The Man Who Killed My Wife

190110114 陈鑫 Whisper

How many people in this world believe in Fate? I know this doesn't sound like something that a physicist should ask. But if you have enough time to read the following story, you'll think a little differently.

Thirteen years ago, my wife and I made an appointment to go to a restaurant after work. Maybe on that day I should have heede the strange words of the strange man I had met on my way home to celebrate our anniversary at home. That night, as I was driving across an intersection, a big lorry swerved into us. In the violent crash, my beloved left me forever. During the accident’s investigation, the driver of the lorry insisted that he swerved to avoid an old man so that he hit us and caused the accident. What's worse, the surveillance system of the scene was being overhauled and the police found nobody except the three of us...... It all sounded like a farce, but to me, it was a total tragedy.

Immersed in grief, I could not see any hope in my dark life. Such days passed in endless sorrow until an idea came to my mind. I wanted to go back in time, to stop the accident and save my wife. So, for the next 13 years, I worked on inventing a machine that could transcend time and space. After countless tweaks and experiments, finally, I made it. Because of technical limitations, however, it was not possible to specify a specific time to return to the past or to determine how long each transmission could last. If the red light on my bracelet came on, it meant that it was time to come back into this space.

I had been waiting a long time for the day. With mixed emotions, I activated the machine. My body shook with it, and I saw a bright white light. Then, I found myself at my quondam home. The flowers my wife planted were all over the yard, the trees at the door were trimmed neatly, and the sun shone on me; I felt so emotional and unreal. All those had ceased to exist after her departure, as well as my whole being. Tears falling, I heard the sound of footsteps outside the yard. It was my wife coming home from work, so I took refuge. She went into the yard, smiling like the flowers. At this point, the red light on my bracelet came on. I tried to restrain myself from being seen, even though I desperately wanted to hug her, talk to her, and tell her how much I missed her. All I could feel was the whirl of things before me, and I went back to my lonely house. What happened just then was like a dream; only the scent of flowers lingering in my nose proved that I had really gone back in time. I wiped away the tears on my face as I became more determined to stop the accident.

Unfortunately, the machine suffered irreparable damage due to the massive impact of time travel. By my reckoning, it could only give me two more transmissions. Without thinking too much, I made a quick tweak and started my second trip. This time, I went back to the day of the accident. Too late to think about it, I hastened on my way home, to prevent "me" from going out that night. As planned, covering my face with a mask, I stopped his car. But then the red light suddenly came on again. So, I told him as quickly as I could to not leave the house tonight, or something would happen that he would regret for the rest of his life. As I fled his sight, I saw the familiar white light again. I ran out of the room with joy to look for my wife, but found nothing. I tried to think back. I stopped him, but the result hadn’t changed. Suddenly, I remembered the strange man I met on my way home from work on the day of the accident. I couldn't believe it, sitting onto the floor.

Anyway, I was going to try again. This time I went back twenty years before the accident. There were only three things in my life every day, guarding my wife from the corner, staring into the mirror at my aging self, and worrying if the red light would suddenly come on. Finally, the day came. I stood at the intersection of the accident, waiting to prevent the tragedy. But the red light came on again. I ran in the direction of my home anxiously. Suddenly, a lorry swerved to avoid me, turned to the other side and hit the coming car......