Free The Egg Said Nothing by Caris O'Malley Page B

possible to affect oneself by altering the past?

    “Listen up, retard, I’m going to say this one more time. You’re not smart enough to understand.”

    “I see.” I exaggeratedly stuck out my lower lip. I picked up the claw hammer and smashed it down on the ball of his ankle. He screamed in pain. His body convulsed as he tried to grab his ankle, but he was too well bound.

    “What the fuck?” he screamed. “Why did you do that?”

    “Make it happen,” I said, glaring at him.

    His face was contorted in pain. “Make what happen?”

    I raised the hammer again.

    “No! Stop! What do you want me to do? Tell me!”

    “Make me go back and stop Ashley from getting killed,” I said.

    “It can’t be done,” he replied.

    I gave his ankle a gentle tap at ground zero. He cried out.

    There was an embarrassing scream, and another version of me ran from the bedroom, shovel blazing. A third me intercepted him, tackling him to the ground. The two rolled around the floor.

    “Hold him down!” I yelled to no one in particular, and rushed to the aid of the one who seemed to have the upper hand. Together, we bound the weaker one in tape. The other collapsed to the floor, grateful that the altercation was over. I swung my foot back and kicked my exhausted double in the head, sending him flying backwards. Leaping upon him, I pinned his flailing arms to the ground with my knees and punched him in the face until he stopped struggling. Then I taped him up.

    I sat there staring at the now empty roll of tape. Something had to happen now; my plan had to evolve. There wasn’t much I could do to hold off more time infiltrators. I could kill them, of course, but, honestly, it was pretty tiring.

    “Listen up, you bastards,” I said, waiting until all of their eyes were on me. “Let’s think this through.”

    “You need to kill yourself,” the first one said, struggling against his restraints. “And us.”

    “Whoa, fuck that!” said the third one. “Kill him if he wants it so bad!”

    “I said listen, not talk,” I replied, losing patience. I waited until their collective mumbling died down. “Okay. There are four of us here. None of you belong. Do any of you know about this time travel business?”

    I paused, waiting for a response.

    “You mustn’t do this!” the annoying one shouted. I picked up the shovel and walked over to him. I swung it down on his head.

    “You must shut the fuck up,” I said to his limp body. “Now, you two. Do you know anything about this shit?”

    “A little bit,” one of them said.

    “Hit me,” I replied.

    He cringed. “Well, you can’t do the time travel thing yet yourself. You have to attain the knowledge first. Just because you will be able to do it in the future doesn’t mean that all of your past selves can. What you need is to focus on changing the present.”

    “What about Ashley?” I asked.

    He paused for a moment, thinking. “Well, I think you’ve probably got a shot at that. By the looks of it, you’ve already fucked time and space all up. Why not go all out? I’d reckon you could save Ashley by killing an earlier version of yourself.”

    “That sounds like a horrible idea,” I said.

    “Agreed, but I can’t see any other way. You can’t bring her back from the dead. It just doesn’t work like that. But if you were to destroy yourself before you ever met her, you, or any version of yourself, couldn’t possibly kill her, could you? I guess it comes down to whose life you value more.” He struggled against his restraints. “And we all know which one that is.”

    “We do?” I asked.

    “We do,” he replied. “That said, I don’t think it’ll be too difficult. There are probably different versions of yourself already hunting down earlier versions. You’ve got no reason to think your particular time or self special.”

    “But, if I was attacked in the past, wouldn’t I remember it?”

    “Maybe. Like I said, you fucked everything up.