“sometimes the things I did really didn’t work”

It surprises me, it really does. I always think I have such great ideas, but somewhere along the way, they fail. Somewhere between A and B there’s this mid-way sort of bump in the road or something and suddenly, this idea, this thing I was so sure of, just doesn’t work.

Like time travel, for example. I was sure I had time travel down. I’m a physisist after all and I’ve studied all the science and even the Hollywood pseudo-science (which really is just plain voodoo but makes for good couch potato sessions). So anyway, I know what’s what and how it could all work, in real life, not in the movies.

I was sure I could go back a year, not long in the grand scheme of things, and therefore much easier, much more obtainable, doable. If I could just go back that one year I could change thing just enough, just that small twerk to make it so that my dad didn’t have to die. I mean, eventually he’d die, we all die eventually, but then, at that moment, it was preventable. And I was going to back and prevent it.

Only it didn’t work. The time travel. I mean, it kinda worked. I was able to jump back to a month ago, then to six months ago, then to three months ago. But it was all chaos. I never knew when I’d be jumping back to or for how long. It sometimes took me as long to recognize when in time I was as it would have taken me to do anything about it. But it should have worked, and even though I learned a little more each time, I wasn’t getting where I needed to be, I wasn’t getting to where

5 Minute Stretch Exercises are a creation of Laura Munson and were learned at Haven Writing Retreats. Write for five minutes, no corrections or stopping.
This prompt was taken from Make Good Art, a speech by Neil Gaiman.