Where do I begin?  The beginning, I guess.  But, truthfully, I’m hesitant.  I guess anyone would be when trying to articulate the past.  Or the future.  Or any of it really.  Past, present, future–it’s all in stone, and it all comes down to the very moments we hope to see just before they happen.  

And there I was, staring my prize down in the most spectacular of moments.  The Declaration of Independence.  Mine for the taking.  Literally a few inches away, inside a vault, deep within a building, and mercy to me once I activated my powers to make it so the alarm systems never existed.  

HIstory said the document disappeared.  Because history said I came back in time and stole it.  Which history had said had disappeared so I would go back and steal it.  

The magic is in the moment.  As my hand goes to reach for it.  

The moment, or moments, I study to understand the fabric of time, reality, and such; it all bleeds together, and when the future meets the present, that’s when bliss and divinity culture.  

In my time, the vastly distant future, nothing exists other than the individuality of one’s personal enrichment.  People don’t burn for others, we don’t resist anything, we simply watch and learn and move forward in our own desperate attempt to procure life and all its meaning.  

It’s boring. Complacent. Empty. 

Yet all of time is clear.  This was my purpose and my gift.  

While dressed in twentieth century clothes, nothing special, I had snuck passed everything else.  WIth mastery of time, nothing stands in the way.  

So with a thought, I activate my abilities, and a substantial bubble, containing time and particles unheard of, stretched until the room was secured in its own secluded dimension.  All that I could control.  Forward, backward, past, future–like I said, it all bled together.  Apparitions, ghosts, called Blues, faded back and forth, disappearing one moment, visible the next as their time, their story, played out like an old movie in front of my eyes.  I turned my hand, and time began moving backwards.  

I was affected, but I did not change.  Time dared not touch me.  And eventually, in this space, nothing existed beyond the document being held by one man after its completion.  This was the paper’s story.  Its coded timeline.  And then I grabbed it.  

My bubble disappeared.  My powers died.  And I held it in all its glory.  History unchanged.  The alarms untripped.  The mission successful.  

Now it was time to get out.  

“Hold on there, cowboy.” 

The voice startled me, but I didn’t panic.  Only because I knew she would find me.  “Took you long enough,” I said.  The barrel of her mark twelve gun dug a bit deeper.  

“You made it easy,” she said.  “Now turn, slowly.”

I did as she asked and stared her down.  A female version of me?  Curvy, perfect, beautiful, voluptuous. Of course she would be.

“Too slow.”

I tried to push her away, to gain some distance before I activated my bubble.  But she was too fast.

Lips on lips, tongue against tongue.  Their saliva mixed and tussled as her tongue stretched deep within his awe struck surprise.  She sucked, suckled, and proded, taking everything he had.  

What was left?  A husk, a dried up body that was nothing but skin and bones.  The power of time returned to its owner.  

I wiped my lips on my sleeve, satisfied by my work, kicking the dead into a heap on the floor.  Taking the document.   

Eight more to go.