When my best friend Zander called me for the third time this month claiming he had unlocked the secrets of universe, I believed him. The teasing and ridicule he received most days were not entirely unfounded, although no less miserable to witness. High schoolers are the spawn of the devil. Particularly wide-eyed, gullible and infinitely more intelligent guys like him. But ever the optimist that he is, he tells me all the misfortunes will be worth it once he makes this discovery.

Zander had been working on this project for the better part of a year. He was attempting to generate a wormhole. One that could transcend space, time, and even parallel universes. All the math had been worked out a while back by yours truly, but putting it into practical use was another matter. Energy was also a problem. Basically, we didn’t have any. Not nearly enough to bring all our science fiction dreams to life anyway.

But Zander was getting close. And while a more sceptical friend may have given up on him by now, I know him better than anyone in the world and when he puts his mind to something, sooner or later it’s going to happen.

I pulled my bike up to his house late one night to see a shimmering blue glow coming from his bedroom window. He did it. He actually did it. I sprinted inside.

I swung the door open to see a small blue orb, about the size of a football, hovering above the hardwood floor. It was sparkling like water under a beaming sun. Zander and I shared a look of pure marvel.

The aim wasn’t to create a portal large enough for any human to step through. Not yet anyway. Who knows what affect destabilizing every cell in your body and rematerializing God knows where or when would have. So we started small.

Zander picked up a notebook detailing our lives and everything we had learned about physics, ready to spark hope in any curious soul out there. He slowly edged toward the wormhole, savouring every last millisecond of this historic moment. The notebook was inches away from crossing the event horizon when suddenly it began vigorously shaking. Vibrating like it was losing stability. The force so powerful it caused the furniture to rumble, taking me back to last year’s earthquake.

We ducked down for cover, but peaked out from behind the desk, not wanting to miss whatever phenomenon this was. A tiny brown fleck appeared in the orb. I couldn’t make out what it was at first but it was getting bigger and bigger. Next thing we knew, the orb spat it out and the tremors stopped. For a second it was back to hovering gently before it completely dematerialized and disappeared literally into thin air.

It did however leave a gift. The thing it spewed out was a journal. The first entry was dated fifty two years from now. Did we just receive something from the future? Upon further inspection, there was something familiar about the syntax, written in such eloquent language. And that’s when I realized…it was my handwriting. I had just received a time capsule from a sixty two year old me. Evidently, we had rendered the whole be careful not to mess with the timeline thing obsolete because the tales did nothing to spare any details of a lifetime of adventures.

In that moment I knew everything was going to be ok.