Writing Contest Entries

Time (WordBandit Contest 6)

Prompt:Imagine you had the power to travel back in time and change any one moment in your life. Write about what you would change in 1,255 words or less. take word count and sub 36

As I sit here in my ice cold room remembering and feeling the burn of past loves and desertions, I don't realize tears that stream down my face until they begin to pool in my hand. I start feeling as if everyone's lives would be better off without me. Clutching the locket around my neck, I contemplate my options. Should I?  Gathering myself, I open it to look at the hands of a ticking clock. I brace myself for whatever is to come as I spin the hands backwards seventeen times - one for every year I've been alive.

Suddenly, I feel a jolt and close my eyes, fearing I would desert this important mission. When I don't feel like someone's tugging and pulling my whole body in twelve different directions, I open my eyes. I'm watching my nineteen-year-old mother being rushed into the hospital, and I follow. No one can see me. I'm not completely sure how or why, but I'm grateful. I don't think people would like what I'm about to do.

I silently march into the hospital room and think about how I will die. Starting here, at my birth, will ensure I never have to deal with any pain ever again. It sounds selfish. How will my parents deal with this? Choosing to end all this now, I think, will end up hurting my parents less. Not letting them bond with their small child will keep the heart ache minimal because I am sure that not developing a relationship will sever any ties they have with me. I can't stop now. Life has dealt too great a pain to go on much longer.

As I am delivered, I step closer. I can feel the power I have over my former, innocent, happy self. I couldn't forcefully kill my baby self. I would have to persuade myself to give up somehow, and I'm not quite sure how I'm to do so. As I try to think of options that would bring mortality, I see a smile break out on my mother's face when the doctors place me in her arms. I'm crying, and the doctors are saying they need to make sure I'm completely healthy. I'm not. They'll find the ovarian cyst and remove it along with my appendix so I won't have to deal with complications due to that unnecessary part of my body. Maybe I could will my tiny appendix to burst before they have the chance to remove it.

My mother's smile haunts my mind as I watch the doctors take me away. How could I even think of doing this to her? Losing a baby would be the most painful thing she'd ever deal with, and I'd be the cause. I'm also the cause of a lot of negative impacts on her life. I know you have a baby now, but please, don't quit school. I know you and Dad don't always see eye-to-eye, but please, don't stray away from each other because of me and what I'm about to do. I know you married young and maybe because of me, but you'll be better off without me, I promise.

Before I can let my mother's happiness destroy my intentions of coming here, I leave with the doctor that's carrying me in all my newborn glory. Hang in there, kid. I'm coming. You won't have to suffer in this world. I see the doctors' notepads and pens. I grab at them, and surprisingly, they come with me. I go to the girls' bathroom and start to, ironically, write a suicide-ish note to my mother:

Mom,

I know this may sound crazy to you, but I'm your daughter from the future, and, in a few hours, you will discover that your newborn baby girl has died. The cause will be a ruptured appendix, but they won't know how it happened. I am so sorry that this had to happen the way it is. Trust me; if there was another way, I wouldn't have come back to do this.

As for a reason why... I am weary, weak, and tired. Life has beat me down. People I have been subjected to and forced to deal with because we couldn't afford to go anywhere else have ruined what once was a happy child. In some ways, I mourn both of our losses, but mostly, I am happy to finally be free of the cruelty this world has to offer as well as glad that I can't ruin your life or anyone else's. Please, follow your dreams, and don't let anyone get in your way. Don't let this seemingly traumatic experience haunt you because it is for both of our benefits.

I'm sorry.

Forever yours,

Alexis Marie ...

With that, I tear out the page, leave the bathroom, and place the pad and pen exactly where I found it. I put the page in my pants' pocket and walk back to where the doctors are cleaning me off. As a baby, I am still crying, but then I quiet down as my baby self looks at my calm and grim older self and smiles. It's as if baby me knows why I am here and is encouraging me to carry forth with my premeditated intentions. 

"Don't worry," I whisper through tears. "It'll all be over soon. I promise."

"Cooo." Baby me seems comforted through my words and thoughts. I can hear hers, so, I am certain she can hear mine. Although all I hear from her is coo's and other baby noises, I can feel what she feels. She feels split. It's like she already knows what's in store for her, and that's frightening. How could you expect a newborn to understand your pain? It is confusing, but she does. 

I fold the note I have written and place it under my mother's hospital pillow while she sleeps. I am so sorry.

It's unfair, and as I am stuck in my dilemma, I weigh my options. If I am to do this, I will cease to exist. I will no longer feel this insurmountable pain the world has forced me to be subject to, but my family... The ones who care, how will they feel? 

I steel myself as I stand beside baby me. I have to do it. It has to be now. I take baby me's hand with my index finger and silently apologize to her. I am apologizing to my small self and my mother as I will the life out of my body. Baby me laughs and smiles up at me.

The next thing I see is a world of black nothingness as I fade away into the distance. The warm fuzzy feeling takes over, and I let go, finally feeling at peace until I see all my good memories passing me by in reverse chronological order. I see my college audition, my sixteenth birthday, my first kiss with my current boyfriend. He'll find someone better, but my heart pains to leave him. All the best memories passing me by until it reaches my birth. After that, everything goes black, and my soul cries out in pain when I realize that the bitter sting I felt life dishing out is nothing next to the roaring agony I feel as I realize everything that I've given up.

The black nothingness fades out until I am sitting on my bed, clutching the locket as I was before I had tried to change anything. I lay back and sigh in absolute relief.