a short story about regret, stranded time travellers, and building a better tine machine

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A Better Time Machine

a short story about regret, stranded time travellers, and building a better tine machine



Regret is a lousy time machine. It only travels backwards. It will strand you in the past, unable to change anything.

But it does let you hide messages for your future self. Clues corked into bottles and sent drifting from the wrecks of bitter conscience. Lessons on how to be smarter, stronger, kinder.

Send as many messages as you can, and then look for them, because that is how many you have already received. Use what you have learned to build a better time machine, to rescue your stranded selves and bring them home.

Maybe regret isn’t a lousy time machine, but the pieces of a good one put together wrong. A wreck waiting to be taken apart and made into something new: a raft. A rescue boat. A lighthouse promising, “This time, you’ll get it right.”


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Short story written by Peter Chiykowski

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Story prompt taken from a photo by Aron Visuals

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