Happily married, a good job, two wonderful kids — the older starts college this fall. Nearing fifty, but still in pretty good shape. What's not to like? About the present, very little. About the past, quite a lot. I entered college young and clumsy. While my age mates were discovering sex and falling in and out of love, I was reading science fiction and playing board games. I went to mixers and tried to dance close but nothing ever happened from there; I didn't quite graduate without ever having kissed a girl, but almost. Looking back, watching the college kids now, reading, talking, I have the feeling I missed a lot.
I think you are saying that he has three hours to choose IF he will go back to the original-and-unaltered timeline. (and if not, he's "locked in" to the new alternate timeline he's been in for about 4 yrs.)
The idea of a man confronted with such a choice is sufficient to provoke tears. Good story!
Also, I LOVE details like the bit about how he forgot he'd be using a typewriter again!!
I considered that... but no, I don't think that "the option" was merely to take the original deal to jump backward in time for four years (though that was a choice, a thing that the protagonist granted the permission for.) I think the option is WHETHER to return to the regular timeline within the four years.
Oh, also evidence: It says when Katie broke up with him "I almost took the option then."
I'm convinced that having a choice between living out a life that sounds incredibly appealing (and probably adds about 30 years--young fresh years--on to your life) but would literally require you to forsake your wife and (thanks to the wonders of time-travel) cause your children to not exist is WAY worse. (The part where he says he was talking with his girlfriend Anne about future plans earlier in the evening was a total gut punch; the guy has to sort of... betray one woman or another.)
Ones that involve us making a choice are much more tormentuous, because we're morally culpable. Merely experiencing a major unavoidable disappointment... well, okay, yeah.. it would be very, very painful. But he's caught between giving up what he desires and destroying what he loves/loved.
It often isn't clear in time travel stories whether the old time line vanishes or remains in parallel. In the latter case the first wife gets to continue her life with the husband while another version of the husband lives a different life in a parallel time line. I was thinking of the problem from the narrator's point of view, so ignoring the consequences for others.
Similarly, if he returns to his original life, does he vanish from Anne or does a different version of him marry her?
On the parallel time lines version, what he is controlling is which version of him his consciousness goes to, not which version exists.
One other thing I didn't think about, due to being much younger when I wrote it than I am now, was the advantage of an extra thirty years or so of life.
IThere's a self centered element to time travel stories that always bothers me. The only person who really exists is the main character. Everyone else is ... Not quite as human?
I think you exaggerate the disappearance of the “homely high-school girl”. I have noticed that the percentage of youngsters who look attractive seems to increase as I get older, but I still doubt that it’ll ever reach 100%.
Should have gone and bought a cap gun, and a hundred rolls of caps. They don’t make ‘em anymore, and since they weren’t that special they wouldn’t tempt you to stay.
I think you are saying that he has three hours to choose IF he will go back to the original-and-unaltered timeline. (and if not, he's "locked in" to the new alternate timeline he's been in for about 4 yrs.)
The idea of a man confronted with such a choice is sufficient to provoke tears. Good story!
Also, I LOVE details like the bit about how he forgot he'd be using a typewriter again!!
I think it’s worse than that. He stayed long enough for his old life to fade, and for him to grow attached. He’s going back in three hours.
I considered that... but no, I don't think that "the option" was merely to take the original deal to jump backward in time for four years (though that was a choice, a thing that the protagonist granted the permission for.) I think the option is WHETHER to return to the regular timeline within the four years.
Oh, also evidence: It says when Katie broke up with him "I almost took the option then."
I'm convinced that having a choice between living out a life that sounds incredibly appealing (and probably adds about 30 years--young fresh years--on to your life) but would literally require you to forsake your wife and (thanks to the wonders of time-travel) cause your children to not exist is WAY worse. (The part where he says he was talking with his girlfriend Anne about future plans earlier in the evening was a total gut punch; the guy has to sort of... betray one woman or another.)
Ones that involve us making a choice are much more tormentuous, because we're morally culpable. Merely experiencing a major unavoidable disappointment... well, okay, yeah.. it would be very, very painful. But he's caught between giving up what he desires and destroying what he loves/loved.
Kind of hurtful to the first wife.
It often isn't clear in time travel stories whether the old time line vanishes or remains in parallel. In the latter case the first wife gets to continue her life with the husband while another version of the husband lives a different life in a parallel time line. I was thinking of the problem from the narrator's point of view, so ignoring the consequences for others.
Similarly, if he returns to his original life, does he vanish from Anne or does a different version of him marry her?
On the parallel time lines version, what he is controlling is which version of him his consciousness goes to, not which version exists.
One other thing I didn't think about, due to being much younger when I wrote it than I am now, was the advantage of an extra thirty years or so of life.
IThere's a self centered element to time travel stories that always bothers me. The only person who really exists is the main character. Everyone else is ... Not quite as human?
I think you exaggerate the disappearance of the “homely high-school girl”. I have noticed that the percentage of youngsters who look attractive seems to increase as I get older, but I still doubt that it’ll ever reach 100%.
Should have gone and bought a cap gun, and a hundred rolls of caps. They don’t make ‘em anymore, and since they weren’t that special they wouldn’t tempt you to stay.