Day 321 - Slip Slide Away

 Slip Slide Away

Matthew Ryan Fischer

 

Keith sat on the steps to his back patio, listening to the trickling sounds of the water running over the edge of the spa and falling into the pool. There were thorns in his shoes, and he was tired of tracking dirt among other things into his house. One of his many failures as an amateur gardener. He was also tired of stepping on pointed objects hiding in the carpet and having to try and use tweezers to pull splinters from his fingers and toes. He needed a new pair of gloves. Probably better glasses too. But those would have to wait, unless he had already taken care of it some other time and forgot about it. If so, there could be a package waiting for him now on the front door step.

He was supposed to be at the meeting twenty minutes ago, so he’d need to leave soon. Time wasn’t always linear, but he could usually figure it out. Some of the others said it was like a river and they let the flow carry them this way or that. Maybe the waves got bigger the further you went. Maybe you did get carried away whether you wanted to or not. Keith had other plans and didn’t have time to waste on such lack of control. Time was meant to serve a purpose, not be an enemy to defeat. If he could only control whether he was early or late, well, that was enough for him.

After Keith went inside, lo and behold – mud. Again. Not from him. Or, not from him right now. Someday one of him would need to learn to clean his shoes before entering the house. Hopefully it was one of him in the past who hadn’t learned his lesson yet and not him from the future who had just grown lazy. Still though, back in the past, he hadn’t learned to jump that far into the future. And he couldn’t really remember tracking mud like this into his house or doing it so often. So, there was a very good chance that someday he would be doing this to himself, perhaps to complete a time loop, or perhaps because he was a jerk and just wanted to torture his former self.

There really was no time for this now. He had places to go. A meeting he was about to miss. And if there was something a time traveler boss hated, it was when people showed up late. The mud would have to wait. Teaching himself a valuable life lesson would have to wait. Time, for all his ability, was not his friend as it finally ran out.