We Will Go

I'm very confused.

First of all, I'm in London. After being zapped into the year 3000 (we'll get to this in a moment), I've somehow landed in this very cold and rainy place, a sharp contrast to the 75 degrees and sunny Los Angeles that I should be in right now. I've been here for an hour trying to figure out why. This coffee shop I'm sitting in is booming with people and it's disrupting my concentration. But in London, a quiet, secluded place on a weekend is a little hard to come by when you don't seem to have any of your belongings with you.

Second, I've been time traveling for many years. I know the ins and outs–even though I'm sure there's some things I don't know, but let's just assume that I know almost everything there is about time traveling. The last time I felt like I didn't have any control over my time traveling capabilities was when I was ten years old and just discovering what I could do. I just kept being zapped to random places. After all these years, I've mastered the art of traveling to the places that I want to go. This time was different. It felt like a giant hand just picked me up and moved me to some random beach in the year 3000.

Not to mention that other guy I saw there. Normally, I wouldn't care about the people I see in the past or the future, but again, this time was different. The way he reacted to being in the year 3000 and how he looked at me, like he knew I didn't belong there, gave me a weird feeling in my stomach. I don't know if he figured me out or what, but I'm just glad I got out of there as fast as I could. The whole situation continues to weird me out.

As I'm sitting in this coffee shop, thinking, I don't notice when a man walks in and stands in the line. He stands there for five minutes until he reaches the front and starts speaking.

"Hi, can I get a black coffee?" he says in a thick English accent. I freeze instantly, recognizing his voice (considering the fact that I heard it only an hour ago).

It's him, the guy from the year 3000. This doesn't register in my mind until he turns around and sees me too.

"Hey!" he exclaims.

The only thing I do is slide out of my seat and then walk right out of the coffee shop.

I mean, this is really weird. Is he another time traveler? Did he follow me here? What are the chances of us being at two different places, in two different millenniums, at the same time? I'm starting to think of ridiculous notions, like that he's here to kill me. But really though, is that such an illogical assumption to make? Especially since in all my years of time traveling, I've never ever met another one before until now?

"Hey, wait!" I hear him yell. Great, he's following me. I speed up a little bit, trying to look for some kind of escape but my brain is too focused on him.

"Stop following me!" I yell back, causing a few people to look.

"Wait, please!" He's starting to catch up to me and I stop and turn around. Is he going to do something to me while we're standing in the middle of the street with a million people around us? It would be a really smart decision on his behalf to not do that.

"Leave me alone," I say. He's standing in front of me now, slightly out of breath. He looks confused and not murderous. Maybe that's a good sign.

"You were there," he says. "I saw you...in the year 3000."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," I say, even though I do.

"Look, I saw you and I don't know if I'm hallucinating or not, but please, just be straight with me and I'll be out of your hair," he says, almost exasperated.

I stare at him, raising an eyebrow in confusion. This man has desperation written all over his face. I sigh, looking around to see if anyone can hear us, but everyone who is walking past us is busy doing something else and giving us rude looks because we're standing in their way.

"So, you're a...traveler," I say, cautiously.

"So, that's–that's real then? Traveling?" he asks. I look at him funny. It's the way he's talking about it that's making it less likely that he's here to kill me (though I'll be keeping that in the back of my mind.) If anything, he just looks confused. It reminds me of me when I was ten years old and suddenly taken to the 1800s. I had almost the exact same reaction when I came back (except, you know, a lot of hallucinogenic drugs didn't exist in the 1600s).

I think he might be a new time traveler.

I nod my head at his question and he looks noticeably relieved.

"Wow, thank God. I just have a million questions right now..."

"Um," is all I say, still feeling a little confused. I've met another time traveler for the first time in my life. Is that why I was taken to 3000? So that the universe could show me him?

"Here," he says, jerking his head towards an open table outside of a little cafe right next to us and sits down. I hesitate for a second, but follow anyway. I always used to wonder what it would be like to have someone to show me the ropes of time traveling, so if I can pass my wisdom on to someone else, why not?

And even if he still turns out to be a fraud and tries to exploit me or something, I can travel back to the past and make sure we never meet. The perks of time travel.

"I'm Zev, by the way," he says, holding out his hand.

I take it and say, "Penelope."

"So, uh, how many travelers are there?" Zev asks. "How does this happen to someone?"

"I don't know," I reply. "You're the first person that I know of and it sort of just happened to me. I woke up one day when I was ten and I started feeling like I was having a panic attack or something, and then all of a sudden, I was in an era that was incredibly different from mine. Turns out, it was the 1860s and I watched Abraham Lincoln give the Emancipation Proclamation before I even knew what that was."

"Holy shit," Zev says, awed. He's staring at me like he can't believe that I'm here and saying all these things.

"Are you okay?" I ask.

"Yeah," he nods. "I'm just really shocked that this is all real. Like, I saw my own birth and then I went to the year 3000. I was kind of hoping someone's been drugging me, but this is just crazy."

"I know," I say. "I've been there."

"How long have you been doing this?" he asks.

"Awhile," I reply. "I lived in so many different eras and when you do that, you tend to lose track of time, ironically. It's also why I perpetually look 22 years old," I gesture to myself.

"Wait, so this is controllable then?" He suddenly looks very interested by this fact. "I'm not just gonna be transported to random places forever?"

"You'll learn to control it. You just really have to concentrate, it takes a lot of mind power."

Zev looks relieved at this too. He takes a moment and then looks at me and asks, "Will it ever go away?"

I shrug my shoulders. "I have no idea. It hasn't yet for me, so..."

"Well, it bloody needs to. It's ruining my life," he mutters.

"You do what you want with it," I say, smiling. "If you don't want to travel, you don't have to. But like I said, it takes time to learn how to control it."

"Right, well, thanks," Zev says. "This certainly clears up a lot."

"You're welcome," I say.

"I should get going. It was nice to meet you, Penelope," he says, standing up and holding his hand out again. He seems so formal, like his occupation is something in business because how often do normal people shake hands anyway?

"You too, Zev," I say, shaking it. It's about time I get home too now that some of my confusion has been cleared up, about Zev at least. I still don't know how I ended up in London.

He picks up his stuff and turns around, leaving. I watch him go for a second. He eventually turns a corner and disappears from my line of sight. I make my way inside the cafe we were sitting outside of, heading straight toward the restrooms. I step inside one of the stalls and close my eyes.

When I open them, I'm still inside the stall. I furrow my eyebrows; why am I not moving?

I close my eyes again, really concentrating on my apartment, particularly my bedroom because I was suddenly feeling really tired. I'm expecting to feel like I'm moving, like I usually do, but I'm still here.

This process continues for at least ten minutes and I keep finding myself in the same place. I'm not going anywhere. I even try to envision others places to go to, past and future, but nothing.

I'm starting to panic a little bit because this is highly unusual. Being transported to places without my control is weird but not worrisome, because at least I'm going somewhere. Not being able to go where I want to as an experienced time traveler is definitely worrisome.

I think something's wrong.