How to Make a Change
R.

This story is dedicated to Adam, and he knows why

We learn by our mistakes. This is a lesson we are all taught when we are younger, and I suppose it's true in a way. But when we make a mistake in a piece of work, we can go back, cross it out or cover it up, and then rewrite what we've done wrong. This we cannot do with life.
There are no erasers, tip-ex or corrector pens for life's mistakes, so we must leave them as they are, and hope that when the Lord God looks over our lives, those mistakes aren't too bad.
But there are always some who want to change things, despite the risk in losing everything they have and love, even their own lives, they are willing to take that chance just to correct one mistake.

"I wish it wasn't like this."
Pale grey eyes looked over a cup off coffee "What wasn't?"
"My life." The young boy replied with a sigh. He looked up at the man sitting opposite him. "I wish my whole life wasn't like this."
The coffee drinker and the speaker were more than twenty years apart, but they spoke to each other as if they were the same age, as they had since the day they'd met seven months ago. The speaker was eighteen, thoughtful, and could appear quite shy at times, the drinker was quiet, but would give his opinion, quite forcibly if need be. He also knew when to be silent, which was what he was being at this moment.
"I once watched this film," the boy continued, watching the hands holding the cup. "It was about this guy, and he wanted to kill himself, but this angel showed him what life would be like if he was dead, or hadn't been born, or something like that. And then the guy decided that it would be better if he lived."
"Hmm?"
"Well, I was thinking, if I was shown what life would be like if I wasn't in it, I would probably still kill myself because it'd probably be better."
"Why do you think that?" The elder voice was accented, though not strongly, and he spoke English in a very careful manner at times, and yet, the boy felt comfortable listening to that voice.
"Because, for a start, if I'd never been born, he'd still be alive."
The cup was slowly placed on the table that separated the two. "That's not necessarily true, Sam."
"Of course it is. If I hadn't been born, then Aaron wouldn't have come to my house, we wouldn't have argued, he wouldn't have left when he did, and then he wouldn't have been knocked over."
"Possibly, but what if, instead of you, someone else was living there, and Aaron went to see them, and argued? It would have still happened."
"Maybe, but at least I wouldn't have had to feel the pain."
There was a long pause, and the coffee cup was left on the table. "Alright, if you could, would you ever go back and change it? Even if it meant risking changing what you've got now?"
"Of course I would. I've got nothing now, if I could go back... I would make sure Aaron stayed."
"It's not as easy as that." The elder man replied, reaching for his coffee again. "It's not that simple at all. You see, at the moment, time-travel is impossible, as the information and scientific methods that we have are not sophisticated enough to create what is needed. But in the future, they will have the technology, and there will be people who will go backwards and forwards in time as they please. There will be some who are careful, and there will be some who aren't."
"Careful?" Sam asked. This was another thing that he liked about his elder companion, but it was still a little strange. Occasionally he would talk about something as if he knew about it, even though that would be impossible.
"Yes."
"I don't understand, why careful?"
For a moment, the elder man seemed to think carefully about what he was going to say as he took a sip of the coffee. The cup was then returned to the table. "Say, in the future, someone travelled back in time and killed your father, what effect would that have on the present as we know it?"
"Well, I wouldn't have been born for a start."
"Right. Now, that is one of the more obvious changes, but also, you have to remember that what would also happen is that anything that your father was supposed to do after the point at which he was killed wouldn't happen either. So, what would happen if something your father did, was somehow directly linked to the creation of time-travel?"
"It wouldn't have been created, and so whoever it was who had killed him wouldn't have been able to go back in time to kill him because it would have been impossible if my father was dead."
"Precisely! Thus causing a paradox in time that would destroy the entire universe. Well, that or create a continuous loop in time, destroying time itself, or history would find someway to... readjust itself."
"Readjust?"
"Yes. Instead of your father doing the things that lead to the creation of time-travel, someone else would have, but you still wouldn't have been born, at least not the you that you are today."
Sam frowned very slightly as he thought this over, then nodded slowly. "Yeah, I think I get that. So what would careful people do?"
"The more careful people just watch. They observe the things that happen. History would be re-written."
"Re-written? But if they're just watching, how does that effect what's going on?"
"It doesn't. What I mean to say is that the people who are watching, say a famous battle, would be reporting back to the people in their own present, i.e., the future, and telling them what really happened. The real plans and mistakes made. In the future, what does it matter who won or lost the battle? We just want to know what really happened, or what certain times were really like. The observer is a completely unbias and objective observer and so we can get a much clearer view of the past. And the same person can work on this job, travelling to hundreds of times, and still have most of the day free thanks to the nature of time travel. Of course, there is a law put in stating that no person may travel back to any point of time after they were born to reduce the chance of running into oneself in the past."
"That would be kinda awkward." Sam thought about this and gave a small laugh. "Imagine trying to explain that."
"So," the elder man continued, "you are able to go back in time to try to change things, would you still do it, knowing that any of your actions could have severe consequences?"
Sam thought about the question for a lot longer this time. He'd never thought about things in this way, it was a little strange. He heard the coffee cup being lifted, sipped from, and then replaced as he thought.
"Yes." He replied eventually. "I would change my stupid mistakes."
"You can't."
"What?"
"You can't change your mistakes; it's the one thing that time really despises. You can only change the outcome of the mistakes. If you went back in time, if you had the knowledge that you have now, you would know that there was going to be a car coming, you would know what was going to happen."
"I could stop it from happening."
"But how? How would you be able to tell your younger self what was going to happen. You said yourself that it would be awkward to meet yourself in the past, well imagine trying to explain to yourself what was going to happen."
"Oh... so..."
"But, you see, with time travel, other more sophisticated methods of time-travel were invented, just as they were with ordinary travel. What if a person were able to send just a part of themselves back in time."
"Just a part?"
"Yes. For example, the brain, following the time-line of memories back to where you want to be. What if you were able to travel back, say, thirteen years, and have your eighteen-year-old thoughts and memories in the mind of a five-year-old?" He touched the side of his head to emphasis his words.
"I would know everything I know now, and I would know everything I knew then. I would know what was going to happen, and I wouldn't have had the argument."
"No, you have to have had the argument."
"Why?"
"Because certain things were said, things that needed to be said. If those things hadn't been said, they would have been repressed, and come out later a lot worse. The argument was a mistake, but what happened afterwards wasn't. It wasn't a mistake that either of you made when Aaron left your house, or when he crossed the road when he did. The driver of the car had been drunk and hadn't stopped at the light. It wasn't a mistake you made."
"So I could have stopped him."
"How?"
"I... I could have pulled him back."
The elder man shook his head. "He would have just pulled away, he would have ended up falling into the road. If you called him back, he would have ignored you, if you pushed him out away from the road, he would have pushed you back and you would have ended up in the road." Sam watched him carefully, staying completely silent as his companion spoke. "If you were able to go back, you would know that car was coming; you would know exactly when it would appear. What if you jumped in the way of the car and got hit yourself? Would you do it then? Would you go back and sacrifice your own life for his?"
"That destroys the whole point of it! I want to go back so I can be with him, not so I die instead!" Sam replied angrily, though not quite sure why he was getting angry at a hypothetical situation. "If I died, it would mean Aaron would have to go through all the same shit I have! It would be a punishment more than anything else!"
"Hold on. The thing is, you're not seeing the whole picture yet. Aaron was... two, three years older than you?"
"Three."
"Do you think that a child of eight may have a better understanding of what had happened than a child of five?"
"I suppose so."
"Right, ok. You have also told me on more than a few occasions that Aaron was a lot stronger than yourself, personality wise, and also had quite a few close friends, while you were a self-confessed, loner, with no friends, bar Aaron himself."
"Yes, what of it?"
"Do you think that it is possible that Aaron may have found it a little easier if he had someone that he felt he could talk to about it?"
Sam nodded slowly. "Possibly."
"And would it make a difference if he saw it, if he was there and he saw you die? Would that make a difference?"
"Of course it would!"
"How would it?"
"It'd hurt more."
"Right! Now, listen to me very carefully because you have to understand this. Aaron, at that point in time, didn't love you. It is possible that he could have learnt to love you, you will never know that, but at that point in history he did not love you. Is that clear?"
"Yes." Tears were in Sam's eyes, though he would never admit to it.
"You loved Aaron, but you weren't there, you were told later about what happened, but you Weren't There, don't you think it would have been different if you had been there? If you had seen the car hit him rather than being told about it by other people?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Be- because I would have-"
"No. You're focusing on the wrong thing. If you had been there, other people would have seen you there. You were only told about it, but because you had loved him, it had hurt many times more than it should have and because your sorrow was because of your love for him, you couldn't tell anyone because you knew that it wasn't allowed. But if Aaron was there, and he knew that you have saved his life, sacrificed yourself for him, it would have hurt him about the same as you hurt now, and he would have been able to talk about his sorrow to other people because people knew that you were friends!"
Sam was silent for a long time. It made a strange sense that he couldn't quite work out, but there was sense. But there was one thing bothering him. "Why couldn't I just push him out of the way of the car and then jump out of the way myself? Why do I have to die?"
"Because history is a bitch. In this life, it is always one life for another. For every person that lives, one person dies, for each person that dies, one person lives. To save Aaron, you have to die. Could you do it? Knowing what you know now, would you go back, sacrifice yourself for his life, and take the chance that the stronger personality would be able to cope with the tragedy better than yourself?"
There was a shorter pause than the one that had occurred before. "Yes." Sam replied eventually. "I would."
His companion smiled. "Do it then."
Sam looked at him, "What?"
"Go!" He clapped his hands together and suddenly Sam found himself standing outside his house, looking towards the road as a car came speeding down, towards a young boy just starting to cross.
"AARON! NO!" He dived forwards, pushing the boy out of the way, the car hitting him head on, sending him flying through the air and landing on the solid tarmac.
The boy now laying on the pavement, a small cut on his forehead from tripping on the curb when he was pushed stared at the body of the boy in the road. There was a loud crash further down the road, and then all was silent.

---

There was an odd beeping sound near his ear as he opened his eyes very slowly. There seemed to be something stuck to various parts of his body, but he didn't have the strength to even lift his arm to find out what they were.
"Sam?" The voice was muffled, but familiar. His eyes moved slowly across the room, lighting on a brown haired boy standing beside the bed.
"Aaron?" His voice was croaky, his breath coming out in heavy, painful pants.
"Yeah, it's me, I'm here."
"Not dead."
"No, you saved my life. Oh, Sam, I'm sorry I said those things yesterday, but I was... I don't know, I was just so scared! I didn't want to lose you though!"
"Don't... want to... lose... you."
"Well you didn't. You're a hero. Thank you." The boy leaned down and hugged the boy in the bed very gently. He then drew back. "I don't know if you remember much of what happened, but there was a drunk driver on the road, and you pushed me out of the way just in time. Then the... bastard," he spat the word out with venom "driving the car, after hitting you, lost control of the wheel and smashed into a wall. The car exploded and he couldn't get out of the car." A look of pure hatred crossed Aaron's face. "I hope that bastard rots! He almost killed you."
"But... didn't... die... last time... One... life... for... another."
"What?"
"I... I don't... remember." Sam admitted, as the memories that he was sure were in his mind very quickly faded away to nothing.
Aaron frowned a little in confusion and then shrugged, "I guess you're a little confused from being hit. You should get some more rest."
"You... won't... go?"
"No, of course I won't. Your mum and dad are outside with my mum and they said that I could stay for a while. Anyway, I had to thank you for saving my life."
"You're welcome."
Aaron smiled. "Well, get some sleep, and I'll stay here, right beside you."
"Thank... you." Sam smiled and slowly let his eyes close again. The last thing he saw was Aaron's eyes, filled with love for the person who had saved his life.