The rifle in my hand was cool to the touch, and I could feel the deadly killing power that existed behind its sleek frame. In no way did this stop me from casually tossing it up in the air and catching it later, clumsily, with one hand as the other held the phone against my ear. “So all I have to do is just wait for the guy to show up, shoot him, and then I get the money, right?”
“Then youse get da money,” said the voice on the phone, in the thick semi-Italian accent that I assume mafia guys still use in the future. (I haven’t seen Looper yet, sue me.) “Don’t mess this up, or we’ll come for youse too.”
“Look, this isn’t the first time I’ve had to kill someone for textbook money.” I glanced around at the empty field that surrounded me. “How would I even mess this up? We’re in an empty field, and I have this giant Civil War-era gun for some reason. The only way the guy could escape would be if he were to startle me, for example, by claiming to be me from the future. That would be pretty startling!”
“That definitely never happens,” said the voice quickly. “But if the guy does say that, uh, don’t believe you. Him. Don’t believe him.”
“I’m not an idiot, Frank,” I scoffed as I scratched my nose with the gun’s barrel.
“I’ve got this all under control, OK? Now, more importantly, there’s the matter of the rest of my payment. When do I get to help torture the guy from Ruby Sparks?”
The “click” in my ear told me that Frank had hung up, because apparently they don’t have manners in the future (and/or the mafia). All that was left now was to wait for my target to arrive from distant years yet to pass. This was always the hardest part: the waiting. The knowledge that I would soon be taking a man’s life in cold blood was a heavy burden to shoulder.
Three hours of Pokémon Yellow later, I jumped a littlewhen the air in front of me began to ripple. It was time. In the blink of an eye, empty space was filled by solid mass, as my helpless target materialized into being. I cocked the handgun in my grip and stepped forward to do the dark deed.
“Wait!” The handcuffed man before me cried as I leveled the gun at his forehead. “Don’t shoot! I’m you, from the future!”
“Pfft,” I rolled my eyes. “I’ve heard that one before. ‘Help, it’s you from 30 years in the future, Obama’s forcing me to eat vegetables!’ Seriously, I already used the whole ‘future self’ thing in a column, it’s overdone by now.”
“I’m not from 30 years in the future, I’m from 10 minutes in the future!” cried the man on the blanket — who, I now noticed, was both vaguely familiar and incredibly handsome. “Look, after I killed the future target guy, I went to go spend the money at Chipotle, and they grabbed me off the street.”
“Does Chipotle accept future-silver,” I asked, fixated on what was clearly the most important part of his statement. “I was actually planning on heading there when we wrapped this up.”
“Chipotle will accept anything you give them, it’s honestly kind of sad,” said the guy, who — I guess — was my future self. “But that’s not the point. Point is, 10 minutes from now, the mob is going to realize how dumb it is to use time machines for body disposal instead of, you know, literally anything else. Since you’re the only one who signed up for the looper gig, they’re tricking you into killing yourself to erase the evidence of their mistake!”
“That’s a good point,” I said, mulling it over. “Counter-question though: If I spare you, am I going to have to spend the next hour and a half bonding with the kid from One Tree Hill?”
Future Person frowned. “I don’t know, maybe?”
“I can’t take that risk.” I pulled the trigger and watched his head explode, then turned to walk back to my car and tried to ignore the rumbling in my stomach. God, but I could go for a burrito....
Ryan McAndrews is a senior studying journalism and a time-traveling satirist for The Post. Should he give up his future hitman gig or stick with it? Email him at rm287608@ohiou.edu.
