The Ring of Time
Perhaps some kind of cruel prank was being played, but you can't help wondering at the similarity between the ring now gone from your finger and the one perched on a red velvet finger in the middle of your bed. Your heart sinks inside you as you think (even though your memory assures you this is false) how you might have forgotten your wedding ring earlier and your wife, always a smart-aleck, set up this joke and then left - in order to teach you a lesson.
The cold realization hits you that you KNOW that you left this morning with it on, and have not even so much as taken a nap today, so it would have been impossible to pry the ring from your finger. With an eerie foreboding, you bend ever closer to the ring in the cedar box. Your hand impulsively caresses the smooth finish of the cedar, admiring the quality handiwork. Upon closer inspection, it seems that the very same scratches and wear from four years of marriage that were marked upon your wedding band reside on the surface of this ring.
Thinking it impossible but seeing no other alternative or explanation, you reach out and claim what must be your wedding band from the box. As you slip it on your finger, the room around you blurs momentarily, like the surface of a cup of water that has been disturbed by a sudden jolt. Dismissing it as your tired eyes playing tricks on you, you reach down to pick up the card that says, "Enjoy" in that unknown handwriting to further inspect it. You flip the card over and see written on the back, "...TIME and TIME again!". This handwriting is also unknown to you.
It is then that some cosmic tumblers appear to fall into place, as if the two and two you've always meant to put together got tired of waiting and made four all on their own. A flood of memories, cogitations, and mental ramblings from the past innundate your consciousness. You recall how only a month prior, you had recounted your whole "time manipulation" wish to your incredulous buddy at work. As his eyes glazed over, you pointed out all the specifics that would exist with your "Ring of Time"... It would be in appearance just like your wedding band so your wife couldn't tell you had one, and it would allow you to travel forward and backward in time, speed time, slow time, and even stop time - all by the merest mental suggestion. You even remember with some disgust how you yourself had placed limits on it, so that the miracle could not be TOO unbelievable - if you went back in time any earlier than your birth, you would cease to exist, and if you went forward past the appointed day of your death (which was still uncertain), you would take over being dead from your future self. The opportunities were endless, but also fraught with peril - if you went back (retaining your current knowledge, of course) and changed some mundane detail, you could possibly change the date of your death, drawing it ever closer; while going forward would be even more uncertain - perhaps exposing you to an untimely death...
Stopping time, on the other hand, seems a good idea. Eager to see if the ring you now wear is indeed your imagined Ring of Time, you step to your bedroom window, scanning the sky for a bird in flight. When you spot one, the thought to compel time to pause no sooner enters your brain than the bird remains frozen in the sky! Exuberant, you look down at the sidewalk to find one of your neighbors frozen as well - midstep. You think to restore time and watch as your neighbor again begins to walk, oblivious to what had just occured.
Convinced now that this IS the Ring of Time, you clasp your hand to your chest - a supernatural dream fulfilled. Your mind begins to wander, however carefully, to places in your past you long to revisit and things you recall that you've always wanted to set right. You think ever fonder on your high school years...
Suddenly, your bedroom door crashes in and men in black SWAT gear, armed to the teeth, rush in all around you. Before you can even unmuddle your thoughts, the urge to be in that latest past overwhelms you, and the men disappear from before your eyes, as if your vision had been shaken like a giant cosmic Etch-A-Sketch, and the bedroom you knew with your wife was no longer the bedroom you found yourself in...
The cold realization hits you that you KNOW that you left this morning with it on, and have not even so much as taken a nap today, so it would have been impossible to pry the ring from your finger. With an eerie foreboding, you bend ever closer to the ring in the cedar box. Your hand impulsively caresses the smooth finish of the cedar, admiring the quality handiwork. Upon closer inspection, it seems that the very same scratches and wear from four years of marriage that were marked upon your wedding band reside on the surface of this ring.
Thinking it impossible but seeing no other alternative or explanation, you reach out and claim what must be your wedding band from the box. As you slip it on your finger, the room around you blurs momentarily, like the surface of a cup of water that has been disturbed by a sudden jolt. Dismissing it as your tired eyes playing tricks on you, you reach down to pick up the card that says, "Enjoy" in that unknown handwriting to further inspect it. You flip the card over and see written on the back, "...TIME and TIME again!". This handwriting is also unknown to you.
It is then that some cosmic tumblers appear to fall into place, as if the two and two you've always meant to put together got tired of waiting and made four all on their own. A flood of memories, cogitations, and mental ramblings from the past innundate your consciousness. You recall how only a month prior, you had recounted your whole "time manipulation" wish to your incredulous buddy at work. As his eyes glazed over, you pointed out all the specifics that would exist with your "Ring of Time"... It would be in appearance just like your wedding band so your wife couldn't tell you had one, and it would allow you to travel forward and backward in time, speed time, slow time, and even stop time - all by the merest mental suggestion. You even remember with some disgust how you yourself had placed limits on it, so that the miracle could not be TOO unbelievable - if you went back in time any earlier than your birth, you would cease to exist, and if you went forward past the appointed day of your death (which was still uncertain), you would take over being dead from your future self. The opportunities were endless, but also fraught with peril - if you went back (retaining your current knowledge, of course) and changed some mundane detail, you could possibly change the date of your death, drawing it ever closer; while going forward would be even more uncertain - perhaps exposing you to an untimely death...
Stopping time, on the other hand, seems a good idea. Eager to see if the ring you now wear is indeed your imagined Ring of Time, you step to your bedroom window, scanning the sky for a bird in flight. When you spot one, the thought to compel time to pause no sooner enters your brain than the bird remains frozen in the sky! Exuberant, you look down at the sidewalk to find one of your neighbors frozen as well - midstep. You think to restore time and watch as your neighbor again begins to walk, oblivious to what had just occured.
Convinced now that this IS the Ring of Time, you clasp your hand to your chest - a supernatural dream fulfilled. Your mind begins to wander, however carefully, to places in your past you long to revisit and things you recall that you've always wanted to set right. You think ever fonder on your high school years...
Suddenly, your bedroom door crashes in and men in black SWAT gear, armed to the teeth, rush in all around you. Before you can even unmuddle your thoughts, the urge to be in that latest past overwhelms you, and the men disappear from before your eyes, as if your vision had been shaken like a giant cosmic Etch-A-Sketch, and the bedroom you knew with your wife was no longer the bedroom you found yourself in...