the present moment, one-shot, henry/amber
A very different type of fic from me, it started off inspired by IU's You & I music video and kind of morphed into a very different plot. I really like the way it went and it's one of the longest one-shots I've written. I hope it's not too confusing.
Amber tossed the unrelenting gears down on the table. She was currently trying to build a wind up toy car, but it refused to cooperate. Her grandfather could make any toy work; even the most far-fetched idea. It was like he had a magical touch. Amber looked down at her grease-covered hands and sighed. The ‘magical touch’ had clearly not been passed down to her.
She stood from the workshop table and stretched her hands over her head. Yawning, Amber shut off the overhead lamp and made her way over to the bed. She lived in the upstairs, workshop part of the building and below, on the first level, was the toyshop started by her grandfather. Amber’s parents died when she was very young and her grandfather took her in and began to teach her how to build toys.
He held up a small doll, a special one he had made just for Amber. “Amber, remember this one day when you grow older and forget the magic of toys.”
The tiny girl giggled, covering her mouth with her tiny hands. “Will I have grey hair like grandpa?”
“No, I’m afraid you won’t believe again until you get grey hair. When you feel like you are wise you will lose faith. Faith in the happiness that toys bring little children, in the love that a toy maker puts into their toys, in the complex simplicity of a child’s mind.”
She scrunched up her nose, clearly confused. He patted her head and handed her the doll before smiling and walking away.
Amber threw up a small basketball into the air and expected it to fall into her hands again, but it never returned.
“Looking for this?” a voice said behind her.
She didn’t bother to turn around, “Funny, Henry.”
He walked over to the desk and leaned against it, tossing the basketball in his hands. “It’s Sunday, the only day the shop is closed, why aren’t you building?”
She slumped over in her chair, burying her head in her arms on the desk. Her voice was muffled when she said, “I don’t know. It’s like I’ve got toy makers block or something.” She lifted her head slightly and pushed over a pile of half completed toys. “Everything I make turns to crap halfway through.”
“Maybe you just need a break. Take a day off or something. Everyone’s creativity runs out sometimes.”
“I’ll try that, thanks Henry.”
The basketball dropped to the ground and Amber glanced to Henry curiously. His mouth was open in shock. “You’re being nice to me for once?! What’s this? You’re thanking me for something? Someone record this moment in history.”
She whacked his stomach before laughing.
Amber shut the shop’s front door behind Henry. They had eaten junk food and watched movies in an attempt to get Amber’s muse back. Even if it didn’t work, she had fun and it had gotten her mind off of the having to make toys.
She was sweeping the workshop’s floor when her broom knocked over the doll given to her by her grandfather. It rolled underneath the workbench out of reach. She kneeled down onto the floor and reached her hand under. When she didn’t find the doll she laid down on her stomach and looked into the darkness. Amber thought she had spotted it and groped the floor searching for it. Her hand brushed something and she attempted to grasp it. When her hand grabbed it she was shocked by the cold touch. It was metal and felt like a lever to something. Curious, she pulled it.
The desk started to make noise as gears and pulleys shifted places. Amber scrambled to her feet and stood in front of the aged bench. After a few seconds a drawer that was previously invisible popped out of the side. Amber took a few steps closer and peered inside. It was a simple leather bound notebook that, upon closer inspection Amber realized, was stamped with her grandfather’s initials. Carefully she grabbed the notebook from the drawer. Amber hesitantly unwrapped the string closure and opened the book.
'Amber, if you’re reading this I presume you’ve probably come to a time in your life where you’ve finally forgotten the magic. All is not lost, it is still there. You just have to search for it.'
The message puzzled Amber. She flipped through the rest of the pages, but they were blank. She shook the book, checking for any loose pages when an envelope fell out. It landed on the hardwood floor, her grandfather’s large handwriting facing up.
The inside of the envelope simply held a blue piece of paper and when she opened it up it revealed blueprints for something. It looked like a tall box with windows and a door. There was no title to the plans, just a drawing of a clock in the corner.
“I feel like I have to build this, I don’t know what it is or what it does, but I have to.”
“What about the shop? The orders?” Henry was always the sensible one of the pair.
“I have enough in storage to get me through the week and it’s the slowest time of year, there aren’t many orders.”
“And what if this… contraption you build does nothing?”
“It doesn’t matter, I know my grandfather wanted me to build it. He stuck it in a notebook with a message to me and the envelope was labeled ‘Beary’. He’s the only one that called me that.” Her voice got quieter, “I think I have to build this to find that magic again. He warned me that one day I would stop believing, I would lose it until I grew old again or found it myself. I need to find it Henry, I need to.”
For days on end Amber worked tirelessly on the unknown project. She simply followed the instructions and as the booth-like thing came to life before her, she still had no clue what it would do. Henry would keep her company, just silently sit there and grade papers or other things teacher’s aids do.
Soon she reached the final step in the blueprint. But she had no idea what to do. There was simply a small drawing of a part that Amber had never seen in her life before. Frustrated, she threw down her screwdriver.
Henry didn’t even look up from the textbook he was reading. “What is it?”
“I just need this one part, and it will be finished. But I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s a weird set of gears and something sticking out of it. It’s really intricate and I have no idea how to recreate it.”
“Just wait. It will come to you,” he finally looked up, “it always does.”
Amber decided to put her little side project on hold for a while as she caught up with orders that were due for the shop. Halfway through building a train set she realized that she was out of screws. She headed into the back room that held all the extra supplies. For the train set she needed a very specific type of screw and they were in the bin all the way on the top of the shelf. When she stood on the step ladder to reach the container it was not there, but a clock (one she had never seen in the workshop before) took its place.
Stepping down from the ladder, Amber examined the foreign object in her hands. Between the two bells was a small piece of paper rolled up. Inside all that was written was ‘You have to search a little.’
She screwed in the final piece- the inside of the old alarm clock, and had expected something. She expected it to start spinning or lighting up or something. When it did neither of those things or anything else, she was slightly disappointed. Even the doorknob she installed wouldn’t budge.
Amber sighed and sat cross-legged on the floor. She took her wooden doll in her lap and her fingers ran over the beautiful cursive inscription on the back. She whispered it aloud, “Love is the master key that opens the gates of happiness.”
She paused, “He wouldn’t? Was he already leaving me clues?” She slowly stood up and walked over to the contraption. “Could it?”
Amber slowly inserted the legs of her childhood present into the small key hole on the door. She turned the doll and the doorknob at the same time and the door creaked open. She stepped inside the little room, slowly turning around finally seeing the inside of the object she had built. As she almost completed her rotation she noticed a shadow on the wall. It was an outline of a heart created by the light passing through a group of gears.
“It seems like grandpa is leaving me clues everywhere to figure out how to work this thing.” She tapped her lower lip with her thumb, “Heart….”
Amber jokingly asked her grandfather where he kept all his toy making secrets. And he tapped his head, “It’s all in here,”
Then tapped over his heart, “but the way to a man’s secrets is through his heart.” Amber owned a small heart box, it was ceramic and she had no idea what it was for or when she had even gotten it. She assumed her parents gave it to her when she was too little to remember and before they had died.
“Thanks Grandpa,” she said before smashing the heart onto the table. Amongst the broken pieces there were folded pieces of paper. The handwriting was small and loopy- like a girl’s. It was very different from her grandfather’s, the one she knew so well.
'Dearest Amber,
I regret to say that this is goodbye. Reading this you are probably thinking that it is impossible to say goodbye to someone you had never known. Your father and I would want nothing more in life than to have been able to see you grow up, really see you grow up. Not simply visit the future you, but go through all the times you’ve cried, nurse every injury, sit up with you while you worked on school projects, see you on your wedding day and actually know the man you’re marrying and know the exact day you met and when you got engaged. We would want to experience all the things normal parents experience with their little girls.
I shall try to explain to you everything as best as I can. Your father was an amazing toy maker, possibly better than your grandfather. But he didn’t want to just make toys- he wanted to make things that would change human kind. For years he had been working on something, a project that he wouldn’t let me or even your grandfather see. It turns out that he was able to successfully build a time machine. He began to travel forwards and backwards into time. He became obsessed with it. He would tell me all the things he saw and things that would happen in the future. He even visited you later on in your life. He knew more about the grown up you then the present you.
What your grandfather and I didn’t know was the effect traveling time had on a person. You become disoriented if you don’t pay close attention. Trips in close succession could potentially confuse you. You lost track of what current time even was.
Your father from a trip and seemed extremely distraught. He would not stop repeating ‘I have to go back. I have to fix it.’ One day he actually went back. There was one thing your dad made sure never to do- return to the same day in time twice. At that time he was slowly losing his mind from the constant traveling and I knew I’d have to go in after him. I’m writing this as I prepare to leave, because I know your father is planning to do something that could possibly alter time in some way.
I told your grandfather that I would go after him- try to bring him back. Deep down I knew that if I went wherever he went there was a very slim chance I would come back, let alone bring him back with me. I gave specific instructions to destroy the machine if I didn’t return in 48 hours. But, I told him to set up a series of clues for you to find when you grew older along with the blueprints for the very machine that took us away from you. If there is someone that could recreate this machine, it would be you. I figured you deserved the chance to see your parents. Before I tell you the date of our current timeline, I want you to understand the risks. You may not come back to the present. You may leave behind whomever you love and you could possibly regret it for the rest of your life.
It is a hard decision, but it is your decision nonetheless. Remember, above all things, we loved you and we do love you- wherever we may be.'
Henry folded up the letter after finishing reading it. “You don’t have to go you know?”
“I know,” Amber sat completely still, something very rare because she is always moving or doing something with her hands. “But I want to. I want to see my parents and know why they disappeared on this specific date in time. I think I’ll finally get answers.”
He stood outside the door of the time machine as Amber stepped inside. He grabbed her shoulders and forced her to look at him.
“Promise me you’ll come back. No matter what you see.”
She stared at his eyes and the words of her mother replayed in her mind. You may leave behind whomever you love. And you could possibly regret it for the rest of your life.
Amber stood on her tiptoes and kissed him slowly on the mouth. He responded by wrapping his arms around her back. A few seconds later she pulled back and whispered, “I promise.”
Inside the time machine Amber turned the dials until they read the date specified in her mom’s letter. Pulling down the lever, the machine began to feel like it was spinning. It slowly gained speed and a blinding light began to enter the booth. After what felt like an eternity, the booth stopped. Slowly she regained her balance and orientation and she then reached for the door.
She stepped out into a bright day, about mid afternoon. She was still in Korea, she recognized the street that was between her school and the shop. Amber walked along the sidewalk enjoying the warm spring air. Suddenly Amber spotted a younger version of herself across the street wearing a school uniform walking home to the shop. She couldn’t remember exactly what day it was; it was just a normal day in high school. She also noticed a couple strolling behind the girl lost in her own world with earphones in her ear. She quickly recognized them as her parents from the pictures hanging in the shop. The walked slowly, arms linked like there was no care in the world. Amber stopped and watched as a truck ran a red light and the girl, oblivious, started to cross the street. The man, her father, lunged forward and pulled young Amber back onto the curb. She suddenly remembered this day, she hadn’t thought about it much when it had happened, but someone saved her life that day and it was her parents.
The girl quickly thanked the man and woman before continuing her walk. The young couple seemed to have old souls as they looked at each other and slowly smiled. They linked arms once again and turned around, walking back in the direction they had just came from.
“Mom? Dad?” Amber said hesitantly as she stopped the couple. The two only smiled at her, no evidence of shock or surprise on their faces at all.
“You finally came,” said her mother. Amber studied their faces. Her mother was pretty. She was much shorter than her father and her hair was cut in a stylish bob. Her facial features were small and dainty. Shifting her gaze to her father, there was only one word Amber would use to describe him- handsome.
After a while she finally spoke, “You went back. To save me?”
Her dad nodded. His deep voice spoke, “I had become obsessed with visiting you in the future. I saw your first steps, words, and day of school before it even happened in present time. I even witnessed what was supposed to be your death. It tortured me, I couldn’t just sit back and watch you be killed in an accident like that. I knew I could prevent it; I just had to go back and save you. Your mother came after me but I refused to let her take me back before saving you. As you can see, we succeeded. But we didn’t think of the consequences. We had altered someone’s timeline drastically, to make up for it our timeline changed. We can travel to any time period, forwards or backwards but we cannot travel to whatever is present time. Essentially- we are dead in present time, but we live in the past and the future. Our timeline is no longer chronological.”
Her mother cut in, reaching for her husband’s elbow. “We don’t regret any of it. We did what any other parent would do. We feel like we’ve still seen you grow up- your graduation, wedding, and birth of your first child. Because our timeline was altered we were able to visit all of the future events and things that had already happened to you. We just could never visit the present you- the you that would actually be able to experience seeing us.”
Amber’s eyes welled up with tears that slowly overflowed. Her parents slowly embraced her and they stood as a mother and father meeting their child for the first time. “You were always so close, yet far away,” she said hoarsely.
Amber stepped down out of the machine and returned to the quiet workshop. Henry was sitting in a chair sleeping. She gently shook him. When he woke up he seemed relieved to see her.
“Help me destroy this?”
She stood beside her groom clad in a delicate white dress. Henry took her shaking hand in his as they faced the priest. Her heart beat loudly as they recited their vows to one another. Amber quickly glanced into the guests and spotted near the back a familiar couple. The stood out amongst the rest of the crowd in their casual light winter coats. The coats she had seen them in last time and a few other times she spotted them. She shot them a smile like she did every time she saw them.
“You may now kiss the bride.”
From time to time she thought about her parents, drifting off in a confusing whirlwind of time. Amber soon realized that the distinction between past, present and future is only an illusion. People have always assumed that time is something so linear and set. But it is actually quite the opposite. Time is relative. One person’s past is another’s future. The best we can do is live our lives accepting, not trying to figure out the rest of our and everyone else’s timelines- we’re not meant to know what happens to us.
Amber tossed the unrelenting gears down on the table. She was currently trying to build a wind up toy car, but it refused to cooperate. Her grandfather could make any toy work; even the most far-fetched idea. It was like he had a magical touch. Amber looked down at her grease-covered hands and sighed. The ‘magical touch’ had clearly not been passed down to her.
She stood from the workshop table and stretched her hands over her head. Yawning, Amber shut off the overhead lamp and made her way over to the bed. She lived in the upstairs, workshop part of the building and below, on the first level, was the toyshop started by her grandfather. Amber’s parents died when she was very young and her grandfather took her in and began to teach her how to build toys.
He held up a small doll, a special one he had made just for Amber. “Amber, remember this one day when you grow older and forget the magic of toys.”
The tiny girl giggled, covering her mouth with her tiny hands. “Will I have grey hair like grandpa?”
“No, I’m afraid you won’t believe again until you get grey hair. When you feel like you are wise you will lose faith. Faith in the happiness that toys bring little children, in the love that a toy maker puts into their toys, in the complex simplicity of a child’s mind.”
She scrunched up her nose, clearly confused. He patted her head and handed her the doll before smiling and walking away.
Amber threw up a small basketball into the air and expected it to fall into her hands again, but it never returned.
“Looking for this?” a voice said behind her.
She didn’t bother to turn around, “Funny, Henry.”
He walked over to the desk and leaned against it, tossing the basketball in his hands. “It’s Sunday, the only day the shop is closed, why aren’t you building?”
She slumped over in her chair, burying her head in her arms on the desk. Her voice was muffled when she said, “I don’t know. It’s like I’ve got toy makers block or something.” She lifted her head slightly and pushed over a pile of half completed toys. “Everything I make turns to crap halfway through.”
“Maybe you just need a break. Take a day off or something. Everyone’s creativity runs out sometimes.”
“I’ll try that, thanks Henry.”
The basketball dropped to the ground and Amber glanced to Henry curiously. His mouth was open in shock. “You’re being nice to me for once?! What’s this? You’re thanking me for something? Someone record this moment in history.”
She whacked his stomach before laughing.
Amber shut the shop’s front door behind Henry. They had eaten junk food and watched movies in an attempt to get Amber’s muse back. Even if it didn’t work, she had fun and it had gotten her mind off of the having to make toys.
She was sweeping the workshop’s floor when her broom knocked over the doll given to her by her grandfather. It rolled underneath the workbench out of reach. She kneeled down onto the floor and reached her hand under. When she didn’t find the doll she laid down on her stomach and looked into the darkness. Amber thought she had spotted it and groped the floor searching for it. Her hand brushed something and she attempted to grasp it. When her hand grabbed it she was shocked by the cold touch. It was metal and felt like a lever to something. Curious, she pulled it.
The desk started to make noise as gears and pulleys shifted places. Amber scrambled to her feet and stood in front of the aged bench. After a few seconds a drawer that was previously invisible popped out of the side. Amber took a few steps closer and peered inside. It was a simple leather bound notebook that, upon closer inspection Amber realized, was stamped with her grandfather’s initials. Carefully she grabbed the notebook from the drawer. Amber hesitantly unwrapped the string closure and opened the book.
'Amber, if you’re reading this I presume you’ve probably come to a time in your life where you’ve finally forgotten the magic. All is not lost, it is still there. You just have to search for it.'
The message puzzled Amber. She flipped through the rest of the pages, but they were blank. She shook the book, checking for any loose pages when an envelope fell out. It landed on the hardwood floor, her grandfather’s large handwriting facing up.
The inside of the envelope simply held a blue piece of paper and when she opened it up it revealed blueprints for something. It looked like a tall box with windows and a door. There was no title to the plans, just a drawing of a clock in the corner.
“I feel like I have to build this, I don’t know what it is or what it does, but I have to.”
“What about the shop? The orders?” Henry was always the sensible one of the pair.
“I have enough in storage to get me through the week and it’s the slowest time of year, there aren’t many orders.”
“And what if this… contraption you build does nothing?”
“It doesn’t matter, I know my grandfather wanted me to build it. He stuck it in a notebook with a message to me and the envelope was labeled ‘Beary’. He’s the only one that called me that.” Her voice got quieter, “I think I have to build this to find that magic again. He warned me that one day I would stop believing, I would lose it until I grew old again or found it myself. I need to find it Henry, I need to.”
For days on end Amber worked tirelessly on the unknown project. She simply followed the instructions and as the booth-like thing came to life before her, she still had no clue what it would do. Henry would keep her company, just silently sit there and grade papers or other things teacher’s aids do.
Soon she reached the final step in the blueprint. But she had no idea what to do. There was simply a small drawing of a part that Amber had never seen in her life before. Frustrated, she threw down her screwdriver.
Henry didn’t even look up from the textbook he was reading. “What is it?”
“I just need this one part, and it will be finished. But I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s a weird set of gears and something sticking out of it. It’s really intricate and I have no idea how to recreate it.”
“Just wait. It will come to you,” he finally looked up, “it always does.”
Amber decided to put her little side project on hold for a while as she caught up with orders that were due for the shop. Halfway through building a train set she realized that she was out of screws. She headed into the back room that held all the extra supplies. For the train set she needed a very specific type of screw and they were in the bin all the way on the top of the shelf. When she stood on the step ladder to reach the container it was not there, but a clock (one she had never seen in the workshop before) took its place.
Stepping down from the ladder, Amber examined the foreign object in her hands. Between the two bells was a small piece of paper rolled up. Inside all that was written was ‘You have to search a little.’
She screwed in the final piece- the inside of the old alarm clock, and had expected something. She expected it to start spinning or lighting up or something. When it did neither of those things or anything else, she was slightly disappointed. Even the doorknob she installed wouldn’t budge.
Amber sighed and sat cross-legged on the floor. She took her wooden doll in her lap and her fingers ran over the beautiful cursive inscription on the back. She whispered it aloud, “Love is the master key that opens the gates of happiness.”
She paused, “He wouldn’t? Was he already leaving me clues?” She slowly stood up and walked over to the contraption. “Could it?”
Amber slowly inserted the legs of her childhood present into the small key hole on the door. She turned the doll and the doorknob at the same time and the door creaked open. She stepped inside the little room, slowly turning around finally seeing the inside of the object she had built. As she almost completed her rotation she noticed a shadow on the wall. It was an outline of a heart created by the light passing through a group of gears.
“It seems like grandpa is leaving me clues everywhere to figure out how to work this thing.” She tapped her lower lip with her thumb, “Heart….”
Amber jokingly asked her grandfather where he kept all his toy making secrets. And he tapped his head, “It’s all in here,”
Then tapped over his heart, “but the way to a man’s secrets is through his heart.” Amber owned a small heart box, it was ceramic and she had no idea what it was for or when she had even gotten it. She assumed her parents gave it to her when she was too little to remember and before they had died.
“Thanks Grandpa,” she said before smashing the heart onto the table. Amongst the broken pieces there were folded pieces of paper. The handwriting was small and loopy- like a girl’s. It was very different from her grandfather’s, the one she knew so well.
'Dearest Amber,
I regret to say that this is goodbye. Reading this you are probably thinking that it is impossible to say goodbye to someone you had never known. Your father and I would want nothing more in life than to have been able to see you grow up, really see you grow up. Not simply visit the future you, but go through all the times you’ve cried, nurse every injury, sit up with you while you worked on school projects, see you on your wedding day and actually know the man you’re marrying and know the exact day you met and when you got engaged. We would want to experience all the things normal parents experience with their little girls.
I shall try to explain to you everything as best as I can. Your father was an amazing toy maker, possibly better than your grandfather. But he didn’t want to just make toys- he wanted to make things that would change human kind. For years he had been working on something, a project that he wouldn’t let me or even your grandfather see. It turns out that he was able to successfully build a time machine. He began to travel forwards and backwards into time. He became obsessed with it. He would tell me all the things he saw and things that would happen in the future. He even visited you later on in your life. He knew more about the grown up you then the present you.
What your grandfather and I didn’t know was the effect traveling time had on a person. You become disoriented if you don’t pay close attention. Trips in close succession could potentially confuse you. You lost track of what current time even was.
Your father from a trip and seemed extremely distraught. He would not stop repeating ‘I have to go back. I have to fix it.’ One day he actually went back. There was one thing your dad made sure never to do- return to the same day in time twice. At that time he was slowly losing his mind from the constant traveling and I knew I’d have to go in after him. I’m writing this as I prepare to leave, because I know your father is planning to do something that could possibly alter time in some way.
I told your grandfather that I would go after him- try to bring him back. Deep down I knew that if I went wherever he went there was a very slim chance I would come back, let alone bring him back with me. I gave specific instructions to destroy the machine if I didn’t return in 48 hours. But, I told him to set up a series of clues for you to find when you grew older along with the blueprints for the very machine that took us away from you. If there is someone that could recreate this machine, it would be you. I figured you deserved the chance to see your parents. Before I tell you the date of our current timeline, I want you to understand the risks. You may not come back to the present. You may leave behind whomever you love and you could possibly regret it for the rest of your life.
It is a hard decision, but it is your decision nonetheless. Remember, above all things, we loved you and we do love you- wherever we may be.'
Henry folded up the letter after finishing reading it. “You don’t have to go you know?”
“I know,” Amber sat completely still, something very rare because she is always moving or doing something with her hands. “But I want to. I want to see my parents and know why they disappeared on this specific date in time. I think I’ll finally get answers.”
He stood outside the door of the time machine as Amber stepped inside. He grabbed her shoulders and forced her to look at him.
“Promise me you’ll come back. No matter what you see.”
She stared at his eyes and the words of her mother replayed in her mind. You may leave behind whomever you love. And you could possibly regret it for the rest of your life.
Amber stood on her tiptoes and kissed him slowly on the mouth. He responded by wrapping his arms around her back. A few seconds later she pulled back and whispered, “I promise.”
Inside the time machine Amber turned the dials until they read the date specified in her mom’s letter. Pulling down the lever, the machine began to feel like it was spinning. It slowly gained speed and a blinding light began to enter the booth. After what felt like an eternity, the booth stopped. Slowly she regained her balance and orientation and she then reached for the door.
She stepped out into a bright day, about mid afternoon. She was still in Korea, she recognized the street that was between her school and the shop. Amber walked along the sidewalk enjoying the warm spring air. Suddenly Amber spotted a younger version of herself across the street wearing a school uniform walking home to the shop. She couldn’t remember exactly what day it was; it was just a normal day in high school. She also noticed a couple strolling behind the girl lost in her own world with earphones in her ear. She quickly recognized them as her parents from the pictures hanging in the shop. The walked slowly, arms linked like there was no care in the world. Amber stopped and watched as a truck ran a red light and the girl, oblivious, started to cross the street. The man, her father, lunged forward and pulled young Amber back onto the curb. She suddenly remembered this day, she hadn’t thought about it much when it had happened, but someone saved her life that day and it was her parents.
The girl quickly thanked the man and woman before continuing her walk. The young couple seemed to have old souls as they looked at each other and slowly smiled. They linked arms once again and turned around, walking back in the direction they had just came from.
“Mom? Dad?” Amber said hesitantly as she stopped the couple. The two only smiled at her, no evidence of shock or surprise on their faces at all.
“You finally came,” said her mother. Amber studied their faces. Her mother was pretty. She was much shorter than her father and her hair was cut in a stylish bob. Her facial features were small and dainty. Shifting her gaze to her father, there was only one word Amber would use to describe him- handsome.
After a while she finally spoke, “You went back. To save me?”
Her dad nodded. His deep voice spoke, “I had become obsessed with visiting you in the future. I saw your first steps, words, and day of school before it even happened in present time. I even witnessed what was supposed to be your death. It tortured me, I couldn’t just sit back and watch you be killed in an accident like that. I knew I could prevent it; I just had to go back and save you. Your mother came after me but I refused to let her take me back before saving you. As you can see, we succeeded. But we didn’t think of the consequences. We had altered someone’s timeline drastically, to make up for it our timeline changed. We can travel to any time period, forwards or backwards but we cannot travel to whatever is present time. Essentially- we are dead in present time, but we live in the past and the future. Our timeline is no longer chronological.”
Her mother cut in, reaching for her husband’s elbow. “We don’t regret any of it. We did what any other parent would do. We feel like we’ve still seen you grow up- your graduation, wedding, and birth of your first child. Because our timeline was altered we were able to visit all of the future events and things that had already happened to you. We just could never visit the present you- the you that would actually be able to experience seeing us.”
Amber’s eyes welled up with tears that slowly overflowed. Her parents slowly embraced her and they stood as a mother and father meeting their child for the first time. “You were always so close, yet far away,” she said hoarsely.
Amber stepped down out of the machine and returned to the quiet workshop. Henry was sitting in a chair sleeping. She gently shook him. When he woke up he seemed relieved to see her.
“Help me destroy this?”
She stood beside her groom clad in a delicate white dress. Henry took her shaking hand in his as they faced the priest. Her heart beat loudly as they recited their vows to one another. Amber quickly glanced into the guests and spotted near the back a familiar couple. The stood out amongst the rest of the crowd in their casual light winter coats. The coats she had seen them in last time and a few other times she spotted them. She shot them a smile like she did every time she saw them.
“You may now kiss the bride.”
From time to time she thought about her parents, drifting off in a confusing whirlwind of time. Amber soon realized that the distinction between past, present and future is only an illusion. People have always assumed that time is something so linear and set. But it is actually quite the opposite. Time is relative. One person’s past is another’s future. The best we can do is live our lives accepting, not trying to figure out the rest of our and everyone else’s timelines- we’re not meant to know what happens to us.