Dreams of Day

“And back into time you go,” stated Ms. Voka as the little girl stepped into the yellow time machine.

Hi, I’m Tyler. I’m seven years old and I’m in the first grade. Ms. Voka is my teacher. We have about thirty-one kids in our class, girls outnumber us by one. Today was Field Trip Friday, and our field trip of the day was time travelling. Little does Ms. Voka know is that I’ve already been time travelling before and I know this yellow thing she has us each walking into is a phone booth.

Let me explain. I’m seven years old right now, just physically. Mentally, I have the mind of a forty-one year old man. I went time travelling with my best bud Joe about three years ago back to the year of 2014. We wanted to see our childhood selves is all. But sadly, there was a side effect to our time machine. Instead of seeing our childhood selves, we became them. And that’s not even the worst part. Our time machine broke down when we reached 2014, so we have to fix it. But since we’re technically seven years old, we can’t get the parts we need to fix it, which is not a good thing, just in case you don’t know.

“And you’re next Tyler,” squealed Ms. Voka as she nudged me into the yellow phone booth. “Back into time you go,” I heard her say. She was way too excited for this phony field trip back into time. If you ask me, you only get psyched about the real trip, not the make believe ones. The only thing it did was give me false hope about seeing my lovely wife, Gloria, and are beautiful children again. God, I bet they miss me. And poor George, he’s only five years old. I bet he keeps asking Gloria when I’ll be home. I could just hear Gloria’s voice.

“Soon, son, soon,” she would say. I know her like the back of my hand.

I better just get this over with already. I shut the door to the phone booth and went over to the phone. I dialed the area code Ms. Vodka gave us. Did I ever mention how horrible it is repeating first grade again? I already know how to do this stuff, so why in the world do I have to do it again.

Beep. Beep. Bop.

Each time I pressed a button, the phone made a strange sound. What in the world?

I could hear Ms. Voka beginning to count down from ten outside the door, but that wasn’t what was bothering me. When I glanced down at my hands and feet, I noticed my body was fading and sparkling at the same time. What in the world was going on?

Just as Ms. Voka reached zero, my environment changed. For a second, I was in the middle of nothing. I was engulfed in blackness. It frightened me. I closed my eyes in response. But when I opened them again, I wasn’t in the blackness and I wasn’t in the yellow phone booth. I was at home, lying in my bed next to my glorious wife, Gloria. How’d I get here? I could care less right now. All that mattered to me was that I was with my precious Gloria.

“Gloria!” I yelled. Her blonde hair curled at her sides as she sat up immediately.

“What?” she asked lazily. “I was sleeping,” she said as she rubbed those blue eyes I love so much. Where are the boys? I have to go see them too!

“I’m so glad to see you! I can’t believe it’s been three years. You haven’t aged a bit!” I couldn’t stop. I was on a roll!  One minute, I’m seven and the next, I’m back at home with my wife. I don’t care how it happened because life is good!

“What are you talking about Ty?” she asked.

“I’ve been gone for three years?” Where has she been these past three years? And why was she acting so strange? You’d think she’d be happy to see her husband whose been missing for three years.

She laughed. What was going on?

“You must’ve had another dream about time travel,” she stated as she clenched her stomach in laughter. A dream? So my trip back in time was just a dream? Well dang, that explained a lot.

“Oh,” was all I could say as she fell out of the bed in laughter. Was it really that funny? I mean, I actually did think I was seven years old again. Now I’m back to being a six feet tall, blond headed middle-aged man again. Well, it’s not so bad. I mean, at least I can drink again. Right?