Sometimes taking the long way to school can have a large impact in your life. And today I decided to take the long way.
As I was walking through the park I noticed what looked like an old man. He looked to be in his fifties with old gray shaggy hair and a beard to match it and from the look of his clothes he looked like he was homeless. Beside him was something that I hadn’t noticed before it looked like a log that had washed up from the lake but it was oddly green, when it started to move I realized that it was an alligator and that it was leaching closer to the sleeping homeless man.
I dropped everything and started to run towards the man.
“Hay, Hay Wake up,” I started to the scream but to no avail the homeless man was not waking up and the alligator was still inching closer and closer to the man.
“Hay there’s an alligator that about to kill you,” I screamed louder but he still did not wake up by this time the alligator was less than an arm’s length away from the man while I was still quite a distance away.
“Wake up if you don’t want to die,” I screamed with all the might I had and finally the man heard me but it was too late the alligator had started to bite his leg.
I sprinted a fast as I could, faster than I ever had before and caught up to the alligator and the screaming man before they had reached the sand bar by the lake.
I jabbed and I kicked but the alligator would not let go and kept dragging the man towards the lake. I knew if they made it to the lake I would be unable to save the man. I looked all around me for something to hit the alligator with but there was nothing and by then we were in the water and the alligator started to spin. In the haze I remembered seeing a special on animal planet that said that if you stuck your arm down the throat of an alligator they will start to vomit and release you. I looked around but everything was moving too fast, it was just a blur of green, gray and the spray of water everywhere. Just then I saw I small opening in the alligators mouth and without hesitating I stuffed my entire arm into its mouth and started to release the man. I then kicked it and grabbed the man by his arm and swam as fast as I could to the shore. When we reached the shore I looked back a saw that the alligator had retreated was not going to peruse us. I then laid the man down and looked at his arm that was bleeding.
“My watch,” he said.
“What about your watch,” I said. It was such an odd thing to ask for after being attacked by an alligator.
“My watch,” said the man pointing towards a shining object on the sand bar. I went over to get if for him and the second I touched it everything changed. The world around me was spiraling and like it was when I was in the lake. Then suddenly everything turned black.
Then I heard it the Beep Beep Beep of my alarm. It was morning again
To see if it was a dream I looked to see if I had the watch and I did but oddly it was on my wrist and I hadn’t put it there.
“Did this just happen, did I time-travel?” I thought to my self
Then I remembered the man and ran down stairs and past my family all the way to the lake and there was the man but there was no alligator yet.
I gently woke up the man and asked “hay what is with this watch,” pointing to the watch I had on my wrist and with his eyes wide open he looked down at his wrist and saw that his was still there and he asked “how did you get that.”
“I got it by saving you from an alligator,” I said.
“No you didn’t I would have known if you did,” he said
Just then the alligator got out of the water and started to walk toward us and we ran way back towards my house.
“Now do you believe me?” I asked
“Yes,” he said obviously knowing the power the watch held.
“So how does this work?” I asked.
“How does what work?”
“This watch, the whole time travel thing how does it work?”
“Is simple if you touch the watch at a time of great distress it will take you back before any of it has happened otherwise you can go back in time by adjusting the watch to the time and date you want and pushing down its face,” He said, “the catch is you can only go back in time and the farthest back you can go is to the date you were born, also each second you go back you grow by that much so if you went back a year you would be a year older physically but remain the same mentally. And when someone touches your watch at a moment of great despair they get one too and you soon disappear.”
“Disappear how,” I asked
“The watch takes you back to the date you were born and makes you relive your life without any memory of what happened before,” he said.
“If you knew that you would go back to being a baby then why did you have me get it for you,” I asked.
“Because I have been waiting all my life for a moment like this, do you think that I wanted to be homeless like this …,” and with that he turned to dust and was swept away by the wind. And that is how I came into possession of a watch that lets me travel through time.