By Dan Vasey
In search of lost memories, those early years no one recalls, he builds a time machine and enters coordinates: his childhood backyard, midsummer, nighttime. He means to land when he was a baby, but hits a wrong key.
They make love behind their house when a domed contraption with a man inside materializes nearby. Startled, the woman rolls off.
Unfortunately for the time traveler, they are his parents and were conceiving him. He doesn’t exist. Therefore, he cannot interrupt them. But then he exists, interrupts and isn’t, is, isn’t, is. The traveler, his descendants, and everything they touch flicker ever after.
Very vividly written.
very nice! love it and surprise ending.
Nice piece, Dan. You’ve captured–briefly & directly–a philosophical conundrum about time travel.Good visual, meaningful ending, ” . . . and everything they touch flicker ever after.”
I suspected others would have had the the same thought, also that the danger of self-extinction probably extends to all travel into the past, not only an interruption as direct as this one..
Thank you.
Very nice rendition of the time travel paradox