“Time travel should be about more important things, like peeping ancient wonders: pyramids, or hanging gardens, or a colossus plinthed above an Aegean harbor. It’s a chance to witness grim prehistory, as some Neanderthal family naïvely ferries Aperol spritzers to the new Cro-Magnon clan next door. I’d love to find out if the Red Sea really did part for Moses, just like in the movie with Charlton Heston. Maybe I’d visit Heston on the set of Soylent Green, tell him the movie he’s shooting won’t amount to much but will spawn a fine nerdy catchphrase. I’d also take a moment to set him straight on guns. Because that’s another worthy approach to temporal displacement: the do-gooder package tour, the warn-Pompeii-kill-Hitler itinerary. It’s a dicey proposition, messing with the past. But wouldn’t my intrusions cancel each other out if I brought a teen Hitler to Pompeii just before Vesuvius blew? ‘I’ll leave you here,’ I’d say. ‘The new arts academy is just over that ridge!’…

“Perhaps my best bet would be a trip back to yesterday. I could pass on that brownie from the tray at the office, reply to those e-mails instead of resending them to myself as reminders to reply. I could tell my kids that I love them, rather than grunting orders and admonitions like ‘Teeth,’ ‘Clomping,’ ‘Tone.’ I could stop doing that thing where I leave one tiny corner of the kitchen counter dirty as an act of rebellion. I could give my wife a real back rub instead of one of those fake jobs designed to be so annoying that she’ll ask me to stop. I could, as people like to put it, be more present, more mindful. I could climb into my screeching, shuddering, time-busting jalopy and take the long voyage to right now. I could try again.”
—Sam Lipsyte