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is for real, I'm sure Doc will make me relive the whole horrific event at some point.

  Five years later, while I was working a job at the local grocery store, I got a call informing me that Dad had died of a massive heart attack. I hung up the phone and went back to work. I'd grown so cold to the world around me that I didn't even care. Not very Christian-like, I know. After settling Dad's affairs, I moved into a studio apartment a few blocks away. And that's how I've spent the last five years of my life.

  I just don't understand people. I've tried; Lord knows how I've tried. I've read my Bible and prayed to God for understanding. I've gone to work telling myself to look for the good in people, to give them the benefit of the doubt, to love them despite their short-comings, to give of myself to others as Christ gave to us. But every time I try to see good in people, they show me their worst sides. After years of working in the retail industry, I can safely say that the majority of the people in this country are selfish, conceited, uptight, unloving, and unforgiving parasites. The only thing they seem to care about is what they can get, how little they have to give up for it, and how much they are worshiped throughout the whole process. Every day I try to love people.

  But every day I grow to hate them more.

  And so, after a particularly bad day at work a few years ago, I really needed to talk to someone. I felt like I was on the verge of insanity. I got into my aeromobile, unsure of where I was going or what I was trying to find. I knew I wanted to die. I wanted out. I was sick of trying to push forward with this life. I was tired of trying to be a part of society. I cried out to God, tears streaming from my eyes. Through blurred vision, I caught a glimpse of a sign for a Christian psychiatric care center as I turned a corner. Inside, I told them I needed help and I needed it bad. I was crying like a baby, begging for someone to fix me. That's when Doc came out of his office to investigate the commotion.

  I've been going to him weekly ever since. He somehow thinks that I could make major progress in overcoming my issues if I can find a way to understand and make peace with the events of my past.

  And that's where this time-travel treatment comes in. It is supposed to give me a new perspective on the events that have left such deep emotional scars. I don't know how that could be possible. But what I do know is that I can't keep living like this. I don't want to hate people anymore. I don't want to be terrified to leave my apartment anymore. I don't want to hate my job anymore. I don't want to run away from relationships anymore. I don't want to blame God for my pain anymore. I don't want to be scared of the world anymore.

  I don't want to be this person anymore.

  Enough is enough. It's time for a change.

  Monday - Day 1

  This time-travel stuff is real.

  This is no hoax, no scam, no bluff. I shouldn't have doubted. Doc was one hundred percent serious about this therapy. Today, we took a test run to get myself familiar with the Chronopod—that's what Doc calls the time machine—and I saw things I never thought possible.

  I arrived at Doc's office a little after eight in the morning. He greeted me at the door; his secretary doesn't usually come in until after nine.

  "Good morning, Herbert," he said, opening the glass door to his office. "I trust you slept well?"

  "I guess," I told him. "Can't say I'm looking forward to this."

  "You've nothing to fear. I won't let anything happen to you. Come; the Chronopod awaits."

  Doc led me down a long hallway past his office and study. Most of the lights were still off as his first patients weren't scheduled to arrive for hours. The door at the end was locked electronically; only by holding each of his fingers against a scanner could he release the mechanism. When the door finally slid open, I couldn't help but feel a bit intimidated.

  The Chronopod stood in the center of the dark room. It looked like a giant pill of some kind, a steel capsule no less than twelve feet tall with a single circular window. Wires, tubes, and hoses ran from the lower portion of the pod into the floor. The rest of the room was barren with the exception of a couple of chairs near the far wall. It almost looked like something that Doc had picked up at a garage sale somewhere and tossed into storage to be forgotten. But he'd told me last night that the unit would be powered and ready to go by morning, and the blinking green button on its side seemed to indicate just that.

  "Don't worry," he assured me. "It has been thoroughly tested. I can assure you that there is no need for concern."

  I wasn't so convinced. "Are you sure half of me won't end up in one year and half of me in another?"

  For some reason, despite the fact that I don't entirely trust him, Doc's smile always has a way of comforting me. I imagine it to be similar to the way a father's smile warms his child's heart, though I have no such experience to draw from. Still, in many ways, Doc has been my father for the past three years. Anyway, what he said next shocked me.

  "I'm going with you. So I will share in whatever fate awaits you. Does that help calm your nerves?"

  I had not known he was planning to come with me. I expected he'd keep himself from danger and stay in the safety of his office. Still, that didn't make me feel better. No, it actually made things a little worse. "Not really," I admitted.

  Doc, always contemplative, pressed his old glasses against the bridge of his nose and raised an eyebrow. "Oh? And why not?"

  By now, he's more than familiar with my obsessive worries and paranoia. I've come to find that if something can go wrong in my life, it will not only do so, but it will go so terribly wrong that the negative effects will stretch to limits that not even my pessimistic mind had anticipated. Most people like me see the glass as half-empty. I see the glass as half-empty, cracked, and leaking.

  I know, you're probably rolling your eyes. I'm not surprised you don't understand; truthfully, I don't get it either. That's why I'm in therapy.

  "Because if, by some chance, something happens to you and not me, I'll spend the rest of my life knowing that you died while trying to help me with my petty problems."

  Doc shook his finger at me. "I've told you a number of times that your problems are not petty in any way. It is a diverse world we live in, Herbert. Different things affect different people in different ways. Your difficulties don't make you any less sane than anyone else. Don't assume your struggles to be insignificant simply because other people have problems that you perceive to be worse."

  I couldn't help but roll my eyes. I knew what he was trying to do for me, but I wasn't buying it. I didn't dare say so, though. That was a lecture I didn't need to hear again. Instead, I changed the subject. "So how does this work?"

  "Simple," Doc said, pressing the green button. A holographic keypad appeared above it, and he typed in a rather long passcode. The Chronopod split open with a hiss, revealing a surprisingly roomy interior. Wide enough to fit two people comfortably, the capsule housed little more than a padded blue bench and a panel of colored buttons on the inside wall. "Have a seat."

  If I said I wasn't afraid, I'd be a liar. I was terrified. Despite everything, I was still having trouble accepting that traveling through time was even possible. How could such a scientific breakthrough have occurred without my hearing about it on the news? And how in the world did a random shrink in Ohio get his hands on such technology? It all seemed so unbelievable to me. And yet, there was the issue of my health insurance. They were covering the expenses. That meant it had to have some sort of legitimacy, right?

  I was about to find out just how legitimate the whole thing was.

  With great apprehension, I took a seat on the left side of the bench. Doc sat down to my right and tapped a couple of buttons. The hatch slowly closed. My heart raced. I think I was sweating; I don't remember. But that fatherly smile never left Doc's old face. He reached beneath the bench and pulled out a crown-like ring of steel. A pulsing line of blue light ran around the circumference of the thing, an
d the inner portion of it was padded with little circles of what looked like rubber.

  "This is the memory reader," Doc explained. "Since it is highly unlikely that you remember the exact dates of every event in your life—significant or otherwise—this will allow us to return to the approximate moment and location of whatever memory you desire."

  "Won't people be a bit freaked out if they see this giant capsule appearing in the middle of, say, a schoolyard?"

  Doc shook his head, brushing his artificially darkened hair from his eyes. "The unit is equipped with a holographic projector. It will read your memory and disguise itself as something appropriate to the time period and environment to which we are traveling. So if we wind up in a park, it will look like a tree to everyone else."

  That didn't quite solve the problem as far as I could see. "Okay, so instead of seeing a giant metal capsule appear, they'll see a tree appear? That doesn't seem any less conspicuous to me."

  He placed the metal crown on my head and fitted it so that the little pieces of rubber were pressed firmly against my forehead. "You're worrying too much. The device is designed to seek out unpopulated areas in which to appear. And even if someone does see it, what can they do about it? Run to their friends and tell them a magic tree or vehicle just appeared out of nowhere?