Time Travel Rules

I wasn’t trying to fix anything. I just wanted that plate again.

There was a moment—early, but not too early—where everything worked. The distribution was right, nothing had shifted yet, and for a few bites it felt like the plate understood what it was supposed to be. So I tried to go back.

Back to the Future rules first. Change one thing, improve the outcome. Don’t rush, don’t grab the obvious chips, pace it. The plate still fell apart, just more politely.

So I tried Bill and Ted. Leave myself help. Notes, instructions, small interventions that would make everything easier when I got there. I ignored all of them immediately.

Then Terminator rules. Send something back with a clear objective. Protect the plate. Eliminate threats. Stay focused. The problem was that the threat was me, which made the plan difficult to execute.

Looper made more sense. Sit across from myself, explain exactly what goes wrong, walk through it step by step. We both agreed. We both did it anyway.

Then Primer. At that point it stopped being about the nachos and more about tracking versions of myself who had already tried this. Which attempt worked, which one failed, which one I should be listening to. I lost track.

Somewhere in there, one of us got the plate right. I’m almost sure of it. I just don’t know which one.

At that point, the only rule left was the simplest one. Sit down, eat the plate, let it happen. And for a moment, it felt close. Not the same, but close enough to recognize what I was trying to get back to.

Which, apparently, is as far as this goes.