Time Trouble

“What the fuck is a ‘temporal paradox’?”

You remembered asking that question of your friend at a garage sale years ago. Now, you had nothing. Nothing, in a time when you didn’t even exist. You had no parents, no way to get back home. You had lost your friend somewhere in the jump, and now you were all alone.

That didn’t curb your desire to return to your time. It didn’t hold back your rage, even as you were held in an orphanage until you were eighteen. You scoffed at the absurdity of it all.

An orphan in my own time and this one, you thought to yourself.

 In all honesty, you were prepared to spend the rest of your life full of hatred, working out a way to bring your friend back. Or, at least, get revenge on the asshole that sold you that “temporal paradox.”

One day, however, many years after you’d been ripped away from your own time, you found your attention captured by a man across the street. He wasn’t as clean as many of the other men in town. A drifter, from the looks of it, wearing ratty clothing but holding a smile on his face.

Something about him was captivating, and before you knew it, you had struck up a conversation. He didn’t talk at all about his past, and what he did talk about seemed full of confusing twists and turns. That didn’t dampen the love you felt for him, but it did melt away whatever anger and frustration you may have felt about your situation.

When you found out you were pregnant, the drifter vanished from your life. He made the usual claim of stepping out for work, only to never return. You resented the man who had done this to you, but knew that whatever love you felt for him was still some kind of real.

The baby was born perfectly healthy. She was all right in every regard. Breathing, crying, and sleeping normally.

You, however, were not all right. The delivery had taken its toll on your body, and in the process of saving your life, the doctors made a discovery you’d been fighting to keep hidden your entire life. You were intersex, born with both sets of sex organs. They had never caused you any trouble up until this point, but now the doctors were telling you there was only one way to survive: they had to remove the damaged parts and stitch you up with whatever remained, hoping you’d live a normal life. As a man.

Whatever, you thought. As long as I live to raise my daughter.

Then the news rolled in. Although the first presentation had been nominal, closer inspection had revealed that your daughter was also intersex. The doctors said they would be willing to try corrective surgery, but that your daughter’s chances of survival were low. You decided against it. After all, you had managed to live with it, and you could help her through it.

You were happy for the first time since the drifter had left. You were at peace. You had your daughter.

Until you didn’t even have her. One of the nurses shook you awake in the early hours of the morning, frantically telling you that your daughter was missing from the nursery. You tried to rise and chase after whoever had taken her, wherever they may have been, but you were too weak to take even a few steps.

Your life took a downward turn. You had lost everything, and your new status as a man—even if medically necessary—had labeled you as an outcast. You fell heavily into alcohol, which took up whatever funds remained available to you. You became a drifter, staggering from bar to bar, caring not if the clothes you wore became ratty and full of holes.

It was in year seven of your drunkenness that you stumbled into a bar beneath an overpass. It was dim and grungy, with a small neon sign that read “Pops’ Place.” There wasn’t anyone there besides the bartender, but that was good enough for you.

You staggered over to the bar, sat yourself down, and with a drink or two extra in your system, spilled your life story. The bartender—no doubt Pops—seemed to listen with only kindness in his heart, nodding along and offering comforting nothings here and there.

However, when you finished your spiel, the bartender said something peculiar, something about avenging the strange drifter who had left you pregnant and sent you on your downward spiral.

You perked up. Of course, you would leap at the opportunity. The condition, however, was that you join the Time Travelers Corps. You didn’t know what it was, and in your drunken state, couldn’t remember the temporal paradox that had led you down this path long before the drifter had. You agreed without a second thought.

With a slight smile, the bartender led you to a time machine in his backroom. Your first stop was seven years back, according to the bartender. The year that the drifter had taken everything from you.

You shuffled out onto the street, finding almost nothing had changed, and you were about to question Pops, only to find the bar had vanished in its entirety.

Fed up with people ruining your life—or perhaps your drunkenness ruining your life, not that you would admit it—you started down the street. If this truly was seven years prior, you were ready to kick some drifter's ass.

At least, that was what you thought. She changed your mind. She was beautiful, young, full of such hope. Yet, at the same time, you could see a fury burning within her eyes. She had a mission, much like you.

When the two of you locked eyes across the street, you saw her hatred soften up, and you found your heart beginning to pound at the sight of a kindred soul.

One thing led to another, and your life took a turn for the better. You maintained your drifter ways, taking her along for the ride, but you made a concerted effort to get over your alcoholism.

When the news arrived about your lover’s pregnancy, you were ecstatic. However, Pops returned then and told you that you must leave. You tried to push back, but he said that it was time to fulfill your end of the promise. Up until that point, you had forgotten, and although you hadn’t yet gotten revenge on the drifter, you had found love.

You agreed, as much as it hurt you to leave behind your lover. Pops dropped you off almost twenty years after you vanished from your lover’s bedside. There, the Time Travelers Corps was beginning to grow, a burgeoning group of individuals striving to keep the timeline secure in both past and future.

You made a name for yourself in the Corps. Everyone respected you, and as you climbed through the ranks, you found a reverence that you hadn’t experienced once in your life.

You had three missions left. That was what you were told. The first was to take up the position of a lowly bartender, serving to recruit people to the Corps’ cause. You thought it was odd, but said nothing as they gave you the disguise and the necessary training.

Then, you were sent back in time. Your given name was Pops, which you considered even odder, but you thought nothing else of it as you took up your place behind the bar.

Your first recruit, the only man to set foot in your “bar” since its opening day, was a drifter dressed in ratty, worn clothing. He shuffled over to the bar, plopped himself down, got a few drinks in him, and spilled his life story.

After listening, you gave him the information he needed to hear. You told him he could get revenge on whoever had wronged him, on one condition: that he join you in the Time Travelers Corps.

He agreed, and you sent him on his way. That was when you were given your next mission. Go back in time and take a lonely newborn from the nursery of a hospital, and drop her off in the future. You thought nothing of it as you scooped her up from her crib, and in a matter of moments, you had left her on the doorstep of an orphanage.

Only your final mission awaited. Go forward in time, carry with you a new state-of-the-art pocket-sized time machine, and make sure a young girl and her friend receive it, disguised as an old man running an estate sale before he moved into assisted living.

You watched with a smile on your face as the target took the bait, picking up a small, translucent cube with a sticker on it that read, “temporal paradox.” Your smile widened into a grin as you heard what the girl asked her friend.

“What the fuck is a ‘temporal paradox’?”