‘If I Could Go Back, I’d Change My Life’
A finalist from our 'Time Travel' writing competition!
Ethan Cassidy
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Creative
I wish I could go back and change my life.
My record would be clean, I wouldn’t have hurt so many people, done so many burgs, or maybe I wouldn’t be raised by gangsters and by feds, but then who would I be?
I wouldn’t even be me.
Maybe change things more recent, more specific?
“Oh, so like Hot Tub Time Machine?”
I could never change the past nor want to. It makes us who we are. It’s 2026 and I’ve been single since, but since coming to jail I wish I could call someone mine.
Well if we’re still talking ’bout time travel, have you seen The Butterfly Effect? Maybe if I didn’t protect my cousin and get charged with affray and ABH, maybe my cousin would be dead or we all would be arrested, not just me and Choppa Reggie. Maybe Trump wouldn’t be re-elected, maybe World War 3 would come to Sydney. I ain’t even sentenced but I’m here where I’m meant to be, don’t know what the future holds but it’s already written. I wouldn’t think I regret.
Back time in jail, first time I seen the jail paper. Imagine I never seen this challenge, I would have never sent this letter. Time travel has been talked of for centuries, just look at Nikola Tesla.
Date Published
October 1, 2026
By About Time
Clearly you only have to nominate ‘time travel’ as the subject of a writing competition to get people thinking.
ISSUE NO. 27
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2 MIN READ
By Marley
Time, for me, was at first just “the clock on the wall” at high school. When is lunch? When will this test finish? And when is home time?
ISSUE NO. 27
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1 MIN READ
By Jaivien
Have you ever found yourself at the bottom of a well?
ISSUE NO. 27
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2 MIN READ
By Rain
The decay of an atom indicates that time itself has passed, it is the origin of our concept of time.
ISSUE NO. 27
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3 MIN READ