Two

Phillip woke up the next morning, propped himself up on his elbows and looked at the time on his stereo. It was 8:15am, he had slept less than 3 hours. A weird thought popped into his mind. When you sleep, you close your eyes in the past and wake up in the future, every time. He'd been so obssed with beating time that it hadn't occured to him that he did it every night.He was wearing the same shorts and t-shirt he was wearing the night before. The shirt was an old Colorado Rockies t-shirt that had a large ice-cream stain capping the top of a mountain with brown chocolaty mud. The pint from Glacier Ice Cream was the only thing he’d been able to eat last night. Phillip swung his legs over the side of the bed and shimmied his feet into his flip-flops. He walked around the bed and parted the blinds with his index finger and looked outside. The sun was shinning like it was a brand new star and the bushes below his window seemed to be a deeper shade of green. It looked to Phillip like the most beautiful day ever to dawn in Boulder. Things look almost too good to be true, he thought. It was early May and the day might look stunning outside, but the temperature would still be about ten degrees colder than short-sleeves weather ought to be, even for Boulderites. Good enough for jeans and a sweatshirt, he figured. Phillip stepped outside and found at once that his ten degree estimate had been a tad too generous. The Chinook winds that blew over the foothills and pleasantly raised the temperature the day before had given way to the bone-chilling wind that blows from the artic. Phillip considered going back and putting warmer clothes on, but instead jammed his hands into his pockets and walked briskly toward the University. Kristen was waiting and he knew she wouldn’t wait long. At work she had heard Phillip mumbling to himself and endured his behavior grow more erratic and mysterious in the last few weeks and it took a great deal of cajoling to get her to agree to meet him before her classes. He wasn’t even sure what he would tell her, but he had to tell someone. Because once he went back for good, the future as he knew would surely disappear.

One

Phillip opened his eyes slowly, blinking a few times as if he’d just awoken from a deep sleep. The only light came from the TV in the corner of the room, casting gloomy shadows all over the apartment. He looked around, moving only his head from side to side to scan his surroundings. He was sitting on a wooden chair facing his work desk, which was attached to the wall in his living room. Like the wall he was staring at, his mind was completely blank. He experienced no feelings whatsoever. He looked down and saw that his hands were resting on the desktop, relaxed. Too relaxed, like they didn’t feel they belonged to him. He was afraid he would try to move them but they would not respond. He tried wiggling his fingers and the tendons in his hand flexed and all ten fingers moved just fine. Slowly he felt his brain begin to receive a trickle of sensations and thoughts began to form in his head. They were random and seem to come from deep into his mind, bubbling up like a clogged up drain. Next to his right hand, hugging the corner where the desk and wall met, Phillip saw the alarm clock. The green numbers on the clock radio read 9:52pm and suddenly the slow build up of consciousness became an intense rush of awareness and Phillip knew he’d done it. He had just traveled eight minutes back in time.

He got up and ran his hands over his body, checking to see if all limbs were accounted for and tried a few steps around the room for balance. He felt exactly like he did eight minutes ago, or rather, eight minutes in the future. He did a half-turn and turned to stare at the TV. The sound was turned down but he could see that a man in a cowboy hat was standing in front of a fleet of cars, smiling at the camera as he invited dads, moms, and kids to come down to the newest Medved dealership to enjoy some hot dogs and peruse the selection of the best new and used cars in the west. Phillip had seen this commercial a hundred times and he could probably parrot Cowboy Mike word for word. He was far more interested, however, on what should come right after the break. The commercial wasn’t the only thing he’d memorized before going back in time. The lottery numbers were about to be announced in the evening newscast and Phillip knew that if the numbers in his head matched the ones on the TV screen, he’d have confirmation. Irrefutable proof that he had really traveled back in time.

The commercial ended and the screen went back to 9news studio where the anchor, also named Mike, looked up from the screen embedded in the news desk and flashed a smile that must have endured many hours of orthodontics and cost a small fortune. He seemed to make small talk with the weather guy sitting next to him, maybe about how if the coach of the Nuggets managed to win the $180 million jackpot in tonight’s Powerball he might be able to put together a team that made it to the playoffs next year. The newsmen had a few more chuckles, filled two minutes with what felt like hours of bullshit until the camera closed in on Anchor Mike’s face for one more glimpse at his pearlies before the screen gave way to a blue backdrop with the words POWERBALL WINNING NUMBERS at the top. Phillip took a deep breath and ran the numbers in his head for the last time. One by one the numbers started appearing on the screen. By the time the last Powerball number was announced, Phillip was overcome and tears started flowing freely down his cheeks.