Day 2 : I plunged humanity into utter chaos
“Dad, why are you crying?”
I didn’t notice that my tears started pouring as I was reading the usual bedtime story to Lydia. They weren’t the usual tears caused by the toxic dust that has been emerging everywhere, since she and I already had our protective gear on. It must have been because it’s been already 10 years since the incident..
I took a big breath.
“You’re 8 years old now, Lydia. You’re old for bedtime stories. It’s time for me to tell you about my story:
Back in 2012, I was a research student at Standford’s university’s physics lab. I was among the brilliant bunch and I was killing in theoretical physics, it’s why your dad bores you with dark matter and negative mass into sleep. I kinda became very close to Professor L. March, head of the physics department and that closeness allowed me to gain access to her secret research.
You see, Professor L. March was a brilliant yet controversial woman. She published about time traveling and multiverse theories more than once, had very eccentric political and extremist ideas, but truth to be told, she was a genius, and that’s why she stayed in that position.
I became a friend, then a close friend, then a lover. Both of us were as invested in our relationship as much as in our work. We had already worked out the string theory and its problematic, we calculated the possibilities for the worm holes existence, we studied the elemental particles closely and meticulously. It was really the best thing that would happen to a physics nerd.
3 years later, we finally created the first prototype. By that time, she had already developed a stage 2 thymoma and she had refused to treat it, saying that that would affect our work.
One day she told me “I want you to use that machine to go back to 1980 and meet your dad” That caught me off-guard. I did want to meet him since he died when I was an infant. I didn’t expect that that wish of mine stayed on her mind.
After some arguing, I had already understood that I couldn’t change her mind “Meet your dad and then come back to me, I would be very happy if you do and only then will I be able to die in peace”
It’s been decided then, I’ll go meet my dad 30 years ago.
We made the necessary tests, calculations and regulations to make it work. There have been however a lot of variables and unknowns since we’re basically using theory and maths to do the work. Everything was possible.
“It should be fine” I kept repeating as I was in the ship, ready to take off. Something at the back of my mind kept telling me that messing with the laws of physics like this would be a very bad idea.
I went 30 years back in the past. The whole experience is so surreal and complicated, I can’t really explain it. And I did meet your grandfather after all, and it was a really heartwarming moment. It’s only when I “came” back to my days that things got.. uglier, to put it in a mild manner.
Do you remember that time when I told you about the butterfly effect ? Well, meeting your grandfather was the bug butterfly. This effect, better known with its less fairy name, the chaos theory, is imagined with a butterfly flapping its wings and causing a typhoon on the other side of the world. In other words, your father’s naive and selfish decision to meet his father, had … consequences, more particularly, condemning the world to an age of wars, fallout and utter chaos.
I returned to 2025 after meeting grandpa and I realized that I plunged humanity into an era of darkness. The sky was dark, the air was dusty and thick, the smell was foul and nothing but rubble and corpses were seen everywhere.
I tried keeping my sanity, and then I heard a faint sound of an infant, crying inside the rubble, 20 meters or so away from me. That cry of infant was your Lydia. You were the single most beautiful thing in this doomed world.
Here we are today, the world has been recovering from the chaos but we’re still far from a decent living reality. I had all the time to reflect on what I have done. Lydia March and I really made sure we did that correctly and flawlessly. The maths, the formulas, the parameters, they all had indicated that neither do simple systems always behave in a simple way, nor does complex behavior always imply complex causes, in lame man’s terms, that shouldn’t have happened.
It shouldn’t have happened, it shouldn’t have.
And yet I did.
I loathed myself, I prayed for forgiveness in many religions. I sought the advice of rabbis, monks, imams, or at least what remained of them. I even thought of killing myself more than once, and I couldn’t, because you were babbling in the other room.
I remember blaming your mom for a miscalculation she may or may not did. The crushing burden of guilt is something I’ve been bearing for a long time and it had changed me in so many ways.
I haven’t been the most perfect dad for you, Lydia. I was always drinking away my miseries and been on a lot of pills. I couldn’t cope, some days I couldn’t even look at your face, because I remember that even you weren’t safe from misery. I took away your parents and home after all, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you resented me till the end of the days.
I’m sorry, Lydia. I wish that that word that I had aimlessly been repeating every day every minute every second since I met you, would bring everything back. I’m-”
She jumped on me, clutching so hard it brought me up to reality and said
“Dad, I forgive you, please let it go, please be my dad and forgive yourself, you did nothing wrong”
As I heard this, goosebumps traveled through my body. For once I felt forgiven. For once I’m not guilty. Lydia forgave me, the universe forgave me.I couldn’t think of anything else, I was just sobbing like a kid on my daughter’s shoulder.
