Phase Shift (3 of 6)
Theoretical
Mira lay on the futon, curled beneath the blanket, watching him, but pretending not to. The blanket was pulled up over half her face, but her eyes peeked out—tracking Theo as he moved around her small kitchen space like he belonged there. Like it wasn’t absurd. Like it was normal for a time traveler to be raiding her refrigerator while she lounged in bed past nine.
By now, she should have written in her journal on the laptop—a diary entry or a letter, but she hadn’t. She should’ve felt awkward. She didn’t. She should’ve felt territorial. She didn’t.
Instead, she just… watched. Feeling lazy. And oddly happy. She couldn’t see everything, but she heard the sounds—familiar, comforting: the clink of a spoon in a bowl, a pan sizzling on the stove, a cupboard door creaking, a cutting board thumped gently onto the counter. She heard the rhythmic sound of a knife slicing—fruit, maybe? Something juicy.
He moved smoothly, like he knew where everything was. Or like he’d read about it a hundred times and was finally seeing it for himself.
Two cups of coffee brewed one after the other. When he turned to wait for the second, he caught her watching him.
Mira began to sit up, caught red-handed.
“Stay right there,” Theo said, without looking away. “I’m almost done.”
She sank back down, eyes narrowing behind the blanket. He dragged an old equipment bin to the front of the futon, repurposing it into a makeshift coffee table. Placed the two mugs on top. Then disappeared back to the stove.
A minute later, he returned—with breakfast.
Real breakfast. Two plates, full and steaming: french toast, bacon, a golden potato hash, and a careful fan of fresh fruit—pineapple and watermelon—arranged like he’d practiced.
He handed her one of the plates, then sat beside her as she moved to make room. It was oddly domestic. Ridiculous, really. And completely perfect.
She sipped her coffee and said, “Nobody has ever made me breakfast in bed before.”
“Not gonna lie,” he said. “It would be pretty cool if this wasn’t the last time.”
She glanced at him. He didn’t mean it as a line. He meant it the way Theo meant things—quietly, fully. And for just a moment, Mira didn’t think about timelines or pulsars or consequences. She thought about this—warm food, warm coffee, and the way it felt to have someone sit beside her who already knew how she liked it.
“Can I ask you some things?” he said.
“Like what?”
“I’d like to know all the things that are not in the textbooks.”
“Never read your textbooks, so I wouldn’t know how to answer that. You say you’ve loved me, or at least the idea about me, since you were fifteen, but there’s so little stuff you know beyond the academic.”
“But I’ve loved what I do know. Really, mostly it was the letters. I’ve loved the heart that you exposed through those letters. That’s all I can say. But, I want to know the real you. Mira Estrella. Who is she, really?”
“I’m not sure it’s the same thing as actual love, Theo.”
“I mean, I think that’s a fair statement. On the one hand, it’s been very one-sided. That was always one of the risks. That I was wrong. That you’d despise me if you ever really met me, even though I’d thought about you for years.”
“I don’t think I could ever despise you.”
“That’s nice to hear.”
Mira cut her French toast with her fork, took a tentative bite, and smiled. “This is actually edible.”
“Thanks,” he said. “So one of the big questions is where you came from. We couldn’t find birth records or anything like that. There’s a whole conspiracy theory that you were actually an alien sent to destroy Earth, not that I believed that.”
Mira nearly spit out her coffee, managed to swallow it, set her cup down, and laughed. “Well, I’m not surprised. Estrella is not my birth name. It just means stars. My fifth grade teacher helped me establish that last name after my father died.”
“Fifth grade?”
“I was ten. You couldn’t find him because I was born Mira Guzmán in the Mariscal district of Quito. I haven’t used the name for sixteen years. He was an enforcer for a cocaine cartel. Lived by violence. Died by violence.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Theo said. “What about your mother?”
“A prostitute. Never learned her name. She was gone by the time I was two.”
“Wow,” Theo said. “But that explains why we couldn’t find you.”
“Yeah, well, it was not a great childhood.”
“I’m sorry you went through that.”
Mira shrugged, still holding her coffee.
“What about you? What’s your actual job? Time traveler? Is that a title now?”
Theo smirked. “Actually, I’m a contractor. I build houses.”
She blinked. “Seriously?”
He nodded, taking a sip from his mug.
She stared at him, chewed a bite of French toast, and narrowed her eyes. “Okay, I’m struggling with that. How does a contractor end up jumping into a time machine and going back two centuries?”
“I noticed the anomalies and started asking questions.”
“Anomalies?”
He leaned back a little, balancing his plate on his knee.
“Time takes time,” he said. “It’s hard to explain. But… you ever get déjà vu? That strange sense you’ve already been in a moment before? A pre-cognition?”
“Sure. I’m not convinced it’s anything spooky, but yeah, I’ve had it.”
“Right. Most people dismiss it. But what if some people experience it more often? What would explain that?”
Mira tilted her head, intrigued despite herself.
“Go on.”
“Where I’m from, some people are more attuned to what we call post-cognition.”
She raised an eyebrow. “What, like remembering yesterday better than most people?”
He shook his head. “Not quite. More like… remembering how things were supposed to be.”
That stopped her.
“Wait—what?”
Theo looked at her, quiet now. “It’s not just memory. It’s memory of alternate timelines. Echoes of branches that never happened. People who feel grief for losses they never lived. People who swear someone used to exist… but doesn’t anymore.”
Mira blinked, her fork halfway to her mouth. “That sounds like psychosis.”
“Sometimes it is.” He gave her a sad smile. “And sometimes it’s the universe trying to remember itself. And who can say which is which?”
“So wait,” she said, setting her plate down. “The idea that my work could kill half the planet in the future, could just be your psychosis?”
Her tone wasn’t cruel. Just… pointed.
Theo met her gaze. “Yeah. It could.”
That surprised her. No defense. No overcompensation. Just honesty.
“I could be wrong,” he said. “I’ve wondered that a lot. Whether I’m just some lunatic who fell too deep into temporal echoes and fell in love with a woman he was never meant to meet. And—”
He stopped abruptly.
“What?” Mir asked.
“I’ve-I’ve lost something,” he said, voice cracking. His mug slipped in his hand, coffee sloshing onto the bin.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s one of those moments of either psychosis or post-cognition. Something has changed.”
“What do you think has changed?”
“I—I think one of your letters is gone. It’s just—missing. But I don’t remember what it was. I think it was about the stars, maybe. But it’s slipping—like I never read it. Tomorrow I won’t even remember it was missing.”
“Maybe because I stayed in bed late and didn’t write this morning?” She slid the blanket off, eyes flicking to her laptop on the desk, as if it might hold the answer.
Theo nodded. “I guess we’re changing things already.”
The pulsar’s hum stuttred behind her, a faint iccup in its rhythm. She glanced at the monitors frowning.
“Causality is confusing,” Mira said. “What if I stop writing letters and then you never fall in love with my letters at fifteen and never come here. Will you disappear? And will I forget you were ever here, start writing again, and pull you back? Or does it all unravel because I slept instead of wrote? I can go through an endless loop in my mind.” She gripped her mug tighter, knuckles paling.
“I don’t know the answers. But I know it takes the ripples a while to spread out,” he said. He took a long sip of coffee, then exhaled. “But here’s the thing. If I am wrong, and we do nothing… no harm done. You live your life. The pulsar just keeps pulsing. But if I’m right—and we do nothing… half the world disappears.”
Mira frowned. “That’s a hell of a coin toss.”
Theo nodded. “Yeah. And I didn’t come back to flip it alone. I actually need you to believe in me. To trust me. It’s a great risk coming here.”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t go back.”
“Oh,” she said.
It came out softer than she meant. Almost a breath.
Theo looked down at his empty plate, like he couldn’t meet her eyes. “There’s no return trip. I knew that going in. Once the jump stabilizes, the gate closes behind me. Entropy math. Not even theoretical anymore.”
Mira stared at him, trying to calculate something between awe and grief. “So you… you gave up your whole life?”
He nodded once. “My friends. My home. My sister.” He paused. “She begged me not to go.”
Mira swallowed hard. “Why would you do that?”
Theo looked at her then, eyes steady. “Because every version of the future where I didn’t come… ended in silence.”
Mira felt her breath catch. “You’re saying I need to believe in you to save the world,” she said slowly.
“No. I’m saying I need you to believe in yourself. That you’re worth saving. That the woman I read for years—the one who sent love letters into the void—wasn’t just imagining someone. She was warning herself. Hoping someone would answer.”
She sat back against the wall, blanket still tangled around her legs.
The room was quiet now. Outside, the storm began to abate. Inside, it felt like a different kind of storm had just begun.
Stephen B. Anthony is the author of Transmigrant, an epic science fiction thriller, available on both Amazon and Audible. The first seven chapters are available on this website for free.
This was stunning. That final line—“she was warning herself”—hit me like a freight train. The blend of intimacy, sci-fi, and emotional stakes feels so grounded and raw, even with the temporal layers. Theo’s quiet sacrifice and Mira’s hesitant hope are such a powerful combo. You’ve built something really special here.
I want more!!!!!