The Science of Time Travel

This book is dedicated to my wife and my children,
who've made life worth living—even a second time around.
~Martin Martinez

"If you could go back in time and do it all over again, would you still marry me?"

The question seemed simple at face value, but I knew from almost fifty years of marriage that questions like these required a specific answer: "Of course I would, dear!"

She laughed and took a poke at my cheek. "Don't give me that. What's your real answer?"

I shrugged and sighed. "I mean, it's not like I have any huge regrets. We lived a happy, comfy life. What more could I have asked for?"

"You're not even the least bit curious?" Only she could coax a straight answer out of me. After all, my wife, herself, was honest to a fault. "If it were up to me, I'd probably consider dating a few more guys before settling down."

It was exactly the answer I expected of her—not because she loved me any less, or our relationship was in shambles, but mostly because that's just who she was. I married her knowing that, and I stuck around for fifty years, knowing that.

Was it because we didn't really care about each other's feelings?

Not really.

I'd like to think it was mostly because we had grown incredibly secure with one another over the years—unlike many young couples. All the fears, doubts, and insecurities of the other person cheating and leaving just faded away the more the years piled on.

That was one reason.

The other reason was that sometimes you just don't have to take things too personally.

"I guess I'd probably do the same, then," I said. "See how things turn out, maybe. Not sure if it'd make a difference, though."

My wife chuckled and gave me a good slap in the back. "That's what I like to hear! Let's make a promise, then." She leaned in close, the wrinkles at the corners of her lips forming against her wide grin. "If this life isn't just the one, and we get to do it all over again, let's explore other options."

I laughed. I guess for some people, staring at death's door doesn't instill any kind of fear at all.

"Alright, fine. It's a deal," I said, shaking her hand and then promptly planting a kiss at the back of it. "Though I have to say, I'd like to feast my eyes on your younger version again, if I could."

My wife burst into a boisterous laugh. "Wouldn't you ever! I must say, you were actually pretty lucky to end up with me. I'd say I'd married below my station."

"Ha! Are you kidding?" I roared. "I was quite the catch back then too, you know. Could've started my own rom-com harem."

"Oh, you wish!" She laughed before landing a light jab on my arm. Smiling, she planted a kiss on my cheek and put her arms around me.

I couldn't help but smile back and return her embrace, her brown eyes staring deep into mine. The wrinkles around her eyelids had grown even more wavy, her plume of white hair thinning around the sides of her head.

Regardless, I wasn't lying. Whenever I looked at her, I thought back to what she looked like when we got married... The golden locks of hair that fell to her waist, the big brown eyes that sparkled whenever they hit the sun, her tiny waist and the easy way my arms wrapped around it, and the soft skin and the silky feeling that filled my lips every time we kissed.

To a certain extent, I did believe that I probably would choose her again. After all, we lived a good forty-plus years together.

However, that evening I found my gaze shifting and staring off into the distance. There was, obviously, a part of me that wondered: how different my life would have been had I made different choices, had I had a different partner, different in-laws? How much different would life have been had we had children?

That evening, we watched the sun set over the tree line, it's purple-peach light filling the field of flowers with a gentle glow. This was the last vacation we went on before she passed. We'd spent our entire lives traveling and seeing the world. However, at the end of it all, the place she chose as her final resting place was simply the home we built on the outskirts of the city—away from the honking traffic, the city lights, and the smell of smoke and sewage.

I remember this moment very well because the promise I'd made to her that day was put to the test not too long after.

The whole thing started when my half-British friend of seventy years, Hiraya Gerard Welles (or Gerry, as he preferred to be called) came over for dinner. This was about a year after my wife had passed. He stood at my door, practically jumping up and down despite needing to be supported by a cane, that you couldn't help but fear his knees would give out amidst their trembling.

"I did it, Marty! I actually did it."

"Did what?"

He blew past me with wobbled step and barged straight into my house, through the hallway, and into my study—where he knew I would have a few pieces of scrap paper lying around on my desk. He picked up a piece of paper, and a pen, and began scrawling away with his jittery hand, his lines wavy and shriveled.

"Imagine yourself, right now, as a huge-ass TV."

"LED or CRT?" I joked around.

"What the heck does it matter? You're a TV set."

Only someone our age would call it a TV set. To be fair, despite his age, Gerry still drew pretty well. On the page was a television set whose shape and figure resembled the ones we had back in the 90s.

"So, CRT it is, then."

"Focus, man! Focus. As we all know, you can only watch one thing at a time on the TV. Doesn't matter if Friends and Star Trek are on the same time slot (or if they're both available for streaming), you can only tune in to one thing at a time."

"Of course. It's the bane of our existence: the inability to multitask our expanding watchlists."

Gerry sneered at the comment, but went on. "Most people think that time works in a linear fashion. However, we learned from End Game that that's not how it works."

"It's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly, timey wimey stuff. Yeah, we got that, Doc."

"Right. So, from our individual vantage points, the multiverse works in a similar way. Our consciousness exists in multiple states of reality all at the same time. You don't have many souls. You just have the one soul, the oversoul, who oversees the development of itself throughout various timelines. However, our bodies and our brains are only capable of perceiving one reality: this reality. You with me so far?"

"I guess so, yeah. One channel, one reality."

"The best way to shift to a different timeline or reality, then, is to change the channel. And the way to do that is to expand our awareness, tap into the oversoul, and then tune into the airwaves of another frequency."

"So, sort of like Michelle Yeoh? Okay... How do you do that?"

"By achieving a speed of 88 miles per hour," he said, and then threw several jabs at my shoulder. "How do you think, McFly? It's all about your state of mind."

This is the point wherein Gerry started to lose me. He spewed out a whole lecture on vibrations and frequencies, the collective unconscious; he mixed in a bit of meditation, enlightenment, and a whole lot of quantum physics mumbo jumbo too. And then he declared all that as: The Science of Time Travel.

If I was being completely honest, at this point, I believed that Gerry had gone completely nuts. However, as we were both lacking in partners, and there was really nothing better for us to do in our old age, I decided to humor him.

"You mean I can just jump into the closet and change timelines? What is this, some clichéd rom-com starring Rachel McAdams?"

"Yes!" he declared with much gusto. "Only it's real. And it works!"

I could give you the details of what we did to shift timelines, however that isn't really my secret to spill. It was both simple yet complicated, trivial and convoluted. Either way, you didn't need a Delorean, hot tub, or some outdated police box to do it. If you want the specifics, go ask Gerry. He has a book about it published under his name, H.G. Welles

He put me through a series of exercises that I, funnily enough, decided to practice in my spare time. I mean, they cost me nothing, and I didn't exactly have anything better to do.

Imagine my surprise when, one afternoon, I suddenly found myself standing in my old room, back at my parents' house, staring at this young, pimple-peppered face with a clean cut, a short stubble, and too much product in their hair.

My eyes widened, and my jaw just dropped before I could finish gasping the words, "Great Scott!"