He built the machine to save his wife from the accident. He spent thirty years in a windowless basement, ignoring his health and his friends, perfecting the temporal coordinates down to the millisecond. On the final night, the generator hummed to life, tearing a hole through the fabric of reality. He stepped through the blinding blue portal and materialized on the rain-slicked pavement of Oak Street, exactly ten minutes before the tragedy.
Across the intersection, he spotted her. Clara was wearing her favorite red coat, umbrella tucked under her arm, completely unaware of the fate awaiting her.
Suddenly, a pair of headlights cut through the heavy downpour. A massive delivery truck rounded the corner, losing traction on the black ice, hurtling directly toward Clara.
Spurred by pure adrenaline, he sprinted across the asphalt. He didn’t care about the temporal paradoxes or the laws of physics. He only cared about her. With a desperate yell, he threw his body forward, shoving Clara violently onto the safe concrete of the sidewalk. She fell hard, dropping her purse, but she was alive.
Breathless, he rolled over onto his back, waiting for the impact. But the truck didn’t hit him. It smashed into a fire hydrant, sending a geyser of water into the night sky.
He looked down at his arms. His fingers were turning translucent, his entire body beginning to flicker and fade like static on an old television. He knew his timeline was collapsing because he had changed the past. But as he took his final, fading breath, he looked toward the smashed cabin of the truck. Through the shattered windshield, he saw the driver slumped over the steering wheel.
It was his own, thirty-years-older self, who had suffered a sudden stroke while desperately driving to the hospital to see Clara.