Day 65 - Stationary

 Stationary 

Matthew Ryan Fischer

 

When I was young, I used to have a pen pal. Pen pal is a bit of a stretch. I received letters from someone. I tried to write back, but my letters were never delivered. It was a bit of a one-way relationship. You see, it was me in the future, sending letters back in time to tell past me, the “me” I was when I received the letters, about things that I should or shouldn’t do. I suppose I should have started with that. Sort of buried the lede with that one.

I spent years in denial, then contemplation of all the ramifications. I’ll spare you a full recap, but be aware that yes, I did think it all through, paradoxes and all. I questioned fate and freewill and destiny and God and all such other things like time travel, arrows of time, fourth dimensional thinking, and plenty of other good sci-fi plotlines.

Time passed and I grew older and the letters grew infrequent. Which was okay by me. I enjoyed the illusion of free will and I didn’t like taking orders from someone that may or may not have been an older version of me. But now, I begin to wonder if and when I am supposed to start writing these things, and just how I’ll be able to send them back in time. You may have guessed it already, but I’m no rocket scientist and know next to nothing about ripping through the space-time continuum with an over-powered stamp.

None of that would be a big deal, except that I recently was out shopping and found the stationery that the letters had been written on. I buy any. No version of me can make me buy it. Not past or future me, that’s for sure. And present me decided that the time wasn’t right quite yet.

I stand still. Doing nothing. Waiting. For a signal or a sign. Or perhaps I stand in denial. Denying my fate, denying my destiny.

But that only can last so long. I can’t swear that it has to work a certain way, but if it really was me sending those letters, and there’s no multiverse-Schrodinger’s cat solution at work here, then I really will have to buy that letterhead at some point. I supposed if the universe wants this to happen then all I have to do is drop the letter in any random mailbox and the universe can provide the means of delivery.

I wait. I try to hold out.

The other day I received a letter. A simple message – “What are you waiting for?”

I suppose future me still has some paper left and is not without a sense of humor.

I think my first letter will be addressed to him.