It came to me one day. If e=mc squared, then if I lower the exponent of c to -1, might that be the formula for time travel? To my surprise, it worked.
The night before I was going to test my newly built time machine, a watermelon spontaneously appeared in my apartment. I knew then that everything would be okay.
The next morning, I sent the watermelon back to my earlier self to prevent a temporal paradox. Once the watermelon disappeared, I decided that I should go back in time. I chose to go back to Cliff Burton's second concert with Metallica. I entered the date and place on the control panel; and a few moments later, I was in front of the club. I bought a ticket and entered the club.
Dave Mustaine introduced Cool Dude Cliff, and he played his bass solo perfectly. After the concert was over, I returned to the time machine and traveled to see the first Megadeth concert. I was disappointed. The songs didn't sound like they did on Killing Is My Business. Then I remembered that David Ellefson had mentioned in an interview that someone had sent a fan letter to them in the very early days suggesting that they speed up the tempos of their songs. I thought that if I sent a letter of my own to further emphasize the point that it probably wouldn't damage the timeline at all. I invented a pseudonym and a fake address (I forget now what they were) and mailed it to them. Then I traveled to see a show during the Peace Sells tour.
I was blown away by their performance. After the concert, I waited outside the stage door. Dave Mustaine came out first. I yelled, "Dave Mustaine! You're my hero!". He gave me his trademark Mustaine snarl; and responded, "That's cool!". Chris Poland and Gar Samuelson totally ignored me when they exited; but when David Ellefson came out, I told him that he was my second favorite bassist.
He thanked me and inquired, "Who's first?"
"Cliff Burton"
"Yeah, he's great! Thanks again! I gotta go!" He shook my hand enthusiastically and hurried to catch up to his bandmates.
I returned to the 21st century to see if David Ellefson's interview about the fan letter had changed at all. To my surprise, he still said that there was only one fan letter suggesting that they should speed up the tempos of their songs. Was I destined to go back in time to write that letter? I guess I'll never really know.
Copyright June 3, 2018 James Hendrix Zuckerman
This story is dedicated to David Ellefson, who inspired me to write it three years ago. I gave it to him at a Meet and Greet on 9/18/15; and I've just rewritten it.
