Time Traveling Tap Shoes

By R.S. Kellogg

With the right moves, the shoes take him back . . . to the moments that decided everything.

            Davy feels like he lives on the outside of what could have been his dream life, looking in.

Sure, he works as an accountant and makes okay money.

But the woman of his dreams, Meredith, wound up as his client instead of as his wife.

At her holiday party, he tries to blend in to the background. Until an unexpected turn of events puts Davy in the spotlight, confronting the roots of his own regrets . . .

This collection of five original time travel stories—first published here—explore the adventures of Davy as he tap-dances his way through his past:

            In The Last Gift Under the Tree, Davy attends Meredith's holiday party, and encounters an unexpected opportunity.

In Gifts of the Past, Davy revisits an era where he and Meredith dated, and finds the past flowing differently than he remembered.

            In The Time Travelers' Lost and Found Bureau, Davy's attempts to win back Meredith in his past eventually land him in an unanticipated place where he receives a message.

            In Time Traveler's Choice, Davy resolves to change a significant pattern.

            In Time Traveler's Gambit, Davy's efforts create cause for careful consideration by himself and others. . .

           

Buy this collection and receive all five of the above stories, published for the first time in this book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: R.S. Kellogg
• Release date: Dec 27, 2022
• ISBN: 9781956123869

R.S. Kellogg

 R.S. Kellogg writes in the fantasy Breadcove Bay series, as well as exploring other story worlds and non-fiction topics.

Book preview

Introduction:

This is a book of second chances, and a thought experiment on what might happen if they were offered over and over again.

I enjoy time travel stories not so much for the exciting touristy aspect of jumping to another time and place—though that is great fun—and more for the heart of what lies beneath that story: a desire to explore how else things may have gone, only in a constructive way instead of rumination.

I’ve always enjoyed listening to older relatives and friends talk about their lives. And I love reading biographies, and watching some stand-up comics and performance artists talk about their life experiences. It can be so fascinating to see people look back at the choices made and assess how it all turned out.

Once in a while, I’ve heard someone mention, almost in passing, a choice that was almost made, or a possibility that never fully developed. Sometimes there can be a rich pause, a sigh, an almost palpable savoring of what might have been.

A pocket of what might have been is a rich gift to the imagination. It’s something that never happened. So even though there’s a sadness to it, there’s also a freedom or a liberation—because the imagination is free to imagine that the way that version of a life story went may have gone exactly the way someone wished—or in any number of ways.

Can you imagine if there were alternate timelines for every career you may seriously have pursued?

How fun would it be to jump among them over the course of a week—to spend one day in each potential career timeline.

Or, in another life arena, what if there were alternate timelines for each person you had ever dated—one timeline for a future with each of them?

Maybe some of those alternate-timeline relationships would have been very short. But others may have been longer.

Take the case of Davy, the man these stories are centered around.

Davy feels like he lives on the outside of what could be his dream life, looking in.

The girl of his dreams got away from him, and now he has a way to travel through time and see if there may have been one magic pivot point in which he could have won her back—and created a future with her himself, rather than getting side-lined and eventually becoming her accountant.

In each story, he tries to get a little closer to determining whether he could have had a future with her . . . or whether he can make peace with letting her go once and for all.

Cheers,

R.S. Kellogg

P.S. Enjoy the stories!

List of Stories:

The Last Gift at the Party

Gift of Past Chances

The Time Traveler’s Lost and Found Bureau

The Time Traveler’s Dance

The Time Traveler’s Pivot

About the Author

Other Titles by R.S. Kellogg

Story Sneak Peak: Opening pages from The Medic and the Enchanted Train Station, from the collection Tinsleberry Gate.

The Last Gift at the Party

by R.S. Kellogg

When Davy first encountered the gift that would change his life, it was an evening that began like that of many a holiday season evening: with a group of friends and various-amounts-of-well-known acquaintances gathered around the common area of a nice household, in rooms ringed with old-timey tinsel and little red-and-green lights.

Davy had rather cleverly stationed himself next to the kitchen island where the remnants of the great potluck feast were spread out before him illuminated by candlelight and by the beams of strategically located kitchen spot lighting. The area smelled like cranberry scented candles and wassail from the stove, along with various scents of pies. And there was still a little of the good cheeses left on the charcuterie board.

The chorus of gentle conversation and laughter wafted through the air against a backdrop of soulful holidays songs.

Humming along with the female singer, Davy was alternating skewering tiny rectangles of gruyere, Swiss, and olives on little toothpicks to make tiny little charcuterie kabobs, which he planned to chase down with a few swigs of the fizzy pink soda which the hostess, Meredith, had just restocked in the punchbowl.

A few of the quieter folks were also with him in the kitchen, grazing on the remaining food in near silence, speaking to each other with artificial conviviality when they needed to reach past each other for the hot sauce or move around another party guest to get at the desserts. But most of the sociable party guests had by now firmly established themselves in the great room beyond—a room with a rather impressively large sectional, a few spare couches, and a range of various chairs which looked as if they had been scrounged up from around the host’s house.

He felt smug that the platter of mini-donuts which he had brought had already been entirely consumed by party guests, unlike the rather sad heaping bowl of Brussel sprouts nearby which looked like it had been barely touched.

Really, who took Brussels to a holiday party, anyway? Was that the treat for the naughty kids on Santa’s list?

As if to emphasize this point, a somber-looking man dressed entirely in black gently scooted the Brussels to one side, in order to spoon the last of the tasty little meatballs onto his party plate. Davy squinted at him. The man’s face looked gaunt, and Davy didn’t remember seeing him at Meredith and Bob’s events before. But that didn’t mean much—Bob was a social guy, and his social circle ebbed and flowed. Davy wasn’t sure what profession he would place this man in, but judging by the all black, perhaps he might be some kind of a musician.

Davy noticed that the man’s black shirt looked as if it may have seen better days, and quietly concluded to himself that this must be a musician who was on hard times.

Over in the more social room, the white elephant party game had begun. The guests each sat with a gift on their lap, watching with benign good humor as the hostess—Meredith Diaz, with bouncy dark ringlets—tore open the little red package on her lap. The package had big bobbing novelty pom poms affixed around the side of it, and Davy would have put good money on the odds that whoever had contributed that parcel had purchased it pre-wrapped. This looked like a professional job, and Meredith dutifully tore delicately at just the edges of the paper, using her long fingernails to pry the paper up—and avoiding doing any damage to the areas which had the giant pom poms.

Really, though, thought Dave. What difference would it make? He couldn’t see Meredith re-using that packing material.

No, it would all end up either in the garbage or else the recycling, and get taken out like yesterday’s news when Meredith cleaned up her kitchen tomorrow.

Davy watched Meredith from a distance nearly two rooms wide, and with the elongated space between them, he felt comfortable enough to let