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1

Even with a night full of rest, James was slow to work and was dragging behind as it was already past 8 AM and he had an appointment first thing in the morning. While he walked out of the elevator doors, he instantly regretted being such a slug this morning when he looked ahead down the hallway and saw his boss’s boss walking towards him.

“Good morning, James. Taking a long weekend I see,” said director Gregory Mann smiling at James.

“A little bit, we can’t all be here at the crack of dawn though,” replied James as he cast his gaze quickly towards Gregory Mann’s thinning dark red hair.

“I know, y’all time managers are all a bunch of slackers aren’t y’all?”

“You got that right, great to see you Mr. Mann. You have a great day.”

“Thank you, you too James,” said Gregory before patting James on the back before speed walking down the hallway in the opposite direction of James.

James Carmichael was a 6-foot-tall, thin man of 29 years old, with dark brown hair. James had worked here since graduating from college, and it was the only work life that he had known. He loved his job and had worked as hard as he could early in his career, but had grown unenthusiastic with his job in recent years.

As James was thinking about how silly it was to think he’d get in trouble for being late; he was on his way to his office. He had an 8:15 appointment and he was only arriving at the office at 8:10.

“I guess we can come into the office whenever we want now,” quipped James’ secretary, Lori Mason. She had a smile on her face, but not necessarily a polite one. More of a sarcastic one that James had seen many times. Despite her antics, James had grown fond of Lori as his secretary and had never had much trouble working with her.

“Hey, I got caught up with talking with Mr. Mann. I can’t help that,” James replied, trying to cover up the fact that he was normally late anyway.

“I’m just kidding with you, James. Good morning,” Lori said with a more believable smile this time. “And your first appointment of the day is right over there so call him in when you’re ready,” Lori said gesturing to the opposite wall where a thin man with gray hair that was in his mid-60s sat in a chair against the wall. The office space that James occupied comprised of a 20-foot by 20-foot office with two windows. Outside of itwas built into the wall on the side of the receptionist’s desk, with about 5 chairs lining the wall opposite it. To James, the place was a perfect mix between a hospital inpatient floor and a soulless corporate skyscraper.

“I know and Good Morning to you as well, and I’ll buzz you when I’m ready for him, but it should just be a couple of minutes,” said James with his best smile as he turned toward his office door and gave a polite nod to the man that would be his 8:15 appointment.

Today was an average Monday for James, with five people coming in to have time travel requests reviewed. James figured that he would work on some research that he had wanted to get to for a while now sometime today if he were to work overtime, but lately the thought of working past 5 o’clock nearly made him sick. Even if he had grown to feel tired of the monotony of his job, he was still bound and determined to make sure that he always did the best on the job at hand. After a couple of minutes of getting situated at his desk, James signaled for Lori to send in his next client.

“Hello, welcome. Nice to meet you. I’m James Carmichael. I’ll be working with you today,” opened James as the man from the lobby shyly opened James’ office door.

“Hello, nice to meet you. My name is Sean Fagan.”

“Well, please sit down. We might as well get right to business here,” said James as Sean was already halfway to the chair. “I’ll go ahead and go through my usual opening spiel about why you’re here and who we are if you don’t mind,” said James.

“Sure, go ahead. This place is fascinating. I’m always ready to learn more,” replied Sean.

“Alright then. Well, this is the Atlanta regional branch of the United States Department of Time. Yes, time travel is very real, and nobody but the USTD has the ability to do so. All non-felons, pending a background check, are entitled to their opportunity to purchase a time-travel trip to spend 24 hours in any place in any time in the past for the sum of $75,000. $100,000 if this is your second trip; only two trips are allowed. This can be paid in a lump sum cash amount or a 2% financing option for 60 months. Any questions so far?” asked James, he had said this declaration so many times that he no longer needed to read it off a paper.

“I’m good so far; you can continue,” replied Sean.

“Thank you sir, sorry they make me go through all this with everyone. You’ve made a request to time travel on our website and have passed the first round of checks and controls. I am your time manager who will further review your request and make sure there are no conflicts with either your intentions for time travel or your potential actions during your time travel trip. I will also be responsible for scheduling your trip and scheduling you with a time security officer. Your time security officer will accompany you throughout the duration of your entire 24-hour time-travel trip. Their primary job is to protect you and preserve the surroundings and circumstances of the time period you are in. If you are to attempt to alter history in any serious manner, the time security guards are authorized to stop you and potentially use deadly force if need be. I think that’s about it,” said James as he put down a piece of paper that James had some notes on to remind him of what he had just gone over with Sean.

“I understand sir, thank you for letting me know.”

“Well, I’ve looked through your request and I do not see much problematic about it but one thing that I like to ask people that come in here to do is to run me through what it is you want to do in your own words,” said James. James already knew what Sean’s time travel request was because he had already looked it over before leaving work on Friday. However, it was a standard question he asked of all clients. James always had a genuine interest in helping his clients get what they wanted and enjoyed hearing his clients talk about their potential trips.

“I want to go back to July of 1993, specifically July 25th,” Sean said in a voice that was much more youthful than James thought it would be as he had read the information on the request and knew that Sean would turn sixty-seven later this year. “That’s the day I met my wife,” Sean said with a smile.

“That’s amazing! How did y’all meet?” James said quickly, so as not to break up the rhythm of the story that he hoped Sean was about to tell.

James had been used to hearing stories like this, as many of the moments that people wanted to use their time travel trips for were to catch a glimpse of their late spouses. He already knew that Sean had requested to go back to that date 47 years in the past and spend the day in Atlanta, but he was not totally sure what event that day entailed. Hearing clients talk about their loved ones and their longing to see them again was part of what James had cherished the most about his job.

“I met her at Lollapalooza in Atlanta. I was still a student at UGA, and she went to Georgia Tech,” said Sean as he excitedly leaned forward in his chair before continuing; “We met as Rage Against the Machine started playing, and by the time Alice in Chains closed the concert; we knew that we had found something.”

“Wow, met while Rage Against the Machine was playing. I don’t know if many people could say that they met their spouse at a concert like that,” James remarked.

“You would be surprised,” said Sean as he continued with that same smile. James had not asked yet, but knew from Sean’s report that his wife had since passed.

“I guess things were pretty crazy back in the early 90s. That music is personally one of my favorite eras of music.”

“We were into it at the time. Actually, I went to that concert with my two friends and his girlfriend, and I left with one of my own,” Sean said. It struck a chord with James, as he had recently had his own struggles to trying to find someone of his own. He wasn’t necessarily terrible when it came to women and relationships, but he was 29 years old and far between girlfriends. Regardless of how he felt, he didn’t want it to leak into this conversation.

“So did y’all know y’all would be together forever even after just meeting each other?” James asked wondering if it really could be that easy.

“No, not really. Her and her friends were next to us during the concert. So, we started talking, and we exchanged numbers. Stuff like that,” said Sean as he gave a pause to collect his thoughts and continued. “We just remembered each other and stayed in touch. Athens was just a little over an hour from my dorm in Atlanta, so it just worked out over time like those things tend to do.”

“I suppose so,” James said, putting an end to the love conversation while he still could. “So, what is it that you want to do exactly? Like what time would you like to start your twenty-four hours, and do you plan on buying a ticket and going to this concert?” asked James.

“I remember not getting back home that night till midnight so I think I would get to see everything that I want if I start at 11 AM that morning; and yes I would like to attend the concert yes,” said Sean in a concise tone that showed James that Sean knew exactly what he wanted out of this time travel trip. James liked this because he knew it was not that common for someone to know exactly what they wanted in a time travel request. He figured this was likely because most people who made time travel requests were very well-off people who easily had $75,000 to spend. To them, going back in time was often like taking another annual trip to Italy, more than doing something life-changing. James didn’t mind this too much, he thought this courting side of the job was easy. Even though it often made him feel too much like a salesman.

“That works with me. I like seeing someone know what they want. That means that you will have to go through our Time Currency Exchange and you will need to get the equivalent of 1993 money and you should need about $100 of it. I’d expect to spend about $300 in present-day money for that,” said James.

“That’s not so bad, I suppose. Would it be more if I went back further in time than that?” asked Sean.

“It can depend. Most people that do these trips are going back to just a time from earlier in their own life, so that’s pretty easy. It gets a lot more complicated when people go back to either ancient Rome or medieval Europe.”

“Good thing I’m not doing that then. If you don’t mind my asking, how does that even work?” asked Sean, to which James was already gearing up his answer before Sean was even done asking.

“Oh, that would be from the currency procurement division here at the department. Actually, the national branch is where those people work, and they send the money to us. They mostly go back to certain time periods and exchange things like either money from the present time or even things like gold and silver for money from certain times in the past,” James replied.

“Wow, and that works?” asked Sean.

“Usually. They find a way to get money from whatever time period someone is planned to go to. I’ve yet to have heard of a time travel trip being turned down because of the team not being able to find some money for a client to take with them on their trip,” replied James. James knew that he hadn’t ever dealt with the currency procurement team too much other than requesting funds and telling them what year he needed it for. He did know that team had been the subject of controversy before, given their potential methods for acquiring money in the past. They had even been suspected of causing potential inflation or deflation in certain time periods based on influxes of gold and other minerals in their economies.

“Wow, I had no idea. A lot more going on here than I thought… but yes, that money is fine with me for buying that ticket. Sorry for getting off on a question tangent there. The tickets were only $15, so one hundred should be more than enough. To be honest, the main concern I have is being an old man in a crowd of young people,” Sean said.

“Nah, I’m sure it won’t be too weird. In fact, I’d imagine that the ones there will immediately think that you are some cool old guy that loves grunge. Surely there’s bound to be some other old guys there,” said James.

“I hope so,” replied Sean. It seemed to James that their conversation had stalled . After a few moments of awkward smiling and silence, Sean spoke again. “I did have one more concern, if not more of a question,”

“Sure, let me hear it,” replied James, knowing that he was probably about to hear a question that he had heard many times in the nearly seven years that he had had this job.

“I know that was the first line of your opening statement, but how do I know that this time-travel business is real? I mean, I consider myself a reasonably intelligent man. I was a mechanical engineer for thirty-five years, so I like to think I can understand how nearly every machine works. No matter how much I think about it, I just can’t understand how something can actually send me back in time,” asked Sean, as it was clear to James that Sean was a man who had pondered this question many times. James didn’t even have a great understanding of it even after having both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Time Management.

“That’s a good question. And I can tell you that I’ve traveled back in time before, so I know that it is for real. But until you experience it for yourself, I don’t guess you can know for sure. But I do have a couple of things that I can show you that should be enough proof for you to feel comfortable going through with this time travel request,” James got up toward the tail end of this sentence and motioned for Sean to stand up. “Follow me,” said James.

“Me and Mr. Fagan here are going to go for a walk about the building, so let anyone who might ask know where I am,” said James as he and Sean were already halfway walking away when he said it.

“Should I call it out over the intercom?” asked Lori with a dry tone that was stirred together with that strong taste of sarcasm that James figured she was known for across the whole department.

“Ha ha,” replied James as he and Sean were off. Now turning left to go further down the hall that Sean had entered from the front entrance.

“This is where all the other people that work here that are time managers like me work at,” said James as they walked past four other offices that looked exactly the same as James’ with the same secretary desks and small lobbies in front of them.

“How many managers are there?” asked Sean.

“Five of us, which probably doesn’t seem like many to service the needs of three states, in which case you would be right,” James said, eliciting a cordial laugh from both of them. “Actually, there are not really too many people that do time requests. In fact, we only see about seventy people a week. Some other districts in the U.S. see about one hundred and fifty.”

“That’s surprising. I would figure that our district would have more than that,” said Sean.

“That’s what I would think too, but maybe it’s possible that there is some other reason that people in Alabama, Florida, and Georgia just don’t want to time travel as much as other parts of the country,” replied James.

“It would probably be worth a good study for someone here,” said Sean.

“Well, in all fairness, it’s something that I probably could be doing at my current job if I was ambitious enough,” said James with a laugh at his self-deprecating joke. They both stopped at the last door on the left at the end of the hallway, and James knocked on the door twice and opened it.

“Hey man,” said James.

“Hey, what up James,” replied Malik Flanigan, a time security officer.

“Nothing much, just showing a potential customer around the place,” James said as he turned and nodded to Sean, who was still halfway standing in the doorway.

“Sure, nice to meet you. My name is Malik Flanigan. I supposedly am a time guard around here, but I haven’t been doing much lately,” said Malik jokingly as he and Sean shook hands.

“Well, here’s your chance for a nice and easy mission. Sean here wants to go to 1993 Atlanta to an Alice in Chains concert,” said James.

“Thank God,” said Malik, then he turned to Sean and continued. “Would you believe this man had almost signed me up for a time trip with this apparently bout half racist rich dude that wanted to go back to 1862 to visit his ancestor,” said Malik. James could tell from Sean’s forced smile at Malik’s joke that he hadn’t been around Malik enough to understand his joking style.

“Come on now, it wouldn’t have been that bad,” interjected James.

“What’re you talking about? I’m a man of color, you know what they would’ve done to me,” said Malik, turning back to James.

“Well, maybe so; but I did get someone else on that case when I realized the problem, didn’t I?” said James. The two had definitely made the best of an awkward situation. Little did Malik know that James had actually never seriously intended on sending Malik to 1862 Georgia. To James, it was more of a prank than anything. Even if he now realized that it was probably in poor taste.

Malik was a forty-year-old man who was about six foot three and muscled from head to toe. He had been working for the Time Department for five years now, and just like any time security officer, he had seen many of the greatest moments in history. Before that, Malik was a regular security guard and a police officer for a total of 10 years. Even greater than any of these things was the fact that in the more than five years that they had been working together, he and James had become very good friends.

“I figure so, but I better not get an email that my next case is visiting the Ivory Coast in 1619, or I’ll know who to come for,” joked Malik this time with a smile on his face.

“I’ll try not to, but no promises. We’ll be on our way now. I just wanted y’all to get the chance to meet beforehand since I’m probably going to pair his case with you,” said James.

“Okay then, and don’t forget about tonight. I don’t want to be late to the ballpark like last time.”

“I’ll try, but you do realize we aren’t going to the game together. You can go in the stadium when you want,” James said, trying to make a point that he knew was moot.

“Man, you know we can’t just show up at different times if we are going to sit together. But hey show up when you want, I guess,” Malik said as they walked out of the room.

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2

“By the way, I wanted to let you know that you’re good to go on the time travel request. I’ve already run through the request with operations, and they see no problem with where you’re going or your intentions there,” said James as they were walking down a hallway towards a group of three elevators.

“Really? It happens that fast?” asked Sean. “Then where are we going?”

 “Oh yeah, all the time. We’ve gotten pretty efficient over the years around here. Also, you asked about if this time travel stuff was for real or not, and you do have the right to know for sure,” replied James as they both passed the elevators and approached a pair of double doors at the end of the hallway.

“Ah, I’m guessing it has something to do with what’s at the end of this side of the building then,” said Sean.

“You would be right about that,” replied James as he pushed the door open to the stairs. They went down to the first floor.

James and Sean got to the bottom of the stairs and went back into some double doors on the first floor leading back into the hallway office area. This led to a secretary’s desk that was the first thing on the left when they went back into the building. James walked to the counter where a woman in her 20s with dark curly hair and blonde highlights sat and greeted James with a smile.

“James, how can I make your acquaintance today?” said the woman as James leaned over and put his arms over the counter.

“I’m not sure, madam. How can I make your acquaintance?” James said.

“I don’t know, I was thinking that someone in as little as my position could never be of use for somebody like a time manager,” she said jokingly.

“I guess we’ll see. How’re you doing, Allison?” asked James. Allison Johnson was a clerk who was in charge of manning the desk for checking in and out the devices that were used for time travel. James came down to the time clerk’s desk at least a couple of times a week. It wasn’t always Allison that was down here, but he always hoped for a reason to run into her.

“I’m doing mighty fine. How’re you, James? Haven’t seen you in a couple of business days, that’s a shame,” replied Allison.

“Yeah, I haven’t had to do any demonstrations in a little while, but I was hoping that me and my friend Sean here could get a little time travel going before he goes on his official trip,” said James.

“Sure, sure. You can just sign out here and go in the room and get number D28 and you’ll be good to go,” said Allison as she was holding out a clipboard with a sign-out and sign-in list on it with scribbled-out names.

“Sounds good to me. Thanks for the help as always. I’ll try to make it down here more often for sure,” said James.

“You’re welcome, and you better,” said Allison as she playfully pointed at James while he walked past with a smile in Allison’s direction. James was happy with the ease at which he was able to talk to Allison given that he felt like he’d melt all over the floor every time he spoke to her, but he was always able to keep it together regardless of how nervously he felt in the moment.

James also really couldn’t tell whether Allison’s friendliness to him was the way she acted all the time, or it was flirting. Regardless, James had contemplated a time or two about asking Allison out sometime. Even for James, a man nearly of the age of thirty, it sometimes seemed impossible that he’d get the courage to do so. It felt like the more he liked someone, the more he feared their rejection.

He walked into the time machine room, which housed tens upon hundreds of backpacks with numbers on them, lined on the walls. James grabbed the right one. Then walked out of the room with the blue and black bag that held the time machine device and gave a polite nod to Allison as he walked towards Sean. He was still patiently waiting with his hands in his pockets, across from Allison’s desk.

“You ready to go?” James asked in one motion.

“Sure, but where are we going?” Sean asked as both of them started walking back towards the double doors at the end of the first-floor hallway they had just come through before.

“Just wait, you’ll see. It’ll easily be worth the wait,” replied James as they pushed open the double doors leading back towards the staircase. James then led both of them to the side of the staircase room where there was a glass door with a glowing exit sign above it.

“I suppose I’ll have to take your word for it,” said Sean as they went through the exit door, leading them outside and directly towards a bright green wooded area. The sound of birds chirping was heavily present in the mid-April air as the smell of freshly cut grass filled James’ senses.

“So, this is normally what we do to prove time travel, so to speak. I want you to go into the woods a little way and pick a tree, and then we’ll go back to 1990. Then, you’ll carve your initials on the tree and we’ll come back to present day and see if it’s still there,” said James. James knew that what he was about to do with Sean was his tried-and-true method for quickly proving time travel.

“Is that the best y’all can do to convince people?” Sean asked sarcastically.

“I mean, it’s simple; we don’t want to do anything too extravagant when we don’t need to,” replied James.

“Yeah, I get it. I’m just joking with you. I didn’t expect there to be too much of a show beforehand. I just needed some proof before I shell out money for it, you know. “Kind of like test-driving a car,” Sean said as he led both into the woods to pick out a tree.

“Oh, I understand. Actually, some time managers let there be a lot more done than that. I’ve known some of them to go back to the 1970s and get some BBQ from the place that used to be on the corner down the road from here,” said James as they were now under the light canopy of the forest near the time department building.

“I guess that would be a good way to check out the type of indigestion around back then,” Sean said dryly. James responded to this with a laugh as Sean motioned towards a tree that had no markings on it. “Is this one okay?” asked Sean as he pointed to a pine tree in the middle of the woods, about thirty yards inside the forest.

“Sure, that one is good. Starting to run out of trees,” said James as they both looked around at a couple of other surrounding trees that had scribbled initials in them that were all only about three inches in length. “I’ll go ahead and get the machine out. I will say that in 1990 these woods were basically the same, but where the time department building was the back side of something called a K-Mart, I believe. So, we’ll walk over there a little when we get back to then.”

“Such a shame that this generation never knew the K-Mart.”

“Really? I always figured that it was more like a crappy version of Walmart,” replied James as he got the circular time travel device out of its bag.

“Oh no, it was just a crappy version of Walmart. But at the time, it just felt like a whole different experience. Like going to a video rental store used to be.”

“Hard to believe that was ever a thing, looking back on it now. I’ve never even seen a VHS tape in person before,” said James as he placed the device on the ground.

“How will this work exactly?” asked Sean.

“Well, I’ve never known too much about the engineering behind the machine. But for what we are doing today, you just hold on to one of these aluminum handles and I press this button and we’ll be back. Usually, it only lasts a couple of seconds if you’re only going back 50 years like we’re about to,” said James as he picked up the handle and pulled it out, while motioning to Sean to do the same.

“Seems simple enough.”

 “Yeah, it’s not too bad. Are you ready? It’ll be the trip of a lifetime.”

“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” replied Sean as he closed his eyes and prepared for what was to come

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3

“Did it work?” asked Sean.

“It sure did. Welcome back to the 90s,” said James as he picked up the time travel device.

“I suppose so. How can you tell?” asked Sean.

“Well, I guess from this spot you can’t really tell, but the device says complete. We can walk out to the highway if you want,” asked James. He had been through this very thing many times before. Where they were standing, there wasn’t really any difference from the present to the past other than it being slightly cloudier outside now. The same dense collection of pine trees surrounded them.

“I suppose that would be fun if it’s not too much trouble for you, I’m not sure if we’re quested for time or anything,” said Sean. James knew that a marking in a tree was not usually an awe-inspiring revelation by itself, but it was all part of his typical show to prove time travel.

“Yeah, that’s fine. Trust me, I’ve shown people around this area many times. I understand; I’ve had to do a lot of convincing over the years. I’d be doing the same thing if I was in your shoes. We even created a fraud division within the National Time Department that cracks down on people pulling off time-travel scams. They’ll say they’ve got time travel and it’ll only cost you $50,000. They’ll take you back to 1970 or something, but it’ll really just be some studio set somewhere with actors.”

“Wow, and that works on some people?” asked Sean.

“Well, it kind of works. Most of the time the person realizes they were duped and they sue them, but by then they’ve already lost their money and then they’ve got to pay a lawyer to bring a suit against them. Luckily, that type of thing isn’t around as much anymore. More importantly, though, this is the real thing,” said James as he motioned for Sean to follow him out of the woods.

James and Sean walked back through the woods towards the area they had come from. This housed the time department building in the present time of 2040, but back in 1990 was the back of a K-Mart. The back of the K-Mart housed a shipping area with some garbage cans and an employee in a red K-Mart shirt looking off into the woods while smoking a cigarette.

“Who’s that guy over there?” asked Sean, pointing at the K-Mart employee who still hadn’t looked at them yet as they were just now exiting the woods.

“Not sure, I guess some guy that works at K-Mart here in 1990. I might not talk to him, though. Even talking to somebody from the past could lead to drastically changing your time continuum and ultimately changing your future. It’s possible that that guy could be a serial killer that suddenly decides to kill you or your parents after you’ve now met him,” said James, looking as serious as a heart attack facing Sean with a solum face.

“Are you being serious?” Sean asked while holding out his hands perplexedly.

“Naw I’m just kidding with you. I’ve heard of things being changed by people running into people they knew from the past, but it’s normally not too big of a deal. So, if you don’t know the guy, then it won’t be a problem at all. Also, I think I’ve heard of this guy before from other time managers. From what I’ve heard, he’s just your typical stoner metal guy,” replied James with a smile. He felt like he might have actually scared Sean for a second about time travel, even though he knew from his experience that interacting with someone from the past was rarely a big deal.

“Thank goodness. If things were that sensitive, I might be scared to go back in time after all,” replied Sean smiling in relief.

“No, it’s not too big of a deal,” remarked James as they both walked by where the smoking K-Mart employee was leaning against the wall while walking around to the front of the rectangular K-Mart building. The man looked at both of them as they walked by. James and Sean both nodded their heads at the man. He acknowledged them and returned the same look, albeit with a typical bad attitude, as if he was likely thinking, ‘How dare these random guys even look at me while I’m on my smoke break.’

They both continued walking as they walked around the concrete ramp in the back of the building where the loading dock was. This is where they could see the highway, which was just like it was back in 2040. It was down a hill from the K-Mart, just like the time department building was. Driving on the road were cars like Toyota Camrys and Ford Tauruses. Instead of the longer, sleeker looks of the ones on the road in 2040; it was the small, boxy, and in James’ opinion, ugly models from the mid-1980s that were on the road in 1990.

“This is amazing! I mean I began to realize something was up when we saw that guy back there, but I haven’t seen some of these cars in years much less a whole highway full of them,” Sean said as he excitedly looked back and forth at all the cars speeding by. Sean was experiencing the past firsthand as the loud drone of hundreds of cars pouring by on the highway made it hard for James and Sean to hear.

“So, the cars are what got you over?” asked James. James had seen the past countless times and had gotten used to its mystique. Nowadays, the real enjoyment that James got from time travel was seeing people like Sean experience the past for the first time.

“I guess so. It just doesn’t make too much sense to me, but I suppose this is the real deal. I had my doubts, but I must say that my time travel visit to that concert might be one of the greatest days of my life,” Sean said. It seemed to James like excitement and joy had suddenly been turned on in Sean like a light switch.

“Don’t get too ahead of yourself now, you still got till later this week until you get to go back to the wonderful world of the early 1990s,” James said as he and Sean walked around the K-Mart building across the side of the parking lot to the entrance of the store. “By the way, would you like to go in?” asked James, while motioning to the doors.

“Sure, I’m pretty sure that I haven’t set foot in a K-Mart in 30 years,” said Sean.

Both James and Sean walked through the automatic sliding doors of the K-Mart. This K-Mart was a particularly large one with about 15 checkout lines with about ten of which had people in light blue K-Mart shirts attending the cash registers. This was surprising for James to see, since it had probably been at least 5 years since he’d even seen a gas station with an actual cashier much less a big box store.

To their left at the entrance was a K-Mart cafe which had a Little Ceaser’s pizza place with a seating area and a fountain drink area with a couple of Icee machines. The two then spent about 10 minutes walking through the entire store. They went through the toy aisles and found Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figures and an entire half aisle dedicated to Micro Machine city sets and cars. James was even tempted to buy an Optimus Prime figure, given that Transformer toys were some of his favorites even from when he was growing up in the 2010s.

They walked by kitchen supplies that were nearly all white or beige and shelves of endless TVs in the electronics aisle. Nearly all of them were huge and boxed shaped and made James think that his back would collapse if he had to buy and drag the 50-inch one out of the store. After checking out the store, they went back to the Little Ceaser’s area, and both got blue Icees.

“Thank you for that, James. I know I’ve got this time travel trip coming up soon but just going back in time even to see a K-Mart was pretty awesome, not to mention these Icees,” said Sean as they were walking out of the K-Mart doors back to the woods where they originally came back in time.

“Sure thing, I’m glad you liked it. I had fun too. It’s been a while since I’d been to the 1990s myself. So, I take it that you’re sold on time travel now?” asked James as they were walking past the loading dock of the K-Mart and now were through the edge of the woods.

“Oh yeah, it seemed a little scary at first. Honestly, I said I was skeptical of its reality, but I was just worried about what the actual act of going back in time was like,” Sean said as they had made it back to the point in the woods where they had first arrived.

“I can understand. I was always a little worried about it myself, but there really isn’t much to it. Also, just to let you know as a warning that when it comes to time travel; when you go back to whatever your present time is, you’ll go back to the present time that you should be in based on how long you’ve been gone. Like if you were gone for a day here in 1990, then when you came back to your present time, you’d be coming back to a day later than when you left. Not a big deal, but I wasn’t sure if you’d heard something different before. Didn’t want you to be surprised when we got back,” James said as he brought out the device from the backpack he was wearing and put the time travel device on the ground.

“Actually, that is something that I wasn’t completely sure about, but I guess it makes sense when you put it all that way,” replied Sean as James nodded and turned on the device, dialed them in to go back to their present time and sent them back to 2040.

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