The best of all possible worlds

There was a interesting ethical question doing the rounds on Quora - would you go back in time to kill Hitler?

I don't think so. It's not about one man and his evil masterminded scheme; it was a result of history, economic factors, social, political... there would still be nationalism, frustration with the '18 treaty, still the Nationalist Party, still Nazism. 

Kill one baby Hitler, there would still be the same factors - and the times make the man, someone else would simply step up and take his place. 

And maybe not make any of the same mistakes - not invade Russia, not lose the cream of the scientists and fail to make the A-bomb, doesn't alienate the Japanese...

You know, this timeline, this reality may be a result of several - maybe dozens, hundreds of interventions from a time-travelling corps - as a best possible outcome. 

sensory continuum

i stood in an empty room
halogens glowed in pools of oil and water on the concrete
rows of chrome gleamed in silence, perfectly disciplined machines, waiting

...nothing happened. 

no sound
no clocks
no people
no change
no footsteps
no breath

the silence sucks the thoughts out
pushing on my eyes

roars in the blood
screams in the tendons
reverberates in the lungs
echoing slam of eyelids

...nothing happened. 

i could stand there forever
i could stand there a precious empty few seconds
no difference
no time
without sound to push it along

perfect, frozen silence
forever

between timelines

haunted by the ghost of a boy who never existed
stepped back a decade or two through the portal
everything changed
forget the family left behind
forget the son
he ceased to exist, never had been
as soon as I went. 

I'm haunted by the ghost of who I'd been
who I might have been
haunted by the future and past I killed