Hyun and I were on the D.C. mall when the tourists appeared.
You could tell by their jeans. Denim trends are too subtle, and tourists never get them right. Theirs were too high-waisted.
“TOURISTS!”
We sprinted toward Independence Ave. Other locals noticed and stampeded.
Tourists only appear for two things: the uplifting moments and the horrible ones. And nothing big was supposed to happen that day.
Of course, all the time travelers–jeans not right, faces eager, hands in their pockets to hit their return buttons at just the right instant–knew different.
Behind us, the first bomb went off.
Author’s Note: We know that humans will never invent time travel because history reports no instances of weirdly dressed yokels hanging out at, say, the birth of Christ. …OR DOES IT?