DAILY PROMPT RESPONSE
Everyone knows me as the guy who talks about writing, music, and “normal” human things. But the truth is… I have a problem.
I’m addicted to time-travel discussions.
Seriously.
I even attend meetings now. It’s called Chronologically Confused Anonymous — CCA for short.
Every Tuesday night, a ragtag group of us gathers in a dusty church basement, folding chairs circling a busted time machine that someone swears they almost fixed with duct tape and tears.
We take turns.
“Hi, I’m Dave, and I can’t stop arguing about paradoxes on Reddit.” “Hi, Dave.”
“Thanks for letting me share.” “Thanks for sharing.”
“Hi, I’m Sheila, and I tried to marry a Victorian ghost.” “Hi, Sheila.”
“Thanks for letting me share.” “Thanks for sharing.”
“Hi, I’m Lou. My smartwatch accidentally started a Renaissance art movement.”
Then it’s my turn. All eyes on me. I sweat even though it’s cold enough inside to hang meat.
“Hi, I’m Mangus… and I spent four hours last night explaining why making a list of historical villains, rogues, and scoundrels could create catastrophic timeline disturbances.”
Polite applause. Sad nods.
“We’ve all been there.”
Someone hands me a cookie. Snickerdoodle. Proof there is still a God.
I try to stay normal. I talk about music, writing, and TV shows. I nod during conversations about taxes like a domesticated human.
But you mention “wormhole” within 30 feet of me? Boom.
Suddenly, I’m on the floor, diagramming alternate futures on napkins, losing friends like loose change.
Every week, I tell myself it’ll be different. I’ll drink coffee, smile politely, and resist.
Then it happens.
Usually, Carol, the group leader, casually drops “time loops” into the conversation.
Next thing you know, I’m dramatically unrolling laminated charts like a deranged, time-obsessed librarian.
“Here’s Joseph Bridgeman!” I shout, slamming down Nick Jones’s series about a guy emotionally wrecked by his attempts to fix the past.
“Here’s Quinn Black!” I declare, tossing Roy Huff’s “Seven Rules of Time Travel” across the table — a man rebooting his life like a glitchy video game.
“And if you’ll just admire these visual aids,” I say, shoving diagrams under noses — expertly crafted flowcharts warning of butterfly effects, grandfather paradoxes, and existential doom, backed up by The Time Machine, 11/22/63, Replay, and thirty-seven other carefully curated sources.
Someone tries to intervene. I shush them. “No touching the exhibits.”
Carol sighs. Stage 2 of my intervention: the Official List of Things You’re Not Supposed to Do While Time Traveling.
(Yes. We made a list.)
Rules like:
- Don’t fall in love with someone from the past (because heartbreak and paradoxes are a double whammy).
- Don’t leave your iPhone in the 1800s (unless you want steampunk TikTok).
- Absolutely, under no circumstances, meet your past self (unless you enjoy cosmic implosions and punching your own face).
I nod furiously. Because mentally? I’ve broken all those rules. Repeatedly. For fun.
The real tragedy isn’t the napkin diagrams, or the laminated charts. It’s what you don’t see:
Friends invite me to barbecues, but I turn them down because I’m “in the middle of analyzing closed time-like curves.”
Family asked why I’m single, and I answered with a thirty-minute rant about temporal dislocation and the tragic love lives of doomed time travelers.
At some point, you realize you’re not just losing hours; you’re losing actual time you can’t ever get back. Irony, meet Mangus.
But it’s fine.
The first step is admitting you have a problem.
The second step is admitting you secretly keep a copy of Timeline by Michael Crichton under your pillow for “comfort reading.”
My recovery plan? It’s ambitious:
- Only historical fiction without time travel for a month.
- No arguing about causality unless provoked by at least three separate people.
- Emergency cooldown word: “Quantumly.” If someone says it, I must cease all time-travel discourse immediately.
So yeah, I talk about writing and music and normal-person hobbies.
But deep down? I’m one poorly timed wormhole away from disappearing into a Victorian murder mystery or trying to stop the butterfly effect with a pool noodle.
Pray for me.
Carol asked if I could assemble a pamphlet for the new members. I wondered why she asked me to do this, but then remembered she was also a member of my writing circle.
For those of you who are building a time machine, the end of each semester in your local college town is a gold mine. Those kids just sit stuff on the curb. They look at you strangely and probably mock you, but they have no idea how hard it is to get quality parts these days.
Here is a working draft of the pamphlet:
Official Pamphlet for: Chronologically Confused Anonymous
Welcome, New Chronoholic!
Congratulations on taking the first step toward temporal responsibility. Your membership kit includes:
- An emergency “Timeline Stability” manual (written in erasable ink)
- A “Do Not Date Renaissance People,” bumper sticker
- One vintage “I Survived a Causality Loop, and All I Got Was This Lousy T-shirt” shirt
- A pocket-sized “Temporal Incident Report,” form
Remember, if you ever feel the urge to “just take a quick peek” at the future, call your sponsor immediately.
The 12 Steps of Chronoholics Anonymous
(because “one minute at a time” is too much pressure)
- We admitted we were powerless over time travel — that our timelines had become unmanageable.
- Came to believe that a Power greater than us (aka Physics) could restore us to sanity.
- Made a decision to surrender our paradoxes and bootstrap loops to the universe’s natural laws.
- Made a fearless moral inventory of all the pasts, presents, and futures we’ve accidentally wrecked.
- Admitted to ourselves, another traveler, and at least one confused historian the exact nature of our timeline violations.
- Were entirely ready to have Physics remove all defects of character — or at least stop us from trying to kill Hitler again.
- Humbly asked Quantum Mechanics to correct our spontaneous wormhole-generating habits.
- Made a list of all alternate versions of ourselves we had harmed, and became willing to apologize (even to the evil clones).
- Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, unless doing so would collapse the multiverse.
- Continued to take temporal inventory and, when we messed up, promptly set a fixed point.
- Sought through meditation and time-loop journaling to improve our conscious contact with Present Moment Awareness.
- Having had a paradox-free awakening, we tried to carry this message to other chocoholics and practice stable timeline maintenance in all our affairs.
Step 13: Learn from the Ancient Screw-Ups
Before Doc Brown, before The Continuum, before that one cousin who “totally invented” the flux capacitor at Burning Man, there were… Mythological Time Travelers.
- King Kakudmi (Hindu Mythology): Time-travel sin: Visited Brahma for a matchmaking consult. Returned to Earth, and whoops, millennia had passed. Chronoholics Verdict: 5,000 years late to dinner = automatic probation.
- Urashima Tarō (Japanese Folklore): Time-travel sin: Took a “short” vacation to an underwater palace. Opened a magic box. Aged 300 years instantly. Chronoholics’ Verdict: Violation of Rule #5: Never trust mysterious free vacations.
- Oisín (Irish Mythology): Time-travel sin: Ran off with Niamh to Tír na nÓg, where no one ages. Came back, instantly turned into a 300-year-old man. Chronoholics Verdict: Violation of Rule #4: No cross-temporal romances.
- The Dreamtime (Aboriginal Mythology): Time-travel sin: Existence where past, present, and future are all layered together. Basically, quantum physics without equations. Chronoholics’ Verdict: Legal loophole. Proceedings postponed indefinitely.
- Rip Van Winkle (Okay, not myth, but classic): Time-travel sin: Took the longest nap in literary history. Woke up decades later, confused, broke, and trending on TikTok. Chronoholics Verdict: Violation of Rule #10: Always set your alarm clock.
Moral of the Story: If ancient myths teach us anything, it’s this: If someone offers you magical food, glowing objects, or a “harmless little trip” across realities, just say no. (Or at least make sure your insurance covers temporal anomalies.)
Slogans We Shout Over Lukewarm Coffee:
- “Keep it Present!”
- “Easy does it… unless you’re in a collapsing singularity.”
- “Don’t time-jump before you’re ready.”
- “One timeline at a time.”
- “No paradox today — maybe tomorrow!”
The Time Traveler’s Serenity Prayer
Universe, grant me the serenity to accept the past I cannot change, the courage to alter the futures I must, and the wisdom to know when I’m creating a paradox.
Living one stable timeline at a time, enjoying the moment as it exists, accepting disruptions as part of cosmic design, taking this distorted continuum as it bends, not as I would have it, trusting that black holes, wormholes, and rogue agents are part of the plan.
I may be reasonably happy in this present, and supremely careful with all alternate versions of myself, forever and ever. Amen.
Important Reminder:
Time travel is a privilege, not a right. Misuse can cause spontaneous disappearance, angry alternate versions of yourself, or cosmic-level grounding.
Chronoholics Anonymous: Protecting the timeline, one grave decision at a time.
Memoirs of Madness 