The sweat pours from my brow: fucking waterfall. I stop the flow using the dirty rag with a faded stencil of last year’s hot new band.
The rag not nearly as dirty as my fingers on this keyboard, on this mouse, finishing this final task. There’s no goodbye like self-censorship.
Twenty years, six months, two days and let’s see, nine hours and fourteen minutes of my life: deleted. Can’t be too careful. Everything I’ve ever written, every note, journal, spec, most importantly the specs, gone from digital remembrance.
Delete.
But not the fleshy memory. I can’t forget.
The haunting memories stole that first year from my life, but not the rest. I set to work, and when a boy of twelve decides that physics is cool, you know something big is coming down the cosmic assembly line.
This is the product of my life. This, time machine. No gull-wing doors, no yellow pages of history. No ethical dilemma.
Flip the switch.
I couldn’t save you the first time.
Shoot the father.
I’m coming sis.
I’m Coming was first published online for the now defunct ficlets, and is archived at the ficlets memorial.
© 2007 Jon Thysell. Some Rights Reserved.
I’m Coming by Jon Thysell is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Jon Thysell 