Why should i trust you?

“Because I was there, I was …here!” the elder of the two circled around the desk to once again meet the eyes of the younger, “I know you don’t understand, because I didn’t understand at your age, God knows, I had no bloody clue….”. He lifted his hand to his mouth, stifling involuntary sighs and minor cries.

“There is no way you can seriously expect me to take any of this seriously! You are a certified crackpot, a loony tune, a total fruitcake of a man!” Disbelief clear on his face, he once again spun his chair away from the older man. Now facing his screen, he took a deep breath and tried to remember what he had been going to do before being so violently interrupted a mere 15 minutes earlier. Before he could form any train worthy of the term, the man again burst into his view. Bitterly reproaching himself for believing the other might leave, throwing his eyes away from the screen with as much venom as he could muster, he asked “WHAT??” trying to make it clear that, as far as he was concerned, the conversation had ended. Staring back at him were some achingly familiar eyes, eyes that now intensely searched his face for anything other than the obvious anger he was feeling. Finding nothing else, they narrowed in thought, the man turned away and took a few steps towards the back of the lab. The seated man tried to get back to his screen but found even the other’s presence made paying attention impossible. He wondered why security had yet to turn up, he had sounded the alarm minutes ago now, even before the tyrannical rant the intruder had launched into. They should have been here; he could see the indicator on the wall was lit up. He found himself wondering why it wasn’t flashing, he had never used it before, had never needed to, but surely it should flash?

“I can’t leave until you see sense, why are you so bloody thick, you are supposed to be a genius!”. The stranger had again moved to the back of his machine, peering over the top of his screen with an intensity that was very different from the normal discomfort he experienced with human eye contact. This was very odd, it was far easier to maintain eye contact with this man than with any other human in his life, but it was also far more disturbing. Most people were merely uncomfortable around him, some openly showed distrust but nobody in his life had ever stared at him with such a potent rage. Only with his cat Leo had he maintained eye contact for longer than 5 seconds but this man, this interloper, this terrorist withdrew from him a strange familiarity and fury that could only be properly communicated by staring into his undoubtedly black soul. The eyes staring back seemed similarly aflame, yet he did not yield, didn’t even feel the need to yield. On some level he found this astounding, absurd and petrifying in equal measure but rationally, he reasoned the stranger had encroached on his own domain and had caused a defensive reaction never needed.

The deadlock broke just before the air between the two sets of emerald, green eyes erupted in plasma fires. The elders’ eyes softened, slightly, now searching for a better way to get his point across. Empathy was not something either of the gentleman had practiced using, nor receiving. Reasoning, again for both men, was cold and calculated. Their self-assurances made their logic unassailable, they knew they were right because they were right – what other option was there? The younger man’s internal confidence had never been tested, in his 30 years of predictable and meticulously planned out existence, nothing had brought him any surprise of note. The older man’s outlook was stubbornly similar however, all at once, he realised he did have something the other did not. “Experience!” he spurted out like others had shouted “Eureka!” which caused, if such a thing was possible, a further hardening of the stare he was on the receiving end of.

“Ok, we share more than we don’t, I have been coming at this, coming at you from the wrong direction.” He paced back and forth at the back of the computer, casting occasional glances as he went. “Do you remember your first day of high school? The last time you wet your pants?” As it had done on that day, the younger man’s body betrayed him and he felt his face flush. Seething at his own inability to stop such a reaction and at the other man’s ability to trigger it, he stood up throwing his chair away, no idea how to fight but determined, it seemed, to learn by doing.

“THAT’S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS, WHO THE HELL TOLD YOU THAT?” His rage finding more purchase as his tormentor now appeared calmer. He held up his hands to placate him, but any semblance of control had evaporated away quicker than the blood had reached his face. He stalked around behind the machine intending on throttling his opponent, even as his own deep thoughts noticed this was wrong. He wasn’t confrontational, he certainly wasn’t violent – it was wrong that he could react this way with someone. Even those who held him down until he urinated on himself hadn’t managed to create such a reaction. So how had this stranger achieved such a reaction with so few words. Especially when so few words had made any kind of logical sense.

Both men were of equal height and reach, the younger stronger and larger. The elder showed signs of some ill health, possible malnutrition and some telltale signs of alcohol misuse. The signs became unmistakable as he grabbed his coat lapels and brought him closer to his own face than any human had been since he had learned to talk. The smell of alcohol and despair barely penetrated, and once again faint internal alarms flared up inside. How was he doing this, the man was mere inches from his face, eyes locked together – the literal epitome of everything that made him itch on an un-scratchable level, and on his uppermost conscious level, he didn’t care. His entire life to this point had led to some very iron clad assertions about his place in social situations. This man and the last 15 minutes had truly and utterly shattered them to dust.

Calmly, more calmly than he had any reason to be in a violent situation such as this, the elder man said simply, “Nobody told me that, I was there! Gorilla Laufeyson held you down and laughed!” he leaned in closer, taking up half the small space between their faces as if he was also testing his limits. He saw it, he saw the very second of doubt that crept into his assailant’s universe. So small but so infinitely powerful. He was pushed back a few feet as he was released, never moving his eyes away from the scene before him. He knew the mental gymnastics going through the other man’s mind, the possibilities he was dreaming up. Was he one of the teachers from that day? He was old enough but no…he remembered all the teachers good and bad. Was he an older student? Not possible, there was too big of an age difference! Someone must have told him the story then, simple really -but no, “Gorilla” had been his own internal nickname for Benji Laufeyson. He had never had the guts to tell anyone that. He glanced back at the strange man, eyeing him up without any shred of discomfort. He was staring intently back at him but without any fear, only with calculating curiosity, trying to figure out what he would do now.

Realisation came quite easy to Greg; he had spelled it out for himself in the first minute of their encounter. “I am you, from the future and you are about to do an innocent thing that had far from innocent consequences. I have spent my life trying to find a way to reach you, and now I am here…. You need to listen to me very carefully!” realisation that this was true came very easy to Greg when faced with such personal evidence. What didn’t come easy was the acceptance of the horrors he was about to unleash, or that his future self, had suffered for all those years to try and rectify his mistake. He took a seat back on his chair, looking at the code on his screen as older Greg came around the desk after him. He began to reel off the future history of the next 35 years, his part in it and his deep shame at the consequences. His predecessor listened intently, oddly not focusing on the horror he had unleashed on the world and the people in it but amazed at what he had done in the intervening years to undo it. He had worked with people, directly and consistently. He had formed partnerships and even guarded friendships. The successor spoke of his shame at speaking to his friends as an innocent party, knowing full well he had caused the world they were forced to live in.

The shame, the guilt, the regret. Older Greg spoke of them so matter-of-factly that it was utterly astounding. None of these things had ever surfaced in his current form. He had been sure he would remain unchanged until his dying day. He pondered the ramifications of such an observation, if he changed in this hellish timeline, could he change without the need for it. He questioned his seasoned self about such changes and how he felt about them. “I have had to create a hell of a lot of technique to cope, I still don’t find people comfortable, or always particularly palatable – but when you are responsible for the near extinction of the species, let’s just say your perspective changes somewhat!”

“But you did have friends, yes? You aren’t making that up?” The hopeful lilt in his voice instantly brought back the familiar feelings from his relative youth. He remembered how lonely he had been, how desperate he had been for the contact he couldn’t stand. The emptiness, the blackness, the shield he created to pretend people weren’t necessary. The lies he told himself through shame and confusion. He smiled as he looked at the expectant younger man.

“Yes, I truly did have friends, not many, and I was never honest with them, but I was closer to them than anyone else I have ever met. Circumstances forced my hand and I couldn’t get away from them even though I tried at the beginning, but now, now I am sad I shall never see them again. I miss them”. He was surprised, not only that he had made such a realisation but also to the extent of the truth in it. Tears formed in those green and seasoned eyes. Those eyes were his young Greg realised, except they had seen more horrors and wonderous things that he had ever thought possible. He was mightily confused, feeling long since supressed because he didn’t know how to articulate them like he did his work, appeared and multiplied. When he looked at the older him, he felt, something. He didn’t know what it was, but it wasn’t negative….no he corrected that, it was negative but in a positive way.

He knew two things in that moment, first, he didn’t have the words or experience to term what the hell was happening inside him, but he knew he had changed forever and it was tantalisingly terrifying.

Secondly, he knew he wanted to help his older self and that he felt his older self could help him. Straight faced he asked “Ok, so I destroy the world, regret it, come back in time to meet myself to stop myself from doing just that! It’s a one-way trip, you can never go home, but you don’t care because somewhere along the line, you developed empathy for all those bullies and gorillas out there, so much empathy, you gave up the only measly friendships you ever had to come back and teach me, you, to do it right? Tell me, why should I believe you?

“Because I am you….”

The younger man smiled, the first warm smile he could ever remember creating on purpose, he leaned across and deleted a few files on his computer and closed it down. Still smiling he turned to his future self “Yeah maybe but give me good reason to trust you!”.