“I’m not really me,” she told me as she ran into the house and slammed the door. “I’m hiding from the other me.” Then she ran back outside, only to return a few minutes later, slamming the door again. “Ok, have you seen another one of me around here? I’m trying to stay away from her. If we meet it could cause a timequake and destroy the universe.”
Now, I am confused. She looks like my daughter, but my daughter has never used the word “timequake” before, and how many of her are there anyway?
“Look Daddy,” she sighs impatiently, “it’s like this. I went back in time, but I actually went forward in time by mistake, but only a couple of days. But Vulian came back from the future, and there’s one of him from the 4th, and the 6th, and the 8th. There are actually four of him running around, and we can’t let them meet each other or else time will be destroyed.”
“Who is we?” I ask casually.
“Oh, me and my future self from two days from now.” And with that, she ran back outside, determined to save the universe.
I got a lot of updates throughout the day. I learned that there were once 8 time machines in existence, but now there was only one left. I learned that, due to the sudden time machine shortage, they were now using time portals to jump back and forth through time, which sounded very unstable to me. I also wasn’t quite sure if the daughter I got back at the end was actually the right one, because she kept insisting it was the 6th, even though it was the 5th. She also denied ever coming in and out so many times, saying that must have been the other her. So basically what I learned is that my daughter is awesome, and I wish I were 8 again and outside playing with my friends on summer vacation. Maybe I’ll get lucky and find one of those time portals…