Time Marches On
Time
Marches On
I
really didn’t mean to push those buttons, but this girl just can’t
always control herself. “Why do you have to be so obstinate?” my
mother sighed after every punishment for my sassy and stubborn ways.
However, I never seemed to learn my lesson. So, when my grandfather
had built a time machine of all things, he was so excited and he let
my brother and I go inside of it to show it off. He pointed to the
dials and lever that operated it. The whole point was for him to go
back and tell his younger self not to make the mistakes he had made.
First, he would go to when he didn’t do so well on a test or
project at school and even graduate from high school with honors.
Second, he would go back and prevent his three-year-old son, an uncle
I never met, from drowning in a pond. That was a tragedy that still
brought tears to his eyes. Then he spoke about keeping Hitler from
rising to power, preventing the invention of nuclear weapons, saving
Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr. from
assassination, and transforming his Detroit Lions into a football
powerhouse. My grandpa discussed out loud whether or not his plan
was a good one.
“All
those shows where the time traveler goes and interferes with the
past,” he explained, “but totally changes the present, I hope
they’re just fiction. I mean, imagine if Hitler never did all the
evil he did. Imagine if slavery ended sooner or didn’t even happen
at all. I could fix all those problems and make things the way they
should have been.” He was so excited over his chances.
The
machine had a helmet that you put on your head and your own thoughts
told it where in time to go. So, when my grandpa became involved
with a conversation with my parents, my brother and I slipped in and
I strapped the helmet to my chin. My brother, he pushed the power
button and twisted the intra-dimensional (whatever that meant) lever.
I guess it primed the time machine and I imagined going back to that
moment I fell out of a tree and broke my arm. Well,
apparently the machine moved from time to time and place to place. I
found my stupid kindergarten self as the machine appeared right next
to the tree behind our garage. Wow! I forgot how high up I was.
That six-year-old girl, how crazy I was for going up in a dress, was
nearing the one branch that would not hold her up. I
had only been six for a month and I think the school was on Spring
Break.
My
brother Jon went out first, but I had to unhook the helmet from my
head. Oh no! I had to hurry. I should have
sent the machine here five
minutes earlier while my
feet were still on the ground.
My six-year-old self happily sang a chorus of “Miss
Mary Mack”. What a pretty voice I had back then! Of course, now
it's tremendously gorgeous, so I believed.
Running out of the see-through elevator style door, I yelled up to
her, “Hey, Mikela...don't climb any further. I'm you but now I'm
eight and a half. Grandpa built a time machine. If you keep
climbing, you will fall and break your arm. And, you really
shouldn't wear a dress climbing a tree. Do you know everyone can see
your underwear? It's embarrassing.”
Jon
copycatted me. “Yeah. You're an embarrassment.”
“Shut
up,” I scolded him plus elbowed him in his ribs. “Stop copying
me. I didn't know any better.”
Well,
that pretty little girl I was had quite the sassy mouth on her. “You
can't tell me what to do. I
don't believe you. And, you've got a big ol' ugly
head
on your shoulders. And, I don't care who can see my underwear.”
“Oo,
girl,” I growled at myself. “I'm your
older and wiser self. My
head isn't ugly because it's the same head as yours.” When
I was in that tree, my hair had two braided pony tails with the
hair-ties that had those marble-sized balls at the ends. I had to
admit, I was quite the cutie. Now, I wore my hair in tiny braids
with the little beads at the end so it looked like a rainbow
surrounded me. Instead of cute hair, I wanted a more serious,
sophisticated look because I was done with all of my kindergarten
ways.
“Nuh-uh.
My head's right where it's supposed to be and so it can't be the
same. My head is pretty, but yours is an ugly one.” I couldn't
believe I would talk to myself that way.
“Listen
to me, you're gonna fall if you keep climbing. Don't make me come up
there and get you!”
She
stuck her tongue out at me. I never realized I was such a
handful...luckily, I've grown out of that stage, pretty much anyway.
I had the good mind to whip that little girl's butt and teach her
some manners. Little Mikela continued to inch up closer to that
fateful branch and I didn't want to see her fall, although it would
serve her right. My younger brother, only six-years-old himself,
found all of this so funny. He dropped on the ground breaking one of
his guts—or was he busting it laughing so hard. I don't know, but
his reaction only encouraged my younger self to ignore me.
“Get
down here right now, young lady or I'll come
up there and whip you good.” I said it like I really meant it.
Why did I have to be
so
stubborn? Now I know why my mom and dad punished me like they did.
Man...I was so obstinate, as my mother would say.
“No!”
that little girl said. She reached up for that branch and I heard
the snap. And, I saw her tumble down. Somehow I went down an area
where no other branches were below and I heard the tiny thud of her
body hitting the ground below. Who'd have thought that grass could
be so hard? Then, I winced at the crack that the bone in her wrist
and lower arm made as it fractured in two spots.
I
cried some as I remembered how painful the arm-break was. My legs
were all scraped up from not wearing pants or something to protect my
skin from the tree. It was a miracle I didn't land on my head and
break my neck. She screamed and cried for her mom...well, my mom.
Going over to her and noticing how twisted her arm was, I almost
threw up at the sight. I told her, “Why didn't you listen to me?
I tried to warn you.” Only, she ignored me but continued to wail
in hopes of getting
her
mom's attention.
Then,
my mom came out with my then 3-year-old brother running with a panic
look on her face. I had to give her credit. She knew when my crying
was truly a serious matter or not a big deal. She only looked at me
and my six-year-old brother, but not recognizing us as her children.
This was almost three years earlier from when my brother and I took
off in the time machine. However, when six-year-old Jon met
three-year-old Jon waddling out in his toddler diaper, the kind you
just pull on when you're
learning how to use the potty, and they just looked at each other and
smiled. However, the older version of my brother couldn't stand to
see himself in a diaper. I mean, what kid wants to remember those
diaper days, right? He dashed back into the time machine.
My
mom had comforted my younger self, and since she was trained in first
aid, understood she didn't want to move her daughter without
immobilizing her arm somehow. Turning to me, she asked me, “Hey,
there. You look familiar...almost an older version of my daughter.
Can you watch her while I go get something for her arm? Did she fall
out of the tree?”
“Yeah.
I tried to warn her. Because I'm...” I almost told her that I was
her daughter, just eight and a half now.
However,
she noticed the time machine in the backyard. “You are my
daughter, aren't you?” I nodded. “Grandpa must've finished his
time machine and you must have messed with it. You won't be in
trouble now, but when you get back to your
regular time, you certainly will go on punishment.”
I
almost opened my mouth to say something sassy, but
then I remembered how I didn't like it when my younger self did it to
me.
Politely,
I accepted my fate. “Yes, ma'am. You know, I never realized how
sassy I was.”
“What
were you doing messing with Grandpa's time machine?” my mother
asked.
“I
wanted to warn myself. So I wouldn't break my arm. It's broken in
two places. But, she wouldn't listen to me. She was...”
“Let
me guess, obstinate. She was obstinate.” It was like my mom read
my mind.
“Oh,
yes. Obstinate. I just have to warn you though, I'm gonna be
obstinate for at least three years almost. When I go back to my
regular time, I plan on being less obstinate.”
My
mom glanced over at the time machine and I saw my brother with his
head strapped in the helmet. She suggested, “Uh, I think you
better hurry up and
get
in there...who knows where he'll take that thing.”
I
gave her a quick hug and looked down at my younger self, so hurt and
just
screaming
her head off. “You...don't be so obstinate.” Then, I sprinted
towards the machine and shoved open the door. “Get out of that
chair, Jon.”
As
I was undoing the straps to the helmet, he yelled in protest. “Hey!
I wanna go see those dinosaurs.”
“No.
We shouldn't have taken Grandpa's machine.” I pushed him away
from the seat. “Get the dial and lever ready.” Fixing the
helmet to my noggin, we left my backyard. The time machine
reappeared in my grandparent's basement right where it was supposed
to be. My whole family was there waiting for me.
As
soon as I stepped through the door, my mother announced the
consequence of my actions. “Okay...I've been waiting for this
punishment for almost three years, Mikela. You're grounded for a
whole month.” I just nodded my head, tempted to whine and
complain. Later, my family would explain why it's important to not
mess with time. Afterwards,
we wished my Grandpa good luck in stopping Hitler...unfortunately, he
was unsuccessful. Time had marched on as normal.
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