FUTURES15 July 2026Restore previous version?ByChris Baker0Chris BakerChris Baker’s stories have been published by Flash Fiction Online, Underland Press and McSweeney’s. His nonfiction has appeared in Wired, Slate, Rolling Stone, Vulture and his newsletter Pop Cultural Precursors.View author publicationsSearch author on: PubMed Google ScholarIllustration: JaceyHi. My name is Jamie and I’m a chronic backtracker. I’m fourteen months, one week, and three days present. I haven’t stopped by in a while. I’ve been vacationing — travelling spatially. But the real reason I haven’t been coming to these meetings is that I thought I had this thing licked.I’m back tonight because I lost a stack of postcards.I’d carefully selected them in every city I visited, picking cheesy ones for my hip friends and pretty ones for the boring squares. I’d written out exactly what I wanted to say on each one, and they were ready to send off.But I’m cheap; I held onto them until I was back in the States so I could post them at domestic rates. And then I was jet-lagged and loopy during a long layover at La Guardia, and I left all those freshly stamped postcards in a Delta lounge. Just left them in a neat stack next to a cup of the worst latte I’ve ever had.We were airborne before I realized my stupid mistake, and I was shocked at how hard I took it. Those postcards had seemed like a silly lark, but sitting on that plane, I felt a ferocious, overpowering urge to rewind for the first time in nearly a year.Read more science fiction from Nature FuturesI realized that sending those postcards was going to be my way of telling everyone — all the people that mattered to me — that they didn’t have to worry any more. Because I am living in a moment again. Because I’m back on track and fully fixed in the now again. Because I’m fixed now.I spent that entire five-and-a-half-hour flight on a mental hamster wheel. I wanted so badly to rewind to that Delta lounge and pick up those postcards. Just this once, I told myself. Just one little jaunt. Five and a half hours! Spatial travel is so agonizingly slow.Then I started rationalizing that as long as I was going back to then anyway, I might as well get a seltzer instead of that godawful latte. Seriously, this was six days ago and I’m still tasting it.All the bad old thought patterns came back. I had deleted the number of my ‘chemist’, but of course, of course, it’s still tattooed onto my brain. The nine digits, but also the sound they made when I tapped them out, and tapped them out again a couple of minutes later if he didn’t pick up. And then if I still had a few micrograms left at the bottom of the ampoule, I’d back up a quarter of an hour to undo all of my pestering. Couldn’t risk annoying my hook-up.I found myself wondering if any of my old friends were holding. I even toyed with the idea of hitting up my co-worker Nicole. She swore that she had her backtracking under control right up until she OT’d in the middle of a budget meeting, and quick-aged six or seven years right in front of us.Nicole has just got back from an employer-paid stay at Post Hoc Rehab Haven. I hear it’s cushy! Our insurance premiums will probably be going up now, thanks to her.I started using in grad school. Before that, I’d hold forth on all the reasons that rewinding was lazy, immoral, a cop out, what have you. Then I farted in the middle of my dissertation defence and all that lofty sanctimony went out the window.doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-026-02133-z Those who forget by Michael Adam Robson RS-232 and other forms of grief by C A Russell Garbage collection by Aidan Lawson Wah-ult in the vault by Mark Arnold Doubting Thomas by Paul Renault Book of Cron Job by Jordan W Suchow Sarcophagus by Dan Peacock Scraping by Laura O’Meara Neuroflix by John McLaughlin The CAPTCHA protocol by Shiao Wang Serebral by Kevin Power The futile beauty of flightless birds by Wendy Nikel Matter of taste by Mari Harrison Origin story by Alex Shvartsman The imperfect legacy by Fei Qi In the flesh by Jasmin Kirkbride The memory dealer of Old Jeddah by Addidi Youness Waiting for them by Marissa Lingen New year, old me by Robert Blasiak Ozymandias undead by Bryce Saputo Homelessness of the heart by Tomias KenoSubjectsArtsCultureLatest on:ArtsCultureJobs Associate or Senior Editor, Discover JournalsJob Title: Associate or Senior Editor, Discover Journals Location: Nanjing, Shanghai, Beijing or Pune, Hybrid Working Model Application Deadl...Nanjing, Shanghai, Beijing or Pune, Hybrid Working ModelSpringer Nature LtdPhD candidate (f/m/d)We invite applications for the Research Group Biofluorescence: PhD candidate (f/m/d)Dortmund, Nordrhein-Westfalen (DE)Leibniz-Institut für Analytische Wissenschaften – ISAS – e.V.State Key Laboratory of Quantitative Synthetic Biology Global Talent WantedApplicants should meet the requirements for the National Science Fund for Excellent Young Scholars (overseas), please refer to the Part IV for detailsShenzhen, Guangdong (CN)The State Key Laboratory of Quantitative Synthetic BiologyResearch Integrity SpecialistJob Title: Research Integrity Specialist Location: Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing or London – hybrid working model Application Deadline: July 31st...Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing or London – hybrid working modelSpringer Nature Ltd