[ WP ] You become your child self again for a day with your current mindset , but if you do anything differently , you life will morph around that difference and fast forward you to your current time with the changes .

I opened my eyes and looked around the room. MY room. From all those years ago. Posters, bedspread, all of it. Did I really have a huge stuffed bear at that age? I could n't believe I had finally gotten through to here. My heart was racing and I could hardly breathe. It must be THAT day, it had to be. My hands were shaking. I covered my face with them and was amazed how short my arms were. I was lying there looking at my shaking hands, trying to stop hyperventilating, when daughter came in to wake me up for school. 
 
 Holy moly, I mean it was my mom! But I realized too late and said `` Judy?'' In a voice so high-pitched it freaked me out, even though I knew where and when I was. I was in my own body at age 6, in the middle of first grade and not close to 50, no, not even at ALL and it was THAT day, it was THAT DAY... Suddenly my vision was narrowing and I vomited all over myself and I started to black out. `` NOOOO, ca n't lose it, not NOW!'' I think is what I cried. 
 
 I woke up again, and was relieved to see I was still in my room, covered with a blanket from the living room sofa and wearing a new pajama shirt. My mouth tasted GROSS. I felt too weak to move and managed to croak `` Mom?'' I repeated it a few times, and she came in with a glass of water and a thermometer. She would be just a little older now than my daughter was in my own time, and I had never appreciated the resemblance. This time I was more prepared and just smiled weakly. 
 
 I was quiet while mom fussed over me, just watching her -- amazed at her old Seventies clothes, her long black hair, her face and hands without wrinkles, and her smell -- the lavender soap she used, I had n't smelled it in so long, it brought tears to my eyes. 
 
 She was frowning at the thermometer with her thoughtful expression that I knew so well. She noticed me crying and dropped the thermometer, dried my eyes and held me for a few minutes. 
 
 `` Did I miss school today?'' She laughed and said of course I had, I needed to rest and feel better, and soon we'd see if I could keep down some saltines and water. I said I felt tired and she left me to rest for a while, looking at the thermometer again on her way out as though she suspected it was broken. 
 
 If the theory held, I would be conscious in this node for 12 to 24 hours, then I'd snap back to my anchor point on the timeline. My plan for how to handle the day was thrown completely out the window by my earlier hysterics. But, I realized, this was better. WAY better. ( Did I just think that? ) Instead of following an elaborate plan, I sidesteped the whole thing by not being at school. Jeez, why did n't I think of that before? So, maybe if I... 
 
 Next thing I knew I was sitting on the floor in my PJs surrounded by plastic army men and dinosars and helicopters and pirates. Um... nobody had anticipated this... 
 
 The rest of the day was a series of lucid moments interspersed with blackouts during which my child-self apparently took over. The length of the blackouts increased steadily until I sensed that I was probably in charge for the last time. I immediately ran to my dad and jumped on him and bear-hugged him. He was always very reserved about affection and I know it must have shocked him, but I did n't care. It was now or never. I jumped down, tackled mom's leg while she was washing the dishes, and dashed to my baby sister's playpen to give her a kiss on the head. `` What in the world...'' was the last thing I heard dad say as I blacked out again. 
 
 Uck. That feeling in your throat when you've been sleeping heavily and snoring. Lower back stiff. I was back. I had tried to ready myself for this moment too. I controlled my breathing and kept my eyes closed. I did n't want to see anything. I wanted to remember first. 
 
 Mental discipline, come on, I thought. The memories came slowly. Moving. Growing up. School, friends, crushes, disappointments, successes, career, marriage, house, kids... 
 
 What? Nothing had changed. Not one thing. The intervening years had all rolled on just as before. But how could they have? THAT day was the one that had thrown everything off course. It was why we had moved in such a hurry to that crappy town. And everything that had happened after. It had all been my fault, or at least it had happened because of me. I had always known that -- not right away at that age, but later when I thought about it, I knew it had to be. 
 
 I thought back as far and as hard as I could. The old memory of the incident was there in the background, like a phantom cancer overlaying what was now just a completely normal time in my life. It was already a dim memory, like a powerful dream that fades slowly. The only thing that really changed, then, was that THAT day had never happened and I never spent hours agonizing over it later in my life. Dad's job moved us there; I had always believed that was a cover story so we would n't have to talk about THAT day. So, the company really did move us? To that stupid hick town in the middle of nowhere? On purpose?? 
 
 I thought that through for a very long time. Including fantasies about going back again and becoming a six-year old assassin and taking out whoever was in charge of that decision. Then I thought how I had wasted my chance on a detail, I should have gone back later, instead, and stopped myself from... 
 
 I dwelt on that a long time, but in the end I realized I had n't wasted it completely. I did n't have to be haunted by the secret shame that I had caused my family to leave behind everybody they knew and set in motion everything that had happened since. Yeah, some bad things had happened to us all and I had made plenty of mistakes over the years, but it was n't all because of me. It was n't the fault of a small boy caught in a situation he did n't understand. It was n't. All. My. Fault. Such a weight I had put on my own shoulders, all those years, and it was never true. 
 
 I laid my head on my arms. It had been worth it. All of it. I stood up and walked to the closet. I was going to buy some lavender soap and send it to mom today.
