/u/hamlet_d submitted the writing prompt:
A time machine. Your Father. Wise words.
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“I’ll miss you.”
“I know you will. I’ll miss you, too.”
“You have a long, happy life. You get a job, have a wife, have kids, get a house, have a dog, go on holidays, see the world, read well, grow old.”
“Thank you.” I leaned in and shook his hand.
“Now you have a great, eventful youth. You get a girlfriend, go skateboarding, stay up late, go to parties, go to bars, have loads of sex, smoke cigarettes, do it all. You’ve got a fresh start. Avoid La Ramblas and it won’t happen again. Take your life back.”
He smiled for the first time in twenty years.
“Thank you. Thank you, son.”
I shut the panel to the machine. His face a perfect portrait in the round window on the door. I entered the date and off he went, waving as the machine slowly vanished. Just like that.
That night, I took his wheelchairs and crutches and drowned them in the lake.
