Hip-Hop Time Machine

9

I let out a sigh of relief. "You do?" I asked.

"I do." He gave me a small smile. "It's a little bit crazy, but I don't think you'd go this far just to punk me."

Chuckling, I wiped what was left of my tears off of my face. "Going twenty five years back in time isn't far at all," I said sarcastically.

He leaned in closer. "Think you can tell me about some things that are happening in 2020?"

"Oh god, no. You don't wanna know." I didn't even hesitate. 

"Seriously? That makes me wanna know even more now. Please?" He batted his eyes and used a sing-song voice on the 'please'.

I took a deep breath. "To sum it up, robots are about to take over the world, we're in a worldwide pandemic, California is on fire, Australia is on fire, every major city is rioting, Antarctica is melting, Donald trump was impeached, Kobe Bryant died, Kanye West ran for president, aaand more because I'm pretty sure it won't stop there."

He blinked. 

Thirty seconds of silence before he threw himself back laughing. "Holy shit! You might as well stay here!"

"And relive it twice?" I scoffed. "Absolutely not."

His smile faded, and that's when I knew he was being serious. "So, you're not gonna stay?" he asked. "Are you gonna just go back home once you're done with this little mission?"

"I wouldn't call it a little mission. It's for me, you, and all of pop culture."

"I'm not pop culture. I'm me. I'm a father. A son. And everything in between. I didn't do this for the money, or the fame. Shit, I didn't even wanna rap. But look at me. The money is nice. The fame is okay. But everyone knows me and I can't take a shit without some tabloid blogging about it."

"I'm sorry," I told him, "I didn't mean it like that-"

"I know you didn't, Jaz, but that's how it came off as. I know you meant that everyone will be appreciative, even if they never know that I was dead in the first place. But don't do this for them. Don't do this for me. Do it because you want to. Because you know what's right. Feel it in your gut, or don't do it at all."

"I hear you." I genuinely thought about it for a few minutes. We sat in silence and he let me ponder my decision. "I think I might stay. At least for a while."

His eyes lit up when he turned towards me again. "Why?"

"I like it here. Not just because of you. I mean you're a huge part of it, but growing up I always dreamed of what it would be like to grow up in this time and meet my idols. Celebrities were so much more accessible back then, or now, than they are during my era."

"Are you going to try to save anyone else?"

"Why do you ask?" 

"Because I'm sure if you stayed, you could save a lot of lives. Not just because you want to be a doctor. You could do what you did for me, right? I could help get you close to people that you wouldn't otherwise be able to get right next to." He seemed genuinely curious.

"You'd really want to help me? I had originally asked the owner of the Impala-time-machine if I had to stay and live in this time to be able to save others. He said yes."

His lips parted like he was going to ask something, but then they closed again, before turning his head to the side in somewhat of a state of confusion. "How does it work?" he asked.

"What do you mean? The car?"

"No, I mean like- .. When you go back and forth. How does it work?"

"Oh. I've barely figured it all out myself yet. But I think the answer you're looking for is that when I come here, it's almost like no time has passed, if not mere minutes. I can be in the middle of a conversation, come here, go back, and the person I'm talking to will have no idea. But I essentially could have spent the whole day here."

"So, what if you spent a year here? What if you got a tattoo? When you go back, will you still have it? If you age here, will you be young again when you go back? Or will you magically age within milliseconds?"

"Geez, E, you're asking a ton of great questions but I have no answers. I've only done this a few times. The first day we met, was my first time time-travelling." That sounds so weird to say, considering most people have never time traveled before. Shit, the only people that can 'prove' they have are me and Brandon. "I guess we'll just have to wait and see?"

He smiled. I thought he was supposed to be this big ol' gangster, but he's a big ol' softy.

"Hey," he said, sitting straight up, "I ain't no conspiracy theorist. And I ain't soft."

It's like he read my mind. I rolled my eyes and laughed, getting up off the couch to stretch my legs. "Do you wanna go on a walk before the sun completely sets? We never got to finish walking the boardwalk earlier."

"Sure." He got up, too. "Let's go."

He readjusted the gun that was sitting in the back of his waistband while I grabbed my keys to lock up, then followed me out.

The sunset created a perfectly outlined silhouette of the palm trees that hung high above the neighborhood. Almost like it was out of a picture, or movie. People drove past in their lowriders, waving out the window. You could smell a distant barbecue, and hear the music playing from a few streets down. It was as if it was still summertime. I mean, it wasn't too cold out yet.

"Hey, I have a question," I asked him, breaking the silence after a few minutes.

He put his arm around my shoulder and pulled me in. "What's up?"

"You've heard of the butterfly effect, right?" I turned to look up at him.

"Briefly, yes. Like I said, I don't get too deep into that kinda thing." 

"Well, yeah but how many people do you know that are going back in time to literally change the course of history?"

"Oh," he laughed. "Plenty."

"My point. But, what if- I save you, and someone else dies? Or, what if something goes wrong in the future? What if I disappear because you living means I'll never be born?"

The questions he asked earlier really sent me down a rabbit hole of overthinking. Instead of taking in all the senses I should be, I'm over here thinking that I might be fizzling into thin air soon. Like, what exactly is the possibility of that happening? The same possibility of time travel being real?

Off in the distance, there was a cherry red BMW coming down the strip, real slow. The headlights turned off but even in the dusky light, it stood out. Eric stopped in his tracks and stopped me, too. "I don't like that car," he said quietly.

"The M3? I think they're cute. Especially the convertibles, like that one. The red is prett-"

"Jasmine, follow me," he whispered urgently. I was so confused.

"Do you know-"

"Just follow me," he said a bit louder. "We gotta get outta here and back to the house."

He grabbed my hand and pulled me off the sidewalk. I heard the tires screech as the car accelerated. "What the hell?" I yelled. We barely made it into the yard of the house next to us before bullets started flying. We ducked and ran as fast as we could.

Just before we turned the corner to safely take shelter behind the house, I felt a piercing sharp pain in my side. 

We made it to the back of the house and once we were out of sight, the car peeled off around the corner, leaving only a cloud of smoke behind...