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Jonah brings down the precariously rolled joint down to the lighter. The ember flickers, the warm glow envelopes the desk, dancing upon the wall before spreading to the joint. He offers the lighter to Adam on the sofa in front of him, who wordlessly lights his own blunt.
He brought it to his mouth, and inhaled deeply. The fumes filled his lungs, burning his throat pleasantly. He couldn’t explain how it felt in any other way than this: coming home after an exhausting day, knowing tomorrow's the weekend, and lying back. Worries fizzle out entirely, like carbonated soda becoming lukewarm.
He let it sit for a second, before exhaling, the combined smoke from Adam and Jonah beginning to bring a haze to the room.
“Hey, you’ve known Sarah a long time, right?” Jonah asks, as if he hadn’t met them by the point they already formed this club and its, so to speak, secularity. He eyes the ‘ACAB’ and ‘Tempus Fugit’ scratched into the wall. Then looks down at the ‘FUCK DA USDTP,’ and the ever eloquent ‘:)’ below.
“I guess it’s been a while,” said Adam, exhaling smoke in the formation of a hoop.
“Okay, okay, unrelated follow up question before you hear my
actual
question! How’d you two even meet?” Jonah asks, “you two just seem so… unlikely. I want the lore.”
“Emphasis on unlikely,” Adam inhaled some smoke. “She was looking for a ghost hunting partner on TV. And I responded to her ad; since that was something I was looking for at the time. Then stuff got out of hand.” Adam clicks his tongue, gesturing his hand over the room, as if brandishing the entire basement. “Here we are.”
“That’s not skipping over anything at all,” Jonah props his chin on his hand.
“All the extra stuff was an accident, I’ve told you that story before. Before that, we were just normal people.” Adam grits his teeth, like he wasn’t sure.
“I know, I know. You two aren’t pillars of friendship.” Jonah tilted his head up against the wall. It wasn’t that those two argued, but over time, they began sounding like colleagues. Painfully so. They had been so close back in ‘07, so much so Jonah thought he’d never find his way in the group. Maybe he was the one who ruined it.
“Okay, here’s my actual question: ever learn her stance on hotboxing?” He gestures to the cloud of smoke developing. “No window would clear this room fast enough.”
“We’re gonna find out.” Adam throws his head back, something twinging his lips into a not-quite-smile Jonah had grown accustomed to. “She could really use the second hand smoke.”
The two idly puff their blunts. Jonah rests further in his seat.
Still, he thought about Adam and Sarah. He wanted to go back in time, and see if they ever once were close. Did they ever talk mindlessly like this? Was being on the run the low of their lives, but they were glad they had each other? Did they ever get blazed? Jonah needed to know all the details.
And, even though he had all the story he could wrangle out of Adam and Sarah’s patience, he still wasn’t satisfied with the answer. Who discovers time-travel by accident? No less, time-travel through old TVs nobody uses anymore?
Jonah still felt it was convenient how he met the two back in that deserted house. It wasn’t like he had anywhere else to go, but that was part of the question. He wouldn’t trade being in this moment of time for any other sorta-kinda-somewhat paranormal club. Being so close to a literal time machine only fueled those questions.
He rested his head over his arm on the table. The gradual effects of the cannabis were like a warm blanket draped over his entirety.
“Hey, Hey, Jonah,” Adam lazily turned to him.
“Yeah?”
“I-I got a hypothetical.” It was weird hearing Adam stumble over his words even slightly.
“What is it?” Jonah said, his shoulder blade ached from the awkward position.
“Okay, say that I go back in time, and kill my baby self. What happens?” he pointed to the TV, like he was actually gonna go inside and do it.
“Isn’t that… kinda like killing baby Hitler?” It took a minute before Jonah registered what he said. “Like the scientific what-do-you-call-it. I’m not saying you’re Hitler.” Jonah hums for a while as he thinks of the answer. “You wouldn’t exist, idiot. You killed your baby self, so you never got to grow up.”
Adam watched the smoke swirling towards the ceiling, highlighted by the light. “Right, but… if I never existed, then who went back to do it?”
“So… Man, I dunno. Maybe the universe just deletes the contradiction, because y’know, you gotta exist for that stuff to happen.”
“Yeah, the second I pull the trigger, I undo the version of me that did it, but at least one version had to exist to do it in the first place.” Adam clasps his hands together, as if that made perfect sense. “Would I escape the time dimension or whatever? Since time won’t know what to do with me. Conservation of mass, or something like that. I can’t just cease to exist.”
“We’re bringing science into this?” Jonah sat up a bit, a little intrigued now. “Or maybe, Big Mama Time finds another way for you to exist. Maybe the timeline splits into two, one where you never existed, and one where you do.” said Jonah, not knowing why he personified time as ‘Big Mama.’
“Well, what if I killed my dad before I was born? I definitely can’t exist then. ” Adam lied down on the couch, seeming genuinely contemplative
“Okay, hear me out on this,” Jonah sat up.
“Yeah?” Adam looked at him.
“What if you’re destined to live. Obviously, you gotta kick the bucket at some point! But if you go back in time, try to kill your child self, maybe Mama Time won’t let ya’ because it was just not your time to go yet.”
“... Are you saying that everyone is destined to die in a certain way?”
“Maybe. Like, people who died in the past obviously can’t go into the present. They’re dead. But people in the present can go to the past! Both in memories and actual fucking time travel, which you guys discovered!” Jonah grinned, showing teeth.
“So, no matter what I do, time will… correct itself? No way to change the outcome?”
Jonah snorted. “You tell me. It’s you and Sarah who do the time travelling, I don’t mess with that.” Still, Jonah shrugged. “Maybe Mama Time’s one step ahead. You’re supposed to go back, trying to kill yourself is part of life! There's this one quote about a guy pushing a boulder up a rock and liking it, probably applies here.”
Adam laughed dryly. “Sounds exhausting.”
Jonah glared at him for a moment. “The hypothetical?”
Adam didn’t answer right away. He just stared at the ceiling. “The idea of being stuck. No real choice. Even if you think you’ve changed something, time just snaps back and reminds you that you never had a say in the first place. The fuck would we do with time travel if we just couldn't do anything with it?"
Jonah frowned. “Don’t make it depressing, it’s a dumb thought experiment. What's really stopping us from changing the whole world?” A light bulb flickers in Jonah’s head. “That’s the word I was thinking of earlier! Thought experiment!”
The TV flickered in the background. Neither of them spoke for a while. Jonah didn’t press, but something about the way Adam said that felt heavy in the air.
“We should probably Febreze it up in here,” Jonah stands up, his head buzzing.