I had turned twenty that day.

My birthday was uneventful. My parents threw a party – of three balloons – and not much else transpired, past our having cake, which I ate only a part of, as I had protested to its introduction to begin with. My parents gave me a notepad to write in. We hadn’t much money, but I would change that, as they would all see one day.

I had turned twenty, and the uneventful day passed in a brisk instant, and the night that followed enveloped me like the warm embracing goddess I had come to love – the night! I always loved the night!

I had retired to my room, where the desklamp rested ready for me upon my arena of creation, blooming like a sun upon the world I would one day create. It was messy, all so messy, nothing in a place that would make belong but so thusly everywhere… it wouldn’t matter! For it would only have to work, and we would be rich – they would see.

I had turned twenty, and sweated at my station, each light flashing and mimicking before me. How would we know? I wondered. I would need a code – yes! a cypher, that would be unmistakable, even through time. I wondered, pondered,– and solved the enigma.

I gave birth to the idea of a system, of flashing lights, that one day, five years from that day precisely, I would send back in time, to tell myself just what I needed to know. That I had discovered time travel! That it was possible! That it was real! And that it was mine!

I had turned twenty, and sat without my room, on the cusp of my window’s balcony, on the precipice of utter gravity, and magnificent creation. I stared at the night sky like I had never before. Consume me! I thought: Consume me creation!

And then,– and then! Like flares of fireworks that burst in miniature supernovas of iridescent brilliance, five blinks of cosmic wonder appeared before mine eyes, and conferred to just that – just that! – which I had marked on the paper before me. Oh my joy! Oh my glee! I had discovered time travel;– oh, well I hadn’t, but I would! And I couldn’t believe my delight! My parents needed to rescue me from my fit of joy, and hospitalise me posthaste, where all that the doctors could surmise was that the only condition which met my mind was that I was, irrefutably, indisputably, and objectively, a genius!

***

I had turned twenty, only a few years gone, and the flares continued to burst in the night sky.

But what did they mean? They were no confirmation, that was only the first, but they were a message! But how was I to understand them? My dots were only rough, only a draft, only a confirmation that coincided with a point in future time, linking like minds through the temporal fabric and confuting their understanding, making me, and me, one! So many flares, and not a single star in the night sky that could help distinguish their significance. All but random noise, it seemed; all but a chaotic spectacle, to behold from one disappointment to the next! How my mind was torn and ravaged by the conundrum. How I despised myself, for not creating structure. Always structure! I would scream, but my admonition came too late; and the nebulous flares bespeckled on, and mine eyes helpless to understand them.

***

I had turned twenty five, and still could not understand the flares. They were coming from the future, but from when!

26.V.2022