This was inspired by a writing prompt a friend found:
She was 99 when I met her, I was 24 and enraptured. She had lived a life more full than any, and was still vibrant going into her 100th year. She taught theoretical Physics at my University, it was her 4th or 5th PhD, I’m not sure. Every 10 or so years she would move into a new science. She said it kept her young.
For someone just shy of 100 she looked amazing. Her bright white hair was full and lavish. Her skin, wrinkled, but still healthy. Her eyes a bright blue, almost shining. She wore very little makeup, because she no-longer felt that she had to cater to anyone but herself. She smelled of lavender and honey and lye, and old soap recipe she had used for decades. She once joked that it was the same soap that Cleopatra used. I asked her for the recipe once, and she gave it to me. I swear that it is the fountain of youth. I always wished that she was 70 years younger…
Her mind was amazing. She could talk on any subject as an expert. Quantum entanglement was her current favorite subject. How particles at a distance can just know that they were a part of each other, no matter how far away they were, and would change to complement the other, not to match, but to complement.
The year was 2022. I was a Post Grad, and I was trying to find my way n the world. I was so close to leaving my doctoral program because I was frustrated with my lack of progress. I had been in the program for 5 years, and I felt that I should have graduated.
She talked me out of quitting. She encouraged me to continue on through my research in multidimensional quantum entanglement and multi-dimensional temporal implications on large-scale matter. She explained to me that it didn’t matter if others thought it was crazy, it just mattered if I followed the math. Even if I never find what I am looking for, I could still find something interesting.
And I did. That summer I had a breakthrough. I cracked the code. I proved my theory. I found the key to time travel. But before I could tell her she was gone. Not, dead, but gone. Nobody knew where she went.
It took me years, decades really to finally complete the formula. And on my 97th birthday the Mobius Machine was turned on. I called it the Mobius Machine because there was one trick to Time Travel, and it fixed all the paradox problems. You can’t go back to before the equation was discovered, and I first discovered it the fall of 2020.
I decided that I would go back, go back and finally be with the woman of my dreams. I didn’t have much time, myself, but we would finally be of an age. I didn’t know what happened to her that day, or where she went, so I went back as early as I could to take advantage of what time we could have.
I arrived in the fall of 2020. No knowing where she would be I looked up her name on the campus directory, and found nothing. I swear that I had met her that winter. I then looked up her name online, nothing. I then went to her cottage. It was a small place in Newton, out of the way, on a lake. When I walked up to the door I notices a For Rent sign in the window. As I looked at it I noticed my reflection.
I don’t know why I didn’t notice it before. Maybe it was old age. Maybe it was the sun. Or the smell of fall in the air. But for the first time I noticed my bright white hair was full and lavish. My skin, wrinkled, but still healthy. My eyes a bright blue, almost shining. And I smelled slightly of lavender, lye, and honey.
………….
The prompt was for a unique romance story between a time traveler and an immortal… I just decided to make them the same person.
This is a first draft, more like a concept, I want to flesh it out some. I’m not sure what the best way to go is. Part of me originally wanted her to send herself back in time 70 years, or longer, or unhinge her in time. But this is what felt right at the time. I also want to make a side effect of Time Travel Immortality, but I may hold off on that. I just love the idea of a Immortal Time Traveler trapped as a 97 year old woman.