My Past is Torn

“I know you don’t think I deserve it, but please give me some of your time,” I plead to my son at his favorite local coffee shop where I ambushed him.

“Time? I’m supposed to give you my time? You don’t deserve it; you left a long time ago and forfeited that right. Let’s keep it that way,” he says.

He isn’t wrong, I left him and his mother when he was only fifteen. And now, here I am trying to reconnect. Time though, time for me, is precious. I only have so much to spend getting past his anger and getting reacquainted cause I’m going to need every minute available in the past. And, as it stands, he doesn’t seem to want any part of it anyhow. “Shawn, please, just listen, grant me a moment of time. We have some very important, and I mean very important topics to discuss.”

“Can you two use a top off,” the shop owner Annie asks with a carafe in her hand. The coffee house is rather empty and so are both of our mugs.

“Please,” I say and with a nod from Shawn she tops us off.

After she’s walked away Shawn says, “You call yourself Dad? It was over twenty years ago that you last deserved that title. Just go away, crawl back into whatever hole you came from, and leave me the hell alone!”

How do I tell him? Everything balances on me getting past his defenses and getting through to him. I did it once before, not long ago actually. Unfortunately, that time lays in my past but it’s waiting for him in his future. All this over a stupid program I made for a company years ago. Why did I put those lines of code in there? Pride? Bitz wasn’t the first cryptocurrency but became the most widely accepted. “Shawn, what can I do to get you to listen for a minute? I really don’t have that much time.” Shit, why did I add that last part.

“I don’t know. Maybe a solid explanation of why you left and then never bothered contacting us for all those years. Maybe you could fix all that. Oh, but your precious time is limited.”

He’s just maintaining control even though his face is flush, his words are harsh, and his eyes are throwing daggers at me. Yet through all his anger he’s still sitting here. I alter my tactic slightly, “Years ago, I was hired to make a program.” It was just before I left you and mom, I almost added that. I avoided that big mistake. “The program itself took all my time for several years. What I created was the basis for something that becomes sought after by many people. It becomes… well it becomes very big.”

I can see he’s listening, not sure what I said but either way I continue, “I designed the program for Bitz.” What quickly grew to the most widely accepted cryptocurrency.

“You made Bitz?” he says with genuine amazement. “You’re the person behind it?”

I seem to briefly have his attention, now I need to hold it, “Yes, I wanted to give the code away, make it free. It should’ve been a safe way for all currencies to be traded. It could have changed the financial world. The company had different ideas; they saw a way to make a profit from it. They wanted a fragment of each transaction.”

I pause for a moment. In this place and time, Bitz is comfortable, flawless, and it still feels perfect. The only way to break his current perception is to tell him the whole story. It was so much easier to do this in the future. He was so much more receptive to me, to everything. “Their actions pushed me to make a few changes; I was upset at their profit-driven stance. When it was turned on, when it became open to everyone, it was quickly embraced and my actions unstoppable. People traded it, hoarded it, and coveted it.” Once again I stop, I try to remember the time I’m in and the mindset people have toward Bitz.

In my silence Shawn says, “That’s all great for you. You must be proud of yourself. The work probably paid you quite well. However, in those last twenty years Mom and I barely scraped by. She struggled to keep a house over our heads and food on the table. She was a saint. When she got sick a few years ago it was me taking care of her right up to the very end. The medical bills ate up everything; I had to sell her house to cover them.”

“Shawn, you’re right. I owed you more than that. And your mom too. I’m sorry. You and I are a lot alike though.” I see the statement work its way into him. I see a rage boiling to the surface, but I continue before it erupts. “We both bury ourselves in our work. We focus on something, hyperfocus really. We try to eliminate distractions, and we keep our nose buried in our work sometimes to spite ourselves. We are similar in many ways.”

“I do get into my work. At the cost of my own life,” he says, recognizing the truth. “However, I was smart enough to stay single, to keep myself out of a relationship I couldn’t give my attention to. At least not until I solved it.”

“And solve it you did,” I say. My statement makes me sound like a stalker. “Yes, I’ve kept an eye on you. I know all your accomplishments, from college, to work, and to the project which is your true passion. I know what you’re working on. I know that you just solved it and completed your build. Now, you’re trying to decide if you should even release it upon the world. To crack something that the world’s greatest minds have worked on for lifetimes is a very special thing.”

“How do you…” he whispers.

“Know? Well, that is the part of my story you’ll find hard to believe. Or maybe you won’t knowing what you’ve made.”

“Go on,” he simply says.

“Well, it works. We both know it has limits. Both in reach and capacity.” By the look on his face, it’s obvious he knows I know. “Ultimately, you will decide to leave it buried in your basement. You’ve accomplished what you always set out to do and that will satisfy you. And you’re rightfully afraid to let this get in anyone’s hands. You will settle into a new rhythm in life. You actually start to date the owner of this coffee shop.”

“Annie? I do?”

“Come on, you’ve always liked her. She ends up asking you out. Not too long from now really.”

“Wait, hold on, now you’re predicting the future. How can you… that’s hogwash.”

“I’m not predicting the future, I’m discussing what I know from my past. I’ve come to see you before. Or a better way to say it would be that I will come to you about twenty years from now. We will reunite over a common cause.” I pause and let those last couple thoughts hang while he digests them.

He looks at me, confused at first. I know he’s not confused about what I’m inferring, but he’s just trying to assemble all the parts. He takes a sip of his coffee. Then with a slight nod he asks, “Pardon me for asking but how old are you?”

“A good question. I’m sixty-one.”

“Sixty-one,” he replies. Not as a question, but as a realization. “I thought you looked older than you should be.

“About twenty years. Your machine’s maximum reach.”

“Why? Why would I have let you use it?”

Finally, the question that will open everything up. “The program I made, as I said, I didn’t agree with the company’s profit-driven stance. It was wrong, and in my anger I did something stupid. I put an end date to the program. I explained to them that it was an end date for creating new Bitz, but really it was also an end date for them to profit from it. After that, the program was set to take over its own existence, its own digital life. Unfortunately, I never considered the growing threat of artificial intelligence and the overall power of computing. It wasn’t more than a dream when I created the program. They found the coding and unleased the power of AI into it, hoping it would find a way to undo what I did. This simple act was our undoing. AI was too smart, too wise to the world of man, it took hold of the reins. By this time Bitz was in everything, every level of our financial institutions used it. The computer recognized it as a way to cripple us.”

“It took control of it?” Shawn nearly understands it.

“Control? No, worse. It made all the digital records disappear overnight. In fact, it reached beyond that and wiped out any and every financial record and deed. Every trace was gone. The world of the future was sent into financial turmoil. You can’t even imagine the level of greed, and what greed will do. It started with blame and fell quickly into war. A world war like has never been seen. Eventually we were all fighting over one thing, food. There wasn’t going to be a winner,” I say.

“Dad,” he says, not realizing he just acknowledged who I am, “so this is why we united?”

“Yes, I was the one who created this entire mess with a few lines of code. And you, you had created a time machine that would allow us to fix it.”

“Even then you knew?”

“I suspected it, I really had followed your accomplishments over the years. So, I came to see you and Annie. There wasn’t too much that had to be said to convince you. You understood what I was asking and you knew what you had hidden away, what you just now hid away. Your machine’s importance was undeniable. Not to help me, but to help the world survive.”

“So, why are you here now?”

I sum it up by saying a single word, “Limits.”

“Twenty years, the maximum reach of my machine,” he says.

“Yes, and I need to go back one more time. I need to get back and stop myself. Bitz should never exist. The world deserves a better chance than what I gave it. And because the time machine pushes objects through time and doesn’t go through with them…”

“You’re here to use the machine I have now. And I’ve sworn to never use it.”

“I understand, I really do. In the future you could see clearly. You could see the results, the hopelessness and there was no reason to hold back. Today it seems like an unknown, the future that is, but it’s not. I tried to find different solutions. I’ve tried to find another way. Any other way.”

“So, now you come to me. And together we can fix everything?”

“Exactly, set the world on a better path,” I confirm.

“What would the world do without us? I mean, what are the chances?”

“The chances for what?” I ask, genuinely lost at the statement.

He sits upright in his chair and takes another sip of coffee. He looks around at the mostly empty place. “You and me. Two creators, you a computer programmer, me a physicist, holding the fate of the world in our hands. Not two people that are across the world from each other, not knowing the other exists, but instead a father and son. It’s beyond calculations; all of it. Beyond understanding. If I wouldn’t have talked to you. If I didn’t believe you, the world would suffer.”

“You have no idea,” I add.

“Oh, I can imagine. I know suffering. And that’s where I get stuck.”

“Huh?”

“I could help you. I could do what you ask. I should do it. However…”

“However? There is no ‘however’ Shawn. This is the fate of the world we’re talking about. Billions of innocent lives, a single act can save all of them,” I say. If he believes me, he can’t possibly withhold his help.

“There’s always a however. So, I say, however, I would be sending you back into my past, our past. And—once again I will get the pleasure of suffering through all that you put me through and end up here alone. Instead, I can end this all with full knowledge the other you will ask this favor in the future, my future. Or I could go home and end all of this by destroying my machine altogether. Then we’ll be locked into this fate you’ve created. When I do that, you will be the one to suffer for the next many years already knowing what’s going to happen.”

“How could you even think of going that route?”

“How could you assume that I would ever want to help you?”

“Not me son. You would be helping—saving everyone. You fully understand that in the future.”

“Weird thing, that future doesn’t exist anymore. At least not how you knew it. The moment you came back twenty years you changed everything. Don’t get me wrong, I do still believe your Bitz could cause the collapse you’ve seen before. I hope there’s a way it doesn’t happen. I’m fresh on the heals of all the pain you’ve caused me, only more than a year out from mom’s passing. You’re nothing to me. And frankly causing you pain seems more rewarding than helping you,” he says, finishing only moments before Annie walks over to check on us.

And it hits me, an opportunity, a final way to turn his anger around, “Thank you, Annie,” I say when she tops off my coffee again.

“My pleasure. Anything else I can get you two just let me know,” she adds with a smile.

“Actually Annie, there is one thing. I’m hoping you can help us out.”

“I can try, what do you need?” she says setting the carafe on the table. Looking across from me I see the puzzled, yet still angry, look on Shawn’s face.

“Well, if you knew there was a future waiting for you, a husband you adore, and two children,” I add quite specifically, keeping my eyes on Shawn who seems shocked by my revelation. “A future that has a dark ending, lets say a massive world war. In that war your children are drafted at a young age. Let’s just say the country is desperate. Billions of people across the world are killed, families torn apart, and lives destroyed by this terrible future. Yet here, now, you could make a choice to undo all of that. However,” I add.

“I would undo it,” She jumps in with a somewhat shocked look in her eyes.

“Hold on there’s more. However, if you make that choice, you will have to suffer through many years you would consider traumatic, many challenging years. Would you do it?”

“Will I still have this family you promise me? This happiness waiting for me?”

“Good question. Yes, once you live through this trauma. And no world war,” I reply.

“Then I would have to say yes, I would do it. The happiness at the end of it would be the reward. Like surviving through a terrible storm to be rewarded with a rainbow.”

“Thanks for your input Annie,” I say when a customer walks in and she grabs her carafe and heads over to take their order.

“You’re welcome,” She says while walking away.

I look back to Shawn, “She sees the forest through the trees.”

“It may be I end up with her, as you stated. It may be we end up with children. And honestly, I’m excited to pursue that one day. I can’t help but think how right in line her answer was with your goal,” Shawn says, and pauses.

“Good, I’m excited for you both. So, can you help me?” I ask.

“There’s the catch. She also has no true basis for any of it. No emotional, visceral reaction without knowing the limits and lengths of the trauma. Your mistake in the past wasn’t a singular mistake, it was many. And they have all influenced your future. Much like my choice could impact my future. But the future is unwritten. And the knowledge you’ve shared has given me a new direction, a new goal. It’s not a decision I make lightly, and I could change my mind in another twenty years. I have to say no,” he responds.

I sit for a moment in stunned silence over his selfishness. A selfishness born from my own. “Then there truly is no hope for the world,” I say out of desperation.

“Not in the plan you have,” he says while standing up and grabbing his cup, “For now, I’m going to leave you as you did me twenty years ago, alone.” And with that he walks away.

With little time for any other thought I call out, “Don’t do something you’ll regret.”

Before walking through the door he replies, “I already did. I talked with you!”

He crosses the street without looking back; my window of time is too short to unravel the mess I’ve made. I needed every minute of that twenty-year limit to fix my wrongs.

“Wow! You’re his dad right? That was really rude,” Annie says as she approaches again.

“Yes, but he had his reasons,” I reply hoping my comment reduces the impact of his. Either way, this may affect her interest. Hopefully he doesn’t destroy his machine, he may need it one day to alter this moment.

Despite my efforts, my past is torn—frayed beyond repair, and those mistakes will dictate the future.