The Narrative Dude Writes

I’ve been obsessed with time since I was seven years old. It was field trip day, and my second-grade class visited the high school. I can’t recall what we did except watch a movie about exploring a chocolate production line.

The auditorium was dark and packed with all the second grade classes from around the district. We all distractedly watched the movie. The monotone narrator droned on about the process. Step by step we watched as an unknown brand rolled off the finishing line. I kept looking at the projector. I was close enough to see the film reel as it projected each frame. That process amazed me and ignited an interest I would carry throughout my life.

It would be years before I managed to grasp the theory behind the persistence of vision, but on that day, the next step happened quickly. The teachers must have seen how utterly bored everyone was, so one of the younger, hipper teachers asked, “You get to pick. We have enough time to watch one more film or,” she couldn’t keep the grin off her face that in retrospect makes me believe that she was as fascinated as I would soon be. “We can watch this film in reverse.”

‘Reverse’ didn’t register with me until a chorus of yes rang out, and those film frames started moving in backward. The next fifteen minutes were nothing short of a revelation.

I chattered about the reverse time experience for days, and it netted me a visit to Mark, the class bully, during recess. I stopped recounting the experience to my bored classmates, but it didn’t stop me from dreaming about it. I’m convinced that a singular event made me imagine what it would be like to experience reversed time.

Had I been a mathematician I might have developed a new Calculus. I could have been sitting on a Nobel by now.

Alas, my gift was language, and I read about time travelers. I dug out science references that suggested it was possible. H.G. Wells and Poul Anderson became my patron saints. Time evolved into something as powerful as any other sense. By the time I was in high school, I had discovered that time moving into the future was built on hope.

It didn’t take long before I realized the literary frame that reversed time was made of regret. It would take me years to understand that I had committed myself to exploring regret as a theme.