Into the Past

Bookstores were a place of refuge to Andy, a place where the cares of the world dissolved, and all that was left was the musty, yet pleasant, smell of books. He liked used bookstores the best since the smell was stronger in them. The feel of old paper on his fingers as he paged through them, the excitement at finding something he'd been looking for for years, and the even greater joy at finding something he didn't even know he wanted until he picked it up were all great attractions found only in a good bookstore.

His life was currently a disappointment to Andy. His marriage didn't give him much satisfaction, his career had taken a turn for the worse when the dot com bubble busted, and he had taken to drinking too much and smoking too much dope in a vain attempt to make himself feel better. He knew self-medication wasn't a good idea, but sometimes he just needed to get high to get through the day. He loved programming computers, but for some time he'd had trouble putting the same energy into it as in the past. He'd lost a few jobs because of his inability to get the job done, being lost in writing bad porn, getting high at work, and, overall, wasting company time. He loved his wife, Carmen, but their sex life was abysmal, and they usually spent the evening, after the kids were in bed, watching television. They drag themselves upstairs, too tired to play with each other the way they had before they were married. That affair he'd had while they were engaged had come to light a week before the wedding; they had decided to go through with it because they loved each other, but it had put what looked like a permanent damper on their passions. That was three years ago.

He walked through the aisles of a new store, well, new to him anyway. He'd rarely come to this part of town and had never seen this particular store. It was an antiquarian bookstore, full of the rich aroma of paper with lots of nooks and crannies in the confusing floor plan. He had been browsing for about an hour when he came across a small alcove surrounded by bookshelves that reached the ceiling. A small, padded bench with a high back was in the middle of the area, which housed self-improvement books. He usually avoided that topic, but something just drew him in.

He looked through the titles, not really seeing them until he came to one that just caught his eye and jumped out at him: Relive your Past -- Removing Barriers in your Personal History. He took the book down, sat on the bench, and cracked the cover.

After another hour, he looked at his watch and jumped up. He should have been home half an hour ago, and his wife wouldn't be very happy with him. But what he'd just read burned in his mind. He had to try it.

The theory was pretty simple: through a series of mental exercises, you re-experience events of your past to create new outcomes, thus reworking the neural pathways in your brain that resulted from the actual outcomes, kind of like a combination of age regression hypnosis and lucid dreaming. He discounted a lot of the pop-psych mumbo-jumbo, but the idea intrigued him. Maybe he could clear away the deadwood in his head and live a better life.

He got to the checkout desk just before the store closed. The owner had given him a knowing look when he presented the book, but Andy ignored him and trotted out the door to head home.

The book sat on his shelf for a month before it caught his eye again the Friday morning Carmen went to visit her mother in Boston with the kids. He had taken the day off and packed them all off on the airplane, amidst the excited girls yelling in unison, "We're going to Grandma's house!"

After lunch, he sat down again with the book and didn't resurface until late into the evening after reading the last page. Andy wasn't even hungry, because his mind was too busy absorbing the techniques in the pages.

He couldn't wait to try it, but first, he really had to eat something. He shoveled the food quickly, unable to pay much attention to anything, except thinking about what points in his life he wanted to change. Afterward, he looked over the techniques in the book to make sure he understood them.

He sat on the couch in the basement, since he was much less likely to get interrupted there. He had told his friends and family that he was working on something for work, so as not to come to visit. Then he closed his eyes and started repeating the mental exercises in his head that would transport his consciousness into his past. He held an image of where he wanted to head first in his mind.

After the thirteenth repetition of the mantra, he felt a sudden sinking feeling in his gut, kind of like when a roller coaster falls over that first down drop. It was very disorienting, but he kept his eyes closed. When the feeling subsided, he opened his eyes.

(Author's Note: I've started a tip jar over at Ko-Fi. Drop-in and say hi!)