Poor Life Choices
As he aged, Warren often thought of his life choices–not ones he’d gotten right, meeting his partner, raising a family—but his mistakes. His poor life choices. Rejecting advice. Not accepting help. Not realizing who he really was. Sabotaging important aspects of his life, throwing a shoe into the works.
Not thinking things through.
He not only wished he could change the past, he built a machine to help him do it. It was large, in the backyard. His wife had passed from cancer two years earlier. He told his adult children, when they visited, it was an outdoor home theatre. Although it had only one seat. They did not accept his explanation but let it go. Dad was eccentric.
The machine was a time travel device. Alone, he sat in the seat, looking at the controls. He could go back fifty years, to when a local publisher offered to print his stories, but they needed him to fund it. Stupidly, he saw it as self-publishing and rejected it. Publishing so early would have changed his life. But, he likely would not have moved to another city and met his wife. His entire past would change. He did not want to lose his wife and children. He loved them.
He could travel into the future, but he did not want to see it. Is anyone ready to see their future?
He sat in the machine, which had taken many years to create, thinking about his poor life choices.