He had to get up early the next morning, since his Saturday would be ruined by more work, so he did his usual routine. As his coffee brewed, he sleepily opened the pantry door and pulled his favorite breakfast bar out of its box—and lost his grip on it right away. He often lost dexterity after just waking up, so this had happened before.

Seeing where it was headed when it flew away, he knew it would bounce off the pantry door and land on the floor… Only, he couldn’t find it. He got down on his knees to look closer, leaned on his elbow as he searched under the lowest shelf with his other hand, and then suddenly lost his balance. His elbow should have hit the door, but…

It had also vanished. His arm was split in two by the door, as it was partially inside of it, gone. Elsewhere. Freaked out, he yanked his arm back effortlessly. It was safe and intact, but for a moment, part of it felt like it no longer existed. He studied the door and sent his hand through. He wiggled his fingers but couldn’t feel them until they returned.

“W-what the hell…” he stammered.

Needing to prove to himself that he wasn’t hallucinating, he grabbed his phone, stuck it through, and while holding it tightly, pushed the side button to take a picture. He then brought it back out of the strange hole and saw what was on the other side.

He couldn’t explain it. It was his apartment. But it also was… not.

Wes didn’t find his original breakfast bar, so he spent the next five minutes eating a different one while pondering his door. From his table, he stared at his open pantry and waited for the coffee to take effect. Surely, he only imagined having a Twilight Zone doorway inside his kitchen. Even if he had a picture that proved otherwise.

Unsure if his apartment’s glitch in the matrix was still active by the time he was done eating, he returned to the floor and stuck his hand in again. He needed to leave for work, but had to understand what he was dealing with before spending the day in hell. He set his phone to record and with both hands, held it steady on the other side for a solid minute. Heart racing, he pulled it back and hit the play button on his new video.

He soaked in the small details of his “other” apartment. His kitchen looked dated and dirtier. Past it, from what little he could see of the living room, a relic of a TV was blasting out the news. He heard something about the Nasdaq exchange breaking a record the previous day; he knew that must have happened… some time ago.

After opening his phone’s web browser, a quick search revealed that it had hit a thousand points on July 17^th. 1995. Nineteen freaking ninety-five.

Holy shit, Wes thought. Is this… some sort of time gate?

Throwing caution to the wind, he stuck his head in for a minute. It was a little brighter on the other end as well—later in the morning, he guessed—and the news on the TV repeated exactly what it had on his phone. Time was looping. Was the entry fixed to a certain point? He retreated, stood up, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes.

I can’t explain this. I don’t even care. If that’s really 1995 on the other side, then…

He stepped through and felt the subtle change in the air current. He opened his eyes and looked around. It really was his kitchen, just even more poorly kept with an older, ugly fridge and a mountain of plates in the sink. He stood still, just observing, and listening to the news for the third time. He stayed until he heard someone coming, at which point he promptly bolted back through the exterior side of the pantry door.

Once he was safe, he tried to calm himself down after such an amazing discovery. Time travel? Possible? To perhaps his favorite year? How…

He noticed that it was a little darker and checked the time on his phone. Its clock briefly showed 7:29, before re-syncing with the time server and flowing backward, to 6:54 A.M.. On Friday. That horrible yesterday had been reset. Curiouser and curiouser.

An hour later, his phone rang for the third time—it was Jared again, probably asking where he was and why he was late. But Wes disregarded it. Besides, he could easily step into 1995 and come back again to re-begin the morning. That was pretty cool in its own right; he already felt like time, his dreaded nemesis, had become a plaything.

He wasn’t sure if he was prepared to stay in the past for a long while. But a day? A week? Just to test the temporal waters? He cracked open his cash box and took out all the bills from 1995 or before, for a total of about thirty bucks. He also changed into his simplest clothes that wouldn’t draw attention and put on his favorite shoes from high school, which now barely fit. They were made years after 1995, sure, but close enough.

When he was ready to explore the Royal Valley of yesteryear, he opened his pantry door, took a deep breath, cracked his knuckles, and stepped through.

Remembering that someone would soon come into his kitchen from twenty-five years ago, he quickly and quietly ducked into the hallway, the blasting news helping to cover any sound he made. Then he watched as the door down the hall opened.

“Hun, did you hear something?” a woman’s voice suddenly shouted from his future bedroom. “Sounded like someone’s in the kitchen.”

A moment later, she emerged, in a bathrobe and with curlers in her hair. She paused, stared at Wes for a second, and let out a shrill scream before running off.

“Shit,” Wes grumbled and went into the living room—just in time to see the man of the house in all his tank-top-wearing glory grab a shotgun and turn to face him.

He shouted out, “Just how in the hail did you get in her’?”

He cocked his shotgun, and in a panic, Wes took a painting of a kitten and a ball of yarn off the hallway wall and tossed it at him like a Frisbee. He deflected the spinning “art” with his gun, and Wes took the chance to make a mad dash to the front door.

The lock was stuck, and though Wes tried, he couldn’t get it open by the time the current renter had his widow-maker trained on him. And he looked pretty mad.

Without even trying to get to know his guest, the guy fired the thing, the burst almost deafening. Fortunately for Wes, all those years of video games had given him a good reaction time, and he had managed to sidestep at the last instant. The shotgun blast damaged the doorframe and the lock, and the door drifted open from the wind. Before the maniac recovered from the recoil and fired the second barrel, Wes took off.

Once he was safely on the parking lot below and made sure that he wasn’t being chased, he caught his breath and looked around at Royal Valley, baking under a clear day’s sun. He couldn’t believe it. It was just as he remembered how the city used to be, when he was a kid and everything was much better. Somehow, a mighty gift had been bestowed upon a guy who would appreciate it the most. He had leapt through time and space and arrived at a place that he was already considering never leaving.

None of the people walking by were tapping on smart phones, sending emojis out into the ether. They didn’t have little screens to stare at yet, so they still looked up and around at other people. Even after standing there in awe for only a few seconds, he had already been noticed by no less than four pedestrians—strangers acknowledged his existence. That felt like it had become so rare in the present. Or, what used to be the present. He would have to get used to many things again if he were to stay.

And somewhere out there was a younger version of himself, in his prime. He knew he should absolutely not interact with that kid at all, but he definitely needed to at least get himself a peek at the city’s coolest ten-year-old. And his school, and childhood home, and all his old favorite stores, The Queen theater, and… so many other places.

He headed downtown, going no place in particular. The street names were the same, but most of them had been recently repaved and looked brand new. He soon found himself on Main Street, where the streetcars that once only existed in his memory were still running, albeit usually only half-full of people. The chocolate store Charlie Pippin stole from, the corner gas station where his mom always got her car looked at, a used car lot that he had forgotten about run by a guy named Odie—places, remnants of the city’s 1960s golden days, were suddenly still around. And Victory Plaza, the modern, now newish tower that he would later despise, was very clean and free of his company.

Wanting to be reminded of the current trends, he paid a quick visit to Royal Valley Toy Chest, Main Street’s only toy store that would disappear in ten years or so. He then found a bus stop, deciphered the routes, and waited around for fifteen minutes, perfectly complacent in spending the moment of peace further observing “his” people, those who had shared his younger self’s 1995 local spacetime with him.

The bus was filled with more of these people, and he listened closely to their conversations, whatever they may be, as he was taken to Desert Tree. His kingdom.

After stepping off the bus, he noticed a little anomaly. The quarter he had used to board was still in his pocket. Maybe it had returned to him? Maybe he, and everything on him taken from the future, wasn’t quite… stable? Knowing he’d have to keep an eye on the quirk, he proceeded to his old neighborhood. Most of the houses were the same ones he passed on his visits to adult Lucy’s place, but the sidewalks, roads, trees, and of course the time-appropriate vehicles in the driveways were all different.

Not long after he had only begun to admire the view and smell the air of his childhood paradise, he kind of stumbled upon Colin’s yard, without really trying to get there. His treehouse, on the side of the residence where it was in the seclusion of other trees, was easily visible. It was well-built, immaculate, high up, and home to hangouts, the creation of long-term plans among the group, and late-night ghost stories.

Colin’s driveway was empty, so Wes assumed that his best friend from the time wasn’t home. Again feeling a complete disregard for any danger, he walked right into the yard, looked around to make sure no one was around, and began climbing up the boards that were nailed into the side of the tree—carefully of course, given his adult weight.

He smirked at the crossed out “NO GIRLS” sign, crawled inside, looked at the doodles on the treehouse walls and the pinned fliers and notebook paper, and spread out on the floor. He listened to the wind rustling the leaves of the other trees and felt the very light sway of one of the neighborhood’s biggest specimens. It was bliss.

“Amazing…” he murmured happily. “This is the place and time to be. Even when you’re old and ugly.” He opened his eyes and looked at the sunlight pouring in through the one window. “We… used extension cords and a pulley to get a TV and Nintendo 64 up here that one time, didn’t we? Four-player gaming in the treehouse…”

Upon hearing a car pull onto the soft pebble driveway, he jolted up and looked out the window. He saw him down there, hopping out of his dad’s Ford Explorer. Little Colin, and his parents. They must have just gotten back from a summer movie, perhaps.

“Colin…” he sighed. “Aw, look at you, kid. You have no idea that your best friend grew up and came back in time to watch you from your treehouse, do ya? What did I do to deserve such a strange and amazing chance to come back…?”

He waited for Colin to run inside and his parents to follow before descending. Just as he always did as a kid, he jumped down once he hit the fifth rung.

Experiencing excitement for the first time in years, Wes alternated between speed walking and running to the house where he spent twenty-two years of his life, excluding his days in a local dorm—but counting those few post-college years when he came back home before moving to an apartment. It was the home of his formative years, and thousands of good memories. He couldn’t return to the future without seeing it.

The moment the house came into view across the street on the other block, Wes froze in place, just to take it in. As he did so, a familiar car suddenly drove past him. It was a red 1993 Kia Sportage, a funny little SUV and his mom’s favorite set of wheels that she still mentioned now and then in her 2020 phone calls. Wes turned just in time to see his younger self in the back, who fortunately didn’t notice his older self in return.

After the car slid into their short driveway, Little Wes leapt out with a new, big Super Soaker, already out of its box. He watched from a distance as his mom followed him in and remembered just how young she was once. Once she opened the door, Wes Junior was welcomed by a happy old dog, whom he patted on the head before going in.

“Tiger?” Wes murmured. “Why… Why did I almost forget about you, boy?”

A few of the neighborhood’s citizens walked by while he stood there admiring his childhood home—he vaguely recognized one or two of them from somewhere in the depths of the labyrinth in his head—but he dared not get too close and risk having his mom or one Wes see the other. He had seen enough time travel movies and shows to know the possible risk doing so would carry, so he was satisfied just seeing the place.

It was a long walk, but worth it for his next stop: Desert Tree Elementary. He never thought he would miss a school of all things so much, but by the time he had graduated college, he had already felt a longing for those halcyon and more innocent days of K through Five. After he found it, surrounded by a quiet road and many houses, he lingered a while and traced its shape with his eyes. There was no way he’d get in, and it was summer in any case—and it had hardly changed by 2020, but still… There it was. New friends, recess, field trips and cafeteria dares. He would soon start fifth grade.

Wanting to see yet more places, he left Desert Tree, found the nearest bus stop by the highway, and took the first one that arrived, no destination in mind and leaving it up to fate. He was able to use his quarter trick again with no effort on his part for another free ride, not feeling the least bit bad about it since he couldn’t control it.