The Only Solution

Whenever I see him on the screen, I feel my fingers clenching. It’s as if they’re practicing the motion for when I squeeze the life from his small body. And it will happen soon. Finally.

I’ve watched the boy for years. Watched him grow from an infant to a toddler to the preteen he is now. He smiles easily. His heart is innocent and carefree. I will make sure it stops beating.

One of my recent breakthroughs took me beyond the viewing screen and allowed me to transport into his room as he slept. I hadn’t perfected my technique to be there physically at that point, but that was coming. Just my consciousness would travel. I floated over his bed and gazed down. My hatred seethed, and, for a moment, I feared he sensed my presence because his eyes flew open and he gasped.

If he did detect me, he couldn’t have known. He probably assumed it was just a bad dream. I watched as his eyelids grew heavy and he drifted off again. My acorporeal self smirked as I pictured those eyes never opening again.

Through these encounters, I’ve missed my wife. The love of my life had been taken from me by the hated creature so blissfully sleeping in his bed. He had no idea what kind of monster he would become in the future. Memories of my beloved’s soft touch flooded my mind as I estimated how many times I could stab the boy through his face before I’d be forced to stop.

Yesterday, I managed to solve the missing part of my experiment. The first few years I was limited to the view screen. A year ago, I conquered the problem of mind movement. Now, finally, I can physically bridge the span of time. My mind and body can cross over. I can stand, strong and powerful, over the murderer in his bed. His strength will be no match for mine. If he sees me and screams, it won’t matter. Help will be too far away.

I write this now as I prepare to make that temporal journey to bring my wife back into the world. I glow with sadistic glee as I imagine how I’ll do it; how I’ll destroy her murderer. Will I strangle him, as I’ve so often fantasized? Will I cut his soft throat? Will I decorate his pillow with smeared clumps of the brain that later made the decisions that annihilated the woman I loved?

All of it is up for grabs. The most important thing is that the boy must die. He cannot, under any circumstances, grow up. In these last moments, the glee has grown bittersweet. When it’s all over, my loved one will have been brought back. Her life can resume as if nothing had ever happened.

She’ll never know, though. She’ll never learn about the sacrifice I’m making. Her death had been an accident – a terrible, careless one by a young scientist too egocentric and arrogant to use caution. But that accident is about to be reversed. In a few seconds, I’ll be going back in time to ensure it will never happen. The thought of her reappearing somewhere, safely, when I’m finished, helps make the prospect of killing the child all the better.

Even though it means my wife will have never known me at all.

Even though it means I will blink out of existence.

It’s time to go. Everything I’ve worked so hard to do is coming to fruition. Should this note remain, let it be the only record of my life after the age of 11 — the age I was murdered by my future self.

5 Replies to “The Only Solution”

  1. Well played. I knew there was a twist coming but hadn’t planned on that ?

  2. slightlyirritable says:

    Breathtaking. You’re back with a vengeance.

  3. Teddy Ward says:

    Another great one! I’ve been reading your stories for years now; I love them all. (Particularly the mushroom series but I was unable to comment on them for some reason)

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