Undoing the Future
Steve and Akiva both sat with their backs against the tree in a grassy field. Akiva was staring at a pocket watch that he had recently acquired.
“You know,” Steve said, “I used to have a pocket watch just like that.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. My father gave it to me as a gift when I turned 13. It was a family heirloom. He got it from his father at 13. I loved that watch. It was engraved on the back with the words, ‘To my beloved son, Benjamin.’ That was my father’s name.”
“What happened to it then?”
“I was angry. I forget what about now. Something pithy I’m sure. I threw the watch into the road. It was run over by an 18 wheeler. I tried to collect the parts, but it was so badly damaged that I couldn’t get it to work again.
“I wish that I could go back in time and change the past so that I had never thrown that watch, but I know that you can’t undo the past. That makes me wonder, if you can’t undo the past, can you undo the future? Isn’t the future just somebody else’s unchangeable past?”
A few moments passed as they both just sat there in silence. Akiva finally broke the silence, “I think that you can undo the future.” Akiva got up to walk away, but stopped short and handed his pocket watch to Steve. “Here, you can keep this.”
On the back of the watch was engraved,
“To my beloved son, Benjamin.”
