Lelani Benevides, “Am i you?”
I don’t even know right now how to express the things that I must do. The power given to me by this mad science. It’s beautiful, like a deer that’s been hit by a car, wheezing as it takes its final breaths. Its sheer raw desperation is shining and clear in this clouded world.
I felt joy once when I saw my adopted mother die—old and decrepit in her hospital bed. I smiled as I saw her pain, though I knew it was nothing compared to the blisters on my own hands, the diseased stump where my foot used to be, and the holes she pierced into my heart. She was disoriented in her last moments, a fog of vertigo cast upon her mind. She thought it was natural. I made sure to orient her properly, my words a guiding light as I leaned down to her ear and said, “Ricin, that’s what you get.” It was enough to make my day, all week.
But it didn’t matter. I was still a high school dropout because of her. Still struggling to keep my head above water in this economic hellscape. People took one look at my tattered clothes and ugly prosthetic leg and turned me away. She screwed me, she killed me good.
And how she looked when she died, it was too fast, too silent. The pain wasn’t enough. She had ruined me forever. I had only ended her life on the backend.
Luckily, in the paper, I saw the solution. A small private lab brought forth a miracle—the revenge seeker’s way of having your cake and eating it too. Time travel. With my dead “mother’s” funds, I bought a gun, a suit to hide my identity, and I broke in. Into the lab, the time machine, and subsequently, into my stepmother’s house 20 years ago.
The polluted night air brought forth a feeling of intense nostalgia. It was the night she first adopted me. My younger self must have been sleeping in the basement by now. It seemed time travel was akin to intense deja vu. My memories solidified back into solid reality. She didn’t want a child; she wanted a little slave. Chains cast in blood and a child’s desire for love. The rage still fuelled me as I opened the back door. I remembered where she hid the key. I could almost feel the bruises reforming from when I discovered it before. She beat me and then hid it again, but that was then.
I heard the TV playing in the living room. My adopted mother no doubt watching her late-night show. It would be so simple to walk up and kill her now from behind, but I didn’t want to do things the easy way. I yelled to get her attention, and my “mother” got up to check what was going on when she saw me standing there in the kitchen, a silhouette clad in a plastic suit of the future—her own personal grim reaper—she began to scream. I pulled out my gun and put a hand to my lips. “Who are you?” she whispered. Stupid woman wasn’t able to shut up.
“Don’t you recognize me?” I said, barely hiding my sadistic glee. I pulled off my mask to let her see. It wouldn’t matter. This was the perfect crime. Back in these days, DNA evidence wasn’t a thing. Even if it was, I was careful to wear latex gloves. All I would have to do is pull the tiger and then go somewhere in time that was nice, 2000s maybe. Stop 9/11 and be a hero. That would be fun.
My adopted mother looked confused when she saw my face.
“You still don’t get it,” I said. “Why would you? I suppose you’ve only known me for a month at this point.”
“I’ve never met you in my life.”
“You did. Of course, then I was only eight.”
She still looked perplexed and scared now. A mad frenzy of brain waves crackling like electricity connecting into absurdity. You can’t negotiate with that, and it had just broken into her house with a gun, pointing a lead-wrapped present at her.
That’s when I saw him. My younger self is turning the corner, cautious, curious, desperate for love. I’m a fool. I must have woken him up with all my talking. Looking at him, I was impressed by his innocence. He was the picture of purity, standing there without the scars, the ugliness. I couldn’t help but fixate on his intact foot. It made the void of mine seem deeper. He could still run while I could only limp. I had to remember—I wasn’t doing this for me. I was doing this for him.
“Go back to bed,” I said to him. “You may never understand, but this is for your own good.”
He ran away, no doubt in fear. Good. I didn’t want to taint him by seeing this. I turned back to my adopted mother. Still there, petrified. Not for revenge. She would never know who I was. Seeing my younger self reminded me she didn’t need to. The fires of hell transcended time and space. She was the sort of person who would not escape. All that will be left is the pull of a trigger. A cause and effect ending in miraculous red fireworks. Its aftermath leaving behind the human stain, the shit from an amazing meal.
BAM! The body of the murderer hit the floor. It was only now that I realized he was wearing the same clothes as me. He wielded the same gun. And I now saw he had the same face. Interesting then. It seemed like the person who had ruined my life—who had killed my adopted mother before I could even begin to live a life with a real family—was another time-traveling me all along. My adopted mother screamed. I told her to call the police; then I headed out into the night. An angel flying back to the stars. Escape would be easy enough. Maybe somewhere in time that was nice, 2000s Maybie. Stop 9/29, be a hero. That would be fun.