It's been sixteen years since I've flipped - and that isn't long enough . . .
I once had a curse that I thought was a gift. It was powerful. It was permanent. Just as when I was eight all I had to do to fly was close my eyes and dream it, all I had to do to travel thru time was to think it. Instantly, I was there.
I had thought the power a dream in the beginning, something that only occurred during deep sleep. It wasn't until a small, black dog came into my life that I realized it wasn't a dream. And soon after I began to flip often - to help others only of course. Even when it seems to go wrong, things had a way of working out right. That's the way it was until he walked in.
I first saw him standing outside on the sidewalk, trying to decide whether to come into the shop or turn and go the other way. At first it looked like he had decided to go the other way when he turned and stepped off the curb. For some reason I was glad to see him go and didn't want him to come in my little, out of the way shop.
His back arrow straight, he got as far as the center of the street when he turned around and headed back. Heart pounding, I watched him open my door and enter the small vestibule in the front.
I knew it was over the minute I saw him reach for the door knob. This wonderful little life I've been having these last few years were now gone. I would miss them.
I had never met the man now standing across the counter from me. But I have seen him every day of my life. I didn't know him. Had never met nor spoke to him before, except in my mind. Now here he was. He was older than I, maybe my 10 years. It was hard to tell - he was in much better shape than I and in much better shape than I had been when the flipping started.
Someone once said that a person travels through life not in a straight line but in a series of infinite loops. Normally people tend to think of life linearly - a straight time line - like a string stretching across to poles, where life begins at one and ends at the other. But I have discovered that life is not like that straight string - instead it constantly weaves its way around through many different realities, crossing over, touching and intersecting many as its makes its way from the beginning to the end. Where the life line touches its possible to transfer from that point in time to another - continuously jumping from time to time. The problem with this is that it tends to be haphazard at best and totally undependable at worst. Can you imagine deciding to take the train to Talahassie, packing, taking the taxi to the station, and then finding out that the train only goes to Miami today and may not go to Miami at all on the day you want to return. Why take the train? Well, if it was the only way to go you just go for it. In time travel, the string was the train. At least at first.
I had taken that train - many times - and had learned how to read the schedule. The train had stopped running sixteen years ago when I lost my belief in it.
