A Formative Time

The Visit

"Holy shit! It's really you." A teenage boy sat on my bed, mouth agape. By "bed," I mean my parent's couch. I had just graduated college and was less than employed. There have been a handful of moments where things have truly surprised me. I'm not talking about the "surprise party" type of surprise. Sure I may have peed my pants when a couple dozen people emerged from behind my living room furniture for my 12th birthday party, but while that was unexpected, I could comprehend the situation -- after a scurry to the bathroom and a new pair of jeans. This moment, however, was incomprehensible.

It was a culminating moment, after a series of weird events in the previous months. First there were the random flowers at my college apartment. Then the fruit baskets with notes reading "We love you." Then the cards with hand-written paragraphs about how much I'm missed and appreciated. These were all addressed to me with a specific date and time -- down to the second. I always figured it was my friends pranking me, even though they denied it. This kid did not feel like a prank.

"Do I know you?" I said. I was calm. The kid seemed harmless and this was the most interesting thing to happen to me in the last two months.

"Oh god no," he laughed. "I don't even exist yet. You're dead." He was calm, I was no longer calm. There was a crazy kid in my house. "I'm sorry, this must all sound really weird to you. I can explain, but I only really have like five minutes and I don't want to waste it on discussing the intricacies of time travel you know?"

"Of course," I responded. This kid was obviously bat shit. He clearly existed and I wasn't dead. I did a self pat down to be sure though, like in the movies when a character makes it through some tough obstacle and checks they still have all their limbs and stuff.

"You see, Austin, I'm your biggest fan. For my thirteenth birthday my parents bought me five minutes with you in your 'formative years,'" he did the air quote motion as he said formative years. "It was cheaper than when everybody knew you who you were. Thank god they scheduled it before all that crazy stuff happened to you. The price kind of skyrocketed after." I had already written this kid off as absolutely bonkers, but I wanted to entertain him.

"Happy birthday," I said. "Doesn't all this time travel stuff though fuck with the future though. Like doesn't me knowing all this affect stuff going forward?"

"Nah, you'll forget all of this. Anyway I just kind of wanted to play video games with you for a little if that's cool. I don't really want to answer any more questions."

"Sure," I chuckled. I turned on the xbox and we played a few rounds of Fortnite together before his watch started beeping. "See ya kid," I waved, expecting to now have to deal with the reality of the situation. What was I going to do with him? Call the police? A parent?

"By Austin, this has been awesome," he had this huge smile on his face. "Shame you won't remember it in about five seconds." Then this huge light engulfed him and he was gone. I woke up in my bed and ran into the living room to find him. He wasn't there. Fortnite was on the TV and the couch was warm and I remembered everything.