwise Insane, staring out a window with the world at my back and the grave right here before my eyes, I wonder if I—we—would have been better off with the way things were.
        Maybe I should have wrenched the bong out of Jimmy's hands and smashed it, right then and there. Maybe our world wouldn't be the way it is now, with all the changes I find myself being held responsible for. It's too much. Too much weight for one man's—an old man's—shoulders to carry.
        Oh well. And, as the popular saying amongst youngsters goes: 'we dun mucked up real bad, suh, oh yessuh we did'.

2

On this abnormally warm winter's day, say, seventy years ago—though, due to the nature of time-travel, it's rather difficult to say exactly how long ago this actually was—I had been sitting outside amidst the melting snow, partaking in some fine, fine herb. I've never been much of a bong man—let that be known. Call me old-school, or call me Gandalf—he's a wizard from history, though not the history that you might know—but I much prefer a nice wooden pipe.
        Anywho, enough about my preferences.
        Jimmy Jammerson—that's what we'll call him—came around to my abode, as he always did back in those days, and he was wielding quite the weapon. It was a wild purple bong, with a wavy-style tube that looked like a crazy-straw, and it was made out of cheap glass from Chinakistan (though it wasn't called that, back then). I could hear the dirty bong-water sloshing around in there as he came skip-walking—that was his primary method of movement—down my drive.
        "Heeey, buuuuddy," Jimmy said cheerfully.
        I could tell by his bloodshot eyes and his higher-pitched voice that he was already five to ten bong-hits deep—and it was barely noon on a weekday. He was wearing tie-dye shorts and a 'Save The Dolphins' tee-shirt—not referring to the now-extinct mammal, but to the Miami Dolphins. They used to be a rockball team, way back when, except back then it was called football. "Hey, Jimbo, what's cracklin'?" I said, putting my pipe to my lips for another draw.
        Jimmy smacked the pipe out of my mouth and it hit the ground. Thankfully, because it was wooden, it didn't break. But the contents of the bowl spilled out, scattering embers and ashes across the interlocking stones.
        "What the hell was that for?" I asked him, eyeing the bong. There was a horrible smell coming off it, too—like old sweat-soaked socks.
        He held up the purple crazy-straw bong. The irregular—for that time of the year, at least—sunlight hit the glass and made little bits of light dance all over it, inside and out. He said, "You're not gonna want that pipe, buuuuddy. Not when you try this!"
        "Oh? And why is that?" I picked up my pipe and rubbed some dust off the stem.
        Jimmy smacked the pipe away again. "Because a hit off this baby will send you back through tiiime, maaaan." He broke out into a grin which made me wonder if he was, by any chance, the victim of a nasty bout of head-trauma.
        I looked at him, straight-faced and stern. "How high are you? A time-travelling bong?" I asked, incredulous of his claims. I decided to humour him, or maybe I was merely humouring myself. "How does it work? I presume you have some idea."
        He nodded. "Oooookaaaay, Raz. Listen up. You pack some bud in the bowl here—you see how it's a very large bowl, too, eh?—and then you hit it. Just like, like, normal. But this is where it differs, maaan. For every teeeen seconds, maaaan, that's ten years you travel back in tiiiime."
        "So," I said, thinking of what I'd do if I wanted to go back. I had an idea. One that any sane person would have. "If I wanted to, let's say, go back to 1907 and kill Hitler, long before he ever put any bad ideas into people's heads, I'd have to smoke that bong for a minute straight?"
        "Riiiiiight," Jimmy said, grinning. "You catch on quick, maaan."
        "Okay. Let's say I believe you. After going back in time, how does one get back to the present?"
        His face lit up. Evidently, he'd been waiting for this question, and was eager to answer it. "It's easy, maaan. You know, I'm glad you asked. You just, like, dump out the boooong-waaater." He demonstrated for me and poured out an oily brown liquid, which reeked even worse now that it was out of the bong. It had melted a hole through the soft snow.
        I thought I had caught him in his lie. "Okay, but if you had to get back by dumping that dirty water, then why was it still dirty? Wouldn't you have had to dirty it again by smoking out of it and, therefore, transporting yourself back in time."
        He grinned again, laughing. "Because, maaan. I wasn't, like, sending myself back, the last few times... I was sending others back. Smelly, for one." Smelly was his dog, a Golden Retriever.
        "So, you're telling me that Smelly will be back in the present, now that you've dumped that water?"
        "Yeah, maaan. It's toooootally, liiiike, saaaafe. No worries."
        It was unreal. Back then, I remember thinking that Jimmy, my best friend, must have smoked one too many bowls. I'd soon learn that that thought had been most incorrect.
        "Come on, Raaaaz. Let's go take a hit backward, man." He motioned for me to follow him into my own house. This was common for Jimmy. He felt at home anywhere. What was yours was his, and he would always let you know exactly that.
        I followed Jimmy Jammerson, time-traveller, inside. Little did I know, those were the first steps I took on a giant journey through time, and one of playing God with our world.