Featured Short-Short: December, 2020

Time Travel
by J. R. Nichols

He sighed.
“What will happen to my memories of you?”
“I guess this is goodbye.”
“They say you’ll still have them.”
“Odds on that?”
No answer. Change of subject.
“I’ll come here, on this day, at this time, and give you the biggest hug, ever. It will be like I never left.”
“But, will I know you?”
Again, no answer. A kiss on the cheek.
“Goodbye, Mother.”
I turned and saw a bedraggled bearded man. He clutched at me with bony fingers, pulled me to his birdlike chest, huffed dry breath into my ear.

“Eighty three years,” he said.