Faces in Time by Lewis E. Aleman Page B

traveler disappear. Once a time traveler goes back in time, it is a new past, one that has nothing to do with the series of events that are responsible for her existence.
    Therefore, how much one changes the new past events is irrelevant. If one can exist in the past environment, one is already a being independent of the future one came from. It is enough to make one’s head spiral into insanity, like trying to grasp the endless repetition of an image caught between two parallel mirrors. But, Chester has grasped the concept completely, at the expense of a normal life, a battered mind, a few years of institutionalization, and countless lonely hours.
    His eyes study the iage on the screen, comparing it to the newspaper photo in his hands. It’s in the exact position as the original with the same zoom and angle. The background is identical; the only difference is the loudmouth woman from the bathroom is looking directly at the camera smiling broadly, while in the old picture the woman with the hat had looked with a modest expression at the award-winning teacher.
    He hasn’t changed the actions of the photographer, the existence of the article, or the end result of the teacher receiving the award, but he had changed the hat, which was his goal, and he still exists along with the original picture in the device.
    Glancing at the time shown in the bottom right corner, 10:16 a.m., he starts to put the device away, but he feels the need to glance at the screen again before returning it to his pocket, verifying his astounding situation a second time.
    He decides to make quick use of his expensive restroom rental before exiting.
    The reclining woman is now sitting upright with the stylist patting a towel to her dripping hair. As he scans over a small framed price sheet, he can hear a faint chortle coming from the chair. Slapping a few worn bills on the counter, he scans the room.
    “I’m sorry to bother you again, but could you tell me what time it is?”
    Not frowning so much since the bills were placed on the counter, the stylist shakes her right hand flinging water off it. Pulling out a small object from her pocket, she glances at it and answers, “10:18.”
    Quietly, “So the time is still right.”
    A quiet snicker-snort, a sniort, is followed by, “When is it not?”
    Shaking his head as he pushes the door open, he thinks to say, “Yeah, uh, thanks,” but nothing comes out of his mouth.
    A whisper rises that is hard to hear but is metered to fit someone saying, “What a weirdo!”
    He’s heard it before.
    He thinks of Rhonda and smiles as he imagines changing the scenery around her sad life, mainly placing himself by her side, but in the least keeping her face intact.
    Walking down the sidewalk, a smile takes possession of his face for the first time since he arrived in the schoolyard, and he can’t find any reason to shoo it away.
    He pulls the handle on his driver’s door and hops in his car. He realizes he has left the door open all night and while he went into the beauty salon; the keys are still in the ignition. He would never have been that careless with the car until now. As it is not as exigent as the ink that is smearing off the thin paper onto his pressing fingers, he sends the thought out of his head.
    He plops the paper on the seat beside him, and fires up the engine. Backing up, his front tire pops off the sidewalk onto the street, and quickly shifting gears he speeds down the narrow lane with cars parked on both sides.

 

     
A razor slides over the brim of his head, but his thoughts remain on walking out of the bars to his left. Long strands of hair drop to the floor in quiet smacks. Baring his skin, removing thick masses of hair, a thin crimson streak running from a knick—it all reminds him of dismembering an animal.
    He’s been incarcerated for four hundred and fifty-eight days, and he holds a separate anger for each one of them. Only one and a quarter years through his twenty-four season