Fizzy.
I didn’t have to go back very far. Just a few days.
I gave myself such a shock when I answered the door to me, my face was a picture. I took some convincing, which was very annoying, but eventually, after telling me what I did to my neighbour's car when we were a child, something no one else ever found out about, and the name of every girl I’d ever imagined whilst masturbating in my teenage years (even the really dodgy ones) I managed to convince myself to accept my own story.
I hid out in old me’s accommodation at the university, curtains drawn and clasping a Lotto ticket. I’d sent younger me to buy the ticket and had laughed when he came back with three sets of numbers even though I’d given him the six that would be drawn in a couple of day’s time.
“I thought that would look suspicious.” I’d said when I’d asked me. (Having spent time with me, I now realised that I needed to knock the weed on the head.)
We, or I and I, parted company at the train station. I would get the next train, arriving a little late at my destination, while the younger me went to meet a time traveler and receive the most valuable book ever written. Once other-me began his journey back to meet his even younger other me, which of course was his younger him, my timeline was restored. I would buy a house made of gold with the proceeds of being the only winner on a third consecutive Lotto rollover.
A vast fortune, made two pounds less vast by my stupid other me’s attempts to hide our impossible fraud by adding two lucky-dips to the ticket.
The book contained page after page of dates, along with the details of what happened then, or when. I’m knew to all this, I’m struggling with my tenses.
My brother’s wedding went well. Hairy Sarah tried to get a little overly-friendly towards the end of the evening, but I went back to my hotel alone and without being drunk. Tomorrow was going to be far too important a day to carry a hangover. Tomorrow I would be phoning Camelot and claiming my winnings.
Flopping onto the bed, the notebook by my side, I unlocked my phone. Messages galore. Text messages, emails, Tweets, Facebook posts asking how “gorg” my friend’s “lil man” or “babba girl” or “wee princess” is. Just as I was about to put down the phone and pick up the book another email came through, this one from a committee I was thinking of becoming involved in at university, asking me to be responsible for something or other. I tossed the phone to one side and picked up the folder, emptying it’s contents onto the sheets beside me as I lifted the receiver of the little, beige phone by the bed and ordered a cheese toasty and half a bottle of Champagne. A poor student from a poor family, I’d never had room service before, but money was shortly to cease being a problem, and I was going to make the most of it.
I smiled at the photograph of the Edwardian chap that lay beside me. Squinting at the equation, I marvelled at the simplicity. It was so obvious, and not just to a physics student such as myself but to anyone with an IQ high enough to be able to tie their own laces.
Now, the mistake the original discoverer of the mistake made was telling the world. I’d watched enough Doctor Who to know that all I had to do was keep it to myself, don’t change anything important and take the secret to the grave whilst living the high life.
“Room service.” The voice followed the gentle knock at the door.
“Coming.” I folded the sheets back to cover the folder and it’s contents, picked up my phone and began scrolling through the email on the screen as I answered the door.
__________
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Chapter select.
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