IT WAS exactly 3:02:00 AM when James Campbell died. He was only twenty-eight when his schedule was through. He needed it, in the long run. He didn’t have family, really, and his friends were just as existent. At least he would get a unique way to go, rather than something depressing like an illness or something boring like a plane crash. No, he was about to go out with a bang, so to speak, because it was 2:59:00 AM and the timeline had a great ending written. Well, before someone changed it, anyway.
James, or Jim, was born in the backroads of Georgia, but he never considered that his home. His parents never cared for them while they were alive, so he was lucky he was only a few months old when they were tried and executed for first degree murder. He entered an orphanage and lived in the home of Henry Townshed, an elderly gentleman living in Glennville, Georgia, until he reached the age of eighteen. Mr. Townshed, Jim just called him Henry, raised twelve children over the course of Jim’s childhood. There wasn’t much order in the home, but for the most part the children behaved themselves. They all appreciated Henry’s kindness.
Jim never really bothered with schooling. He studied books from the public library rather than going to the local high school. It wasn’t that he didn’t like learning, he simply found it too simple. It was hard for him to be stimulated by formulas he had memorized years before. Jim didn’t have any friends that he knew of. He mostly kept himself private from the world and the world let him be. While most late teen boys were looking forward to their careers, Jim really couldn’t feel interested in any one thing. His mind was too comprehending to be entertained by the careers that most longed for. Plus, without a high school diploma, he knew no college would give him the time of day.
He left the town of Glennville to find something. He never really had a plan and didn’t want to do something he knew he wouldn’t enjoy. So Jim travelled from city to city, doing odd jobs here and there for whatever cash people could spare. He lived in a world where the only constants were himself and the road before him.
His life seemed to be the world he had been in for ten years now: walk, take a bus, or hitchhike to the next town, get enough money for food and commodities, then continue on. Jim couldn’t settle. His world was simple. He knew what would happen. That is, until 3:01 AM.
It wasn’t uncommon for Jim to find himself running or jogging with nowhere to go other than forward. In the early morning hours where he couldn’t sleep, he would just continue on. That morning Jim was among the blue ridge mountains over near Tennessee. The mid-January cold hardly bothered him as the sky started a wet snow. On the road ahead of him was a large group of deer, but Jim wasn’t a threat to them. They could tell he was no threat to them. He was simply another deer as far as they were concerned. Jim stopped twenty five yards away to watch the majestic creatures move almost aimlessly, which of course, was right in line with the timeline.
* * *
Grant Ewell was going for a record. Grant wanted more than anything to get the tanker of gasoline to it’s destination and get home. His anniversary was only two days away and he still had to get to Washington D.C. before he could get back home to Nashville. He had driven through the night the day previously and was starting to do it again. The longest for driving without sleep was 42 hours straight. So he was shooting to break that, not because he wanted to, but because he had to if he didn’t want his wife yapping at him for the next year. However, breaking the record wasn’t going to happen tonight. It was 3:00:56 AM when he realized he couldn’t drive anymore unless he got some sleep.
“Let’s just get around this corner before I pull over for the night,” he said aloud. It was helpful to him to talk out loud when sleep was threatening his mind. He had read that doing so would keep him alert. It didn’t work. He dosed off at 3:01:32 AM. The timeline was intact.
* * *
The snow picked up while Jim stood, watching and thinking. If he had a desk job, working nine to five, or even a job working on cars or something mechanical, this moment of sheer amazement would not happen. This was the best thing he could do with his life. Jim laughed out loud at his imagined picture of him being a telemarketer. It was just so far from his persona. The laugh frightened a few deer away. No, that wasn’t practical. He hadn’t laughed loud enough to scare that many, plus the ones that ran away were all the way on the other side of the herd. Something was wrong. Jim realized two moments too late. Around the bend came a tanker truck.
Grant awoke to the sound of broken deer under his tires, accompanied by the thuds they caused to the chassis. He had closed his eyes just before the turn. He was at an angle on the road, most certainly heading off the edge in seconds if he didn’t correct himself soon. Grant’s sleepless body mindlessly yanked the wheel to the left. The thoughtless actions resulted in the truck over correcting. Centripetal force threw the truck sideways, the wet snow lightening any friction the road would’ve caused. The truck, no less than fifty yards away from Jim, started rolling and then sliding, shooting sparks everywhere.
Jim sprinted back from the accident but was hit from behind by something large enough to kill him, whether it be debris or animal. The instant the object touched him he knew something significant had happened. Not that he had much time to realize it before he banged his forehead on the paved road. The sky filled with flame and the mountains shook with the sudden explosion of the tanker of gasoline. Jim blacked out, his face in the asphalt, a large object pinning him down and crushing his abdomen. The last breath he would breath in this world was knocked out of him by the explosion that must certainly meant his death.
Yet it was 3:02:09 AM and Jim was still very alive. The timeline had been changed.
So that is the first chapter, fourth edition. I hope you enjoyed it. I updated it because the one I put on earlier had some sucky additions.
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