prompt: unleash, title: walls and bridges in (just like) starting over flash fiction

“Philboyd,” the taller uncle finally moved away from Dakota toward Bobby, “let the kid be, huh” then he corrected himself, “let the five-hundred-year-old time-traveler be, he’s clearly in a lot of pain.” Bobby was, indeed, still trying get the ibuprofen down faster, despite his quiet discomfort with how history unfolded this time around. “We were just figuring out the point of divergence, Mr. Vonnegut,” Bobby finished another rough swallow, “he wasn’t making things worse.”

Phil lit up, both his face and a fourth cigarette for Kurt. “He knows you too!” “Briefly met him back home, actually,” Bobby smiled as much as he could, “He gave a talk at the college I went to, freshman year, I got ‘Cat’s Cradle’ autographed afterward.” “What school?” Kurt was trying to be as matters-of-facts as his adoptive niece had been, it seemed to calm the new visitor down. “Uh, Princeton,” Bobby looked down toward his boots, apparently ashamed of being born into wealth, “I dropped out, spring sophomore year.”

“Jesus,” Kurt accepted the lit cigarette and took a drag, “I must’ve really needed the money, Ivy League kids ask the most boring questions, and I say that as a Cornell man. You drop out for a war as well?” “I…” Bobby had gotten used to telling the truth all the time, as he could always just jump to another world if he got in trouble for speaking the truth, without the powers, he’d have to eventually start lying again, but not here, not now, “I dropped out and ran away when I found out Dad was cheating on Mom. I was a melodramatic asshole, y’know, in my youth,” he smiled less so, “nowadays, I pretend I’m a brooding deep thinker.”

“War’s war, son,” Kurt sat down in the chair next to him, “different kinds, different scales, we’re all just trying to get through them,” then he whispered in his ear, “I like the cut of your gibberish, Bob, but don’t go thinking that means you can unleash your space-hog and give my lovely niece time-gonorrhea, she’s got bigger fish to fry with her mind-powers.” “What?” “She’s pescetarian, Princeton, she gets to do that.”

“Nicknames.” “Nicknames!” “You love those nicknames.” “Not a whole lot to do at the end of the world than come up with jolly-pirate nicknames, Burning Man.” Kurt got a bit more serious. “When do I usually die?” “Back home oh-seven, you fell down some stairs and went soon after.” “Dakkie!” he called to his niece “Get them fixing that damn elevator!” then he turned to Bobby, “Do I usually go mad like this, at the end?” “For a certain measure of the word ‘mad’, sure.”

“Good to know, good to know.” They lingered in a graver silence for a while, Bobby taking four more pills from Kurt’s hand. “What the hell happened here, sir?” “It’s a story that starts with the same four words, Princeton, as so many stories do,” he puffed again, mostly for dramatic effect, “We Fucked Up Big-Time.”