Smooth Criminal

    He stole my Annie from me.
    My head pulses as I look to the bloody shard. The lights always give me a headache. The moment has come, and I can hardly believe it. The piece is everything I cared about, everything that I couldn’t save. Now, under the stark white lights of the lab, I can finally have it all again.
    The shard came from a vase. It had been my girlfriend’s, a gift from her mother, and I lost it the same night I lost her. Annie, her name was Annie, and she was the most beautiful girl I had ever known. Picture the most beautiful person you can imagine. That’s Annie for me. I never wanted to live without her, and if it weren’t for that night, I never would have had to.
    It was a Sunday and a burglar came, who knows what he came to steal, we didn’t have anything, not even a TV. He broke in, and a fight broke out.  All that was left was a broken vase, the scars on my face, and the corpse of my beloved Annie. A police investigation followed. They looked everywhere for the man that had killed my dearest Annie. It lasted so long it became torture. Every week they would call me to tell me they hadn’t found anything new.
    At the time, I just wanted the man to pay. He had killed my Annie, and ruined my face. The vase, from which the shard I carried came, had come crashing into my face. I hadn’t even been able to go to Annie as she died, because that man knocked me unconscious. The scars on my face left me an outcast, unrecognizable. It marred me almost as much as Annie’s death marred my soul. Of course, at first the loss was far worse, but with time, not having Annie left me with an ache that drove me to fix what had happened.
    I had been ready to propose, to marry Annie, when she was taken from me. From that day forward, I was married to my work. I bought a small lab, hired a few assistants, and went to work. I never leave the lab. I sleep in a cot in the corner, if I don’t just fall asleep while at my desk. My assistants bring me food, or I order take-out, but I rarely eat much. I lost twenty pounds in the first few years, I was so entrenched in my work. I loathe the time I have to step away from the desk or the work bench. Food began to feel like a pointless interruption, sleep an unnecessary pause. I would take my clipboard with me to the bathroom, and continue my work even there. The progress was slow.
    Sometimes I wanted to end it all, but it was far too much trouble. I was far too busy with my work to think about poisoning myself and I refused to use a gun. That devil had shot Annie with one, the one I had bought to feel safe. It was, in that way, my fault, and so I never used one again, not since she died. So I continued working. In time, however, it was as if I had died. The friends I had known before I lost Annie became strangers, and my family couldn’t put up with my impatience, my always wanting to get back to work, never so much as sitting down to a meal with them. They tried to accommodate me, they really did, but eventually they gave up. I became nothing more than a shell, one that worked tireless to build what everyone said he could not: a time machine.
    A time machine would solve all my problems. That night could never happen. I could go back, warn myself, warn Annie. She could live. And if she didn’t, I would know who the burglar was, and I could get my revenge. It is the phlebotinum. The panacea, the theriac, the catholicon, the silver bullet, the skeleton key. The cure-all. With a time machine, the night would disappear from history, it would never happen. Annie would still be with me.
    And now it is ready. I can hear it humming. I’ve heard it humming all day, and it has filled me with a grim determination. It became my food and my fate. I know, I am convinced, that this is my destiny. To go back and do what I can, what I must. To go back and save Annie.
    The humming surrounds me, as I slip inside the slim metal box. Shard in hand, I carefully punch in the time and date when it all changed and she died. I can hear the murmur of my lab assistants. They insisted on being there, to facilitate the trip, even when I insisted that it was something I must do alone. I hear one of them call the all clear, moments before the world goes dark, and then I see the moon.
    One by one, my surroundings appear around me. The light of the moon fades away as a stairwell appears. I recognize the place immediately. More times than I can remember I’d walk up the stairs with Annie, hand in hand. The lights come on next, flickering orange, as if waiting for the right time to go out. The graffiti comes into existence along with the cold metal railings. Finally the sign appears. A great big four that tells me I’m there. Behind the sign is a hallway filled with doors, and behind one of those doors waits my Annie, waiting to die. Except she won’t. She won’t die because I’m here, I can warn her.
    Before any more time is wasted, I start the timer on my wrist. 67 minutes. No matter where you travel, the machine always gives you 67 minutes, before yanking you back to the future. But it doesn’t matter, 67 minutes is far more time than I would ever need to warn her to leave.
    As the clock starts to tick, I climb to the landing and pass by the door marked four. Instinct and habit guide me more than memory, as I walk to the door with the 13 on it. From my pocket I take the key, and go to put it in the lock. It doesn’t fit.
    I glance at the door again, check the number. It’s apartment thirteen. I try the key again, I try flipping it over. It still won’t turn the tumblers and let me in. I wrack my brain. Could something have gone wrong with the machine? Could the act of time travel have changed history, like in the stories? Was this fate’s way of telling me that she had to die?
    It is only as I force the door open, as quietly as I can so I don’t scare Annie, that I remember my mother suggested I change the locks after the burglar got in. Even though the thief had forced the door, rather than use key, I had gotten the locks changed. I had already been too deep into my work to give it any thought, but I hadn’t returned since I bought my lab.
    The apartment is dark. It’s late at night, after all. There’s a light from the bed room, and a single finger of it reaches out to touch me, to draw me in. Through the space between the door and its frame, I see Annie. A sliver of her face is visible, and even that makes my heart skip a beat. It’s as if I’m seeing her for the first time all over again, falling in love with her a second time. I step towards her, and pause. The light from the bedroom is glinting of something, a picture frame.
    I pick it up, and look at her smiling next to me, a younger handsomer me. Suddenly I realize that the scars I got that night grossly disfigured me, and shame leaps to my throat. How could she ever love me like this? How could I ever compare to her beauty? The shard in my pocket reminds me of my mission, my fate, and I press on, only to be stopped again, this time by the vase, not yet broken. It sits on a table by the front door, and next to it lies the gun, the one I know will kill her. The one I know he will use. My gun.
    The thought crosses through my mind to get rid of the gun, to throw it out the window so the robber can never use it, but the ticking of my timer urges me forward. I turn to find Annie in the bedroom, but she’s not in the bedroom, she’s there, standing before me in all her beauty, holding a heavy book and ready to clobber me.
    “Who are you?” She asks fiercely,
    “Annie…” I begin, my voice raspy with the longing to be with her again.
    “Who are you?” She repeats, as I step into the light. When she sees my face, she screams, and throws the book at me. By the time I catch it and drop it on the floor, she’s in the bedroom, holding the phone, calling the police.
    “Stop!”  I call gruffly, lumbering towards her. If the police come, then they’ll arrest me, and I’ll never warn her. I grab her as she moves the phone up to her ear. I hold her in one arm, as I wrestle the phone from her grip and hang it up with the other. As I keep her in my arms, her struggling slows, and I feel myself relax.
    “Good, I don’t want to hurt you,” I say, my grip loosening, “I just want—” But before I finish the thought, she has slapped me hard across the face, and run off. I curse, and spin to look for her, but she’s gone, vanished, disappeared, as if she had already been killed.
    The timer counts down my time to find her, to tell her what I need her to know. I begin to panic, wondering if I may run out of time, if she’ll die despite my best efforts. Frantically, I search through every nook and cranny that I can remember from when I actually lived in the apartment. 25 minutes. I have no idea where she is. 23 minutes. There’s no sign of her. 20 minutes, I hear her voice from the bedroom.
    I sprint through the apartment. In my hurry, couches seem to spring up from nowhere, at the most inopportune moments. Tables stretch out their legs to try to trip me, pillows throw themselves into my path, and still I keep running, heading for the finish line, the glowing doorway of the bedroom, and through it my love, Annie.
    I blast through the doorway, and try to take the phone, but it’s too late, she’s already hung up and dropped it onto the bed. Her face flickers rapidly from exuberant victory, to terror, and back again. I glance down at the phone, and look at the call log. The most recent number: 911. Then, without warning, Annie leaps up, and tries to get to the door. I grab her before she can leave, and stop her from escaping.
    “I don’t want to hurt you!” I growl, as Annie wriggles around, trying to get free. “You have to leave. A burglar is coming later. If you don’t get out of here, he’ll shoot you and you’ll die.” She begins to scream, calling for help, and then, between the wails, I hear the frantic turning of a key in the lock at the front door.
    I cover her mouth, without any care she’s trying to bite my hand, to free herself, and pull her down, as I duck into a crouch. Glancing around the doorframe, I see the bulking silhouette of a man. The silhouette that has appeared in my nightmares since I first lived that night.
    “It’s him!” I mutter, pulling Annie away from the bedroom as the stranger ducks into the kitchen, looking around frantically. If the time has passed for me to warn her, then I’ll take her away, away from the devil come to kill her.
    I lead the way through the apartment I used to love. I remember all the memories I had with Annie on the old couch, as we pass it. I remember all the books Annie would pile on the glass coffee table. I remember all the rainy days we’d watch from the window. I remember the songs Annie would play on the guitar propped against the soft red chair. I remember it all. Then I see the vase, still intact, sitting with the gun, and I remember what happens if I don’t get Annie out of there. I remember all the pain, the shame, the black curtain thrown over everything I knew, like a coffin lid being nailed shut. Then there’s a thud.
    It takes me a moment to realize that it’s myself being thrown forward, a stranger’s arms wrapped around me, his yell echoing in my ears. Annie wriggles from my grasp as I’m tackled by the man, the one who must have come to kill her. I yell back, as I fight to flip him over, to gain the upper hand. I take a breath of relief, as I end up on top for a moment, before I’m thrown over again.
    Back and forth we grapple, neither of us able to stay on top, to win. We writhe, as one, as I fight for Annie’s life. Then, as I push him to the ground again, I reach to the table top, grab the vase, and act on instinct. With a final yell, I smash the pot against his face. He falls still, and for a flicker of a moment I remember the pain I felt when the burglar smashed that vase against my face. Then I hear what must have been there for minutes, but I couldn’t hear over my blood pulsing, and our thuds as we struggled. From outside I hear the wailing of sirens.
    I leap to my feet. Panic is surging through mind. Then I start to realize that the danger has past, the thief is out cold. The police will take him, Annie will live. I will return to the future in ten minutes, but instead of being alone, I’d have my Annie. Then my gaze lands on the face of the man and I freeze. The sight chills me, and just like that, I’m down on my knees, unable to tear my eyes away from him.
    “Police! We’re coming in!” The thunder comes down the hall outside, and once again that night I act without thinking. I reach for the gun, and retreat to the bedroom. Then there’s a final blast, and the door shatters away. The thunderclap is accompanied by a bright flash as the police shine lights into the room. I think I accidently stray into the doorway, because there is another burst of sound, and more flashes of light, as the police open fire. I drop to the floor, as a thunderhead of gun smoke fills the room. With a moment’s hesitation I squeeze off a shot. There’s a chorus of shouts as the police realize I have a gun, followed by more shots.
    Such is the exchange. One thunder clap, followed by an army of them. Back and forth we fire. Back and forth the bullets fly. Back and forth we send out thunder and lighting. And then there is a scream. We all stop, like when children, fighting over a toy, suddenly realizing what they’ve done. The toy is broken. Her body lies still on the carpet. Her blood stains the white carpet just as remember it: In a curve, like a cruel smile. Now I realize it’s laughing at my folly, my stupidity. How could I ever think I could change it? First his face and the pot. Now she’s dead. My Annie’s dead. The thief killed her.
    There’s silence as I stand and go towards her. The police just stare on, unsure what to make of me, the burglar stumbling towards them. Their guns are still raised, but they don’t fire, just look on at the same body I need to see, to touch one more time. I need to take her hand, to shake her awake. She must be sleeping, she can’t be dead. I can’t have killed her.
    Of course I’d been marching towards that moment, like a cruel funeral procession, ever since I first lived that night. He had smashed the vase into my face, and I had smashed it into his. He had taken my Annie, I had taken his. I was there twice, I always had been. The lock on the door had to be changed so I could break in, after all he had. The police had to be called to catch me, they had been called to get him. She had to die by my hand. She always had.
    Then I am there, kneeling by her side, and the tears come. They come like rain, to wash away all the mistakes I’ve made. They come in my past, my present, my future. He still lies there, by the table, the shards of her mother’s vase around him. He still hasn’t felt the pain, the longing, the persistent, driving fire that would make him build the first time machine. And then he’d come back in a circle. He’d come back here, and try to save his Annie, and end up kneeling in her blood, and crying over the corpse he sculpted with the gun he promised never to use again.
    The police must notice that I still have the gun then, because they start to fire again. They’re too late, of course. The timer begins to sound, and the tragedy I single-handedly created fades away. The apartment, the police, the bullets that would have killed me there, above Annie. My lab appears then. And the dark shape of the time machine I never should have built, but always had to, looms above me like a grim headstone. It’s there I curl up, tucking my knees to my chest like a child, her freshly drawn blood from years ago dripping onto the floor. And I cry.
    I stole his Annie from him.