The gravel punctuates each step, each shift in stance, with an exclamation point. Giving a prudent and pungent essence to the desolation of this driveway. I reach down, index finger and middle finger making a gentle claw. They place themselves under the bosom of the yellow flower. A ripping sound sticks to my ears and echoes in my head as the yellow flower soon rests inside my palm. Like a natural sleep to the world, I pull my device from my pocket, give one more look at the windows and walls that kept my happiness at bay. I am gone, but not.

Jackhammers or something else that was made for ripping and tearing up pavement can be heard inside of my house. I go for the closest, I go for the box, and stuff these bits of hope away. I feel a lump in my throat, I clear, and clear my throat, but it doesn’t leave. One shot follows another, this isn’t a practical response to anything, but there wasn’t anything practical about what I do.  Or that’s what I like to tell myself.  I swing and waddle my way to my device. My eyes squint hard, to go, somewhere. Oh yes.

“I’m here to meet god.” the man behind the hotel counter does not find this joke as funny as I do. I lean heavily on the counter half to intimidate, the other half to hold myself up. “He’s in room 3327, he might be expecting me.” I try to hide my slur, but in the act of hiding it, I’m sure it became more prevalent. “Yes sir, I should phone his room now.” His eyes look me up and down, it was most likely an odd sight for someone dressed for summer, without coat or scarf, to be wandering about this cold New York City night. I tap my fingers across the counter, I like to think it sounded like Moonlight Sonata Movement 1, but I’m sure it just sounded like a drunk tapping on a counter. The clerk returns, clearing his throat. “He’ll see you now.” He begins to point towards the elevators, but I’m already there. It goes up, I feel a swoosh in my belly. A warm and good swoosh. I smile at the elevator operator, but he doesn’t smile back. He opens the door and there’s a moment where I’m unsure, ‘what the fuck am I doing here?’, I think to myself. The opening is there, the path is shown, my feet stick, my legs stick if my hand were close enough to the walls they would stick too. “This is your floor sir.” speaks the operator, his voice sounds surer than mine. I take one step then another, the metal doors slide shut behind me. The hallway seems dim and nothing, ok there were things, but I want to say nothing as in to say; if there was something of any importance to anything ever, it wasn’t, no it wasn’t here. I walk my way to room 3327. Knocking once, then knocking again. The numbers seem uneven and just wrong.

His eyes are disturbed, but a gentle kindness tries it’s best to blanket them. “Yes?!” he speaks in an almost feverish tone. My lips tingle when I say; “Mr. Tesla, this may or may not sound really weird, but I’m a fan of yours and I’ve come all the way from the future to talk to you…” There’s a great spread of silence for maybe 30 seconds. He moves to the side of the door to welcome me in, I walk through.

“Do you like beer?” he asks as he himself shuffles his way to a box. “Yes, I do sir.” He takes two bottles from the box, the dark green glass shines in the small amount of light that was present in the room. The sink runs in the bathroom as I cup my knees with my hands. Handing me a wet glass with the light beer inside, I sip. “So, you have a lot to explain to me, and feel free to pace yourself, I do have plenty of beer.” he clears the clothes off of a seat and makes himself comfortable as he speaks. His eyes are dark as the lamp behind him provides the only bits of light. I gulp once, and to be honest twice. “Well- you wouldn’t believe how loved you are in my time. You are quite literally a savior of the 20th century and even the 21st…” I tip the glass till the bottom meets the horizon if there was one to see. With one hand he pops another beer and pours into my glass. A smile, a good smile comes across his face. “I have thought many times that the traveling of time could be possible, that is if one was to move forward.” He finishes by sipping slightly from his glass. “Well you’re right, it can be only achieved in a forward movement, I myself have no way in traveling back in time, no, what I do is simply go forward enough in the cycle until the entire circle begins again, so I guess in essence I only move forward in time to achieve my backwards movement in time, or well, yeah…” I look into my beer as I felt silly to explain it in such a manner to someone like him.  Tiny glints gather in his eyes, they move back and forth like a metronome, to process. “That’s outstanding! How can you achieve such an amount of power to propel yourself such a distance?” He leans in for my answer. “Well..” I take another drink from my beer. “It turns out far past my, my time we had the idea of power all wrong, just wrong. Not to say you were wrong no, no. You laid the groundwork for what power could be. Well I guess, it’s sort of like the power of everything that already exists and that will ever exist has a general and non-general power about it. And to a point not to harness it, but to glide amongst it. So that is to say, it doesn’t take any power but in what we might want to call reality flows with the overabundance, or well the existence of it.” I finish my beer as I finish speaking. He finishes his as well.

He wasn’t much of a drinker but was. We finished off a few beers before words are exchanged again. “What it is you are telling me is that the ether truly exists?” he asks in an almost gleeful tone.  “Well I guess yes, but we call it quantum, I guess it sounds far nicer than ether, but essentially it is or can be the same thing.” I give him a smile, the kind of smile of discovery. “This is outstanding! We have to write the papers, we have to unlock this further!” He begins to yell as he stands from his chair. “We have to do the work!” I motion my hand for him to sit back down. “You can’t, the work has already been done. It’s been unlocked when the period came to unlock it, I know this sounds silly now, but there is, unfortunately, a time and place for everything…” I bite the shit out of my tongue as I finish, if he knew how much I didn’t care for what I just said, to be damned is the life of a hypocrite.

The conversation luckily leads back to him. He asks about his death, yet I don’t say it’s tomorrow. He asks how he changed the world and I simply told him he changed everything. I finish the rest of my beer and sadly feel the want of my own bed. “I must be going, and I am sorry to drink all of your beer.” I say as I stand and brush myself off for no reason. “Oh please, come by and drink as much of my beer as you would like.” He stands as well. I shake his hand and his grip feels like mush. Damn if he only knew… “Goodnight!” I yell as to make my way through the door. “Goodnig..” his voice cuts off as I disappear.

My living room is dark and hot. I click the AC on as I try to wipe my tears. “At least he sort of knew…” I mumble to myself as I walk to my bedroom to sleep.

-Karl