The Time Bubble Box Set 2, стр. 274

“You, too, Emma – have a good one,” was what I actuallysaid. And that was that. She had lived next door for four years and the briefexchange we had just had was probably about the longest conversation we had hadin all that time.

Back inside, I went straight for the coffee while I put thefinishing touches to my plan. There was no point calling Gary up yet because hewould be at work. He was a postman – a job that kept him very fit along withhis rugby playing, I knew he normally knocked off by mid-afternoon and that wouldsuit me perfectly.

Until then, I had a bit of time on my hands. Mindful of themental note I had made earlier to be better prepared for my journey backthrough time, this seemed like an ideal time to carry out some research.

I logged on to my laptop and started to go back through mysocial media timeline, looking for clues, writing down every scrap ofinformation that might be of use to me. The actual notes would be of no use tome after this trip. I couldn’t take them back through time with me, but I couldread them over and over to memorise them before I went.

Finding information on the laptop was quick and easy – fareasier than using a mobile phone. I couldn’t understand for the life of me whylaptops had fallen out of favour. By 2025, hardly anyone used them, even in theworkplace. I understood the argument that phones and tablets were convenientfor people on the move but even so – give me a laptop with a full-size screenand a proper keyboard any day. I could just get so much more done.

I had fond memories of this trusty old ASUS laptop. It hadserved me well for many years. I had bought it back in around 2012 and here itwas, in 2019, still going strong.

I went back through Facebook as far as I could. The trailstopped at New Year’s Eve 2007, which was the year I had joined. What I didfind gave me a pretty good snapshot of the years 2007-2018, enough to ascertainroughly where I had been each year.

None of it was particularly exciting and made me thinkperhaps I had wasted the best years of my life. I could and should have beendoing so much more. I would have to see what I could do to change that secondtime around.

What about prior to 2007? I had been 21 then. How was Igoing to find out more about my teenage years? Email was no good – that didn’tgo back past 2012 on this computer. I had used email long before that, but itseems that when I got this laptop, I didn’t bring any archive material with me,or if I did, I had no idea where I had stored it.

Where else could I look for clues? There might be somethingupstairs that could help. I went up, rummaged around in the bottom of mywardrobe and pulled out an old, tartan, shortbread tin. It was the box I’d keptmy teenage memories in and I hadn’t opened it for years.

I prised open the lid, revealing a stash of keepsakes. Myeyes were instantly drawn to the letters from my first love, Max. Oh, how I hadloved him when we were sixteen. He was so sweet on me, and so old-fashioned,sending me handwritten declarations of love on what was now faded yellow paper.He also had beautiful italic handwriting, written with a proper fountain pen,something you hardly ever see these days.

You hardly even saw it then. Love letters on real paper hadbeen a dying art form even in 2002. By then, SMS texting had become ubiquitousfor my generation.

I picked up a few of the letters and read through them,feeling full of nostalgia for those innocent times. Maybe I should have mademore effort to hold onto Max. It had seemed at sixteen that we would beinseparable forever but we grew up and he had gone away to university inManchester.

He wasn’t far away from my own roots in Liverpool, but I waswell and truly established in Oxford by then. With my dad dying when I was onlyfifteen, and his parents gone, I no longer had any family links back home onMerseyside.

I delved deeper into the box. There were a few old concerttickets, one of which caught my eye right away. It was for Kylie Minogue’sShowgirl tour which I had gone to see at Wembley Arena. The date on the ticketread 31st December 2006. It seemed I was destined to see Kylie again.

Fond memories were replaced by sad ones as I pulled out apostcard from Thailand, sent by my sister, Rachel, on the 15th December 2004.It hadn’t arrived until mid-January the following year and was the last time Ior anyone else had ever heard from her. She had been missing, presumed dead,for several weeks by then.

I shed more than a few tears as I read the card. At the turnof the millennium, I had a father, sister and mother. Barely a decade into thenew century, they were all dead and I was an orphan at twenty-five.

I had never given up hope that one day Rachel might return,but I knew that it was highly unlikely. She had almost certainly perished,swept into the sea like so many thousands of others, on that devastatingmorning of Boxing Day, 2004.

It was time to put my memories away for now. The rumbling inmy stomach told me it was well past lunchtime. Placing the lid back on the tin,I headed downstairs to make myself something to eat.

As I munched on a cheese and pickle sandwich, I read thenotes I had made over and over again. It wasn’t a complete snapshot of my lifeby any means, but enough to give me a broad outline of what to expect in theweeks ahead.

With lunch out of the way, it was time to call Gary. Hewould be finishing work soon, if he hadn’t already. I didn’t imagine therewould be that much post to deliver at this time of year. The big