It’s 2025, and you’re twenty years old now.
You were seventeen when you slipped through time, stepping out of your neighborhood in 2022 and into London in 1972, blinking at the red double-decker buses, the smell of petrol and cigarette smoke thick in the air, posters of Bowie and Imagine in shop windows.
You didn’t know what to do, so you sat on a bench with your notebook, scribbling dates you remembered from your history classes and Beatles lyrics you learned from your parents’ old records. You tried to stay hidden, but fate didn’t let you.
You met George first, outside Apple Studios, when you accidentally whispered lyrics to a song he hadn’t finished writing yet. He looked at you, sharp brown eyes, a curious half-smile, like he was used to strange things happening. He called you “Kid” and asked you to keep your voice down.
John found you next, seeing you outside a small café, your hands shaking as you tried to light a cigarette you didn’t even want. “You look lost,” he said, offering to light it for you. You told him you didn’t smoke, and he laughed so hard you almost cried.
Paul noticed you singing to yourself one day, humming a melody he recognized but hadn’t finished composing yet. You were terrified when he confronted you, notebook clutched to your chest. But he only looked thoughtful, tapping his foot, asking where you learned that tune.
Ringo was the kindest, always asking if you had enough to eat, if you needed a place to crash. He told you you looked tired, and you were — you were seventeen, stuck in the past, terrified of changing everything.
You told them small pieces of the future, only what you thought would help:
“George, please go to the doctor if you ever feel off.” “John, you’re going to be okay without her one day.” “You all break up, but you all live. It’s okay.”
They believed you, quietly, in their own ways. George went to the doctor when you told him to, and he lived. John and Yoko eventually separated in the late 80s, and he found peace in Scotland, writing when he wanted to, quietly, without the world clawing at him.
You stayed for three years before it ended. One day you woke up back in your own time, 2022, but you were still seventeen. You aged again, slowly, like you were supposed to, and the world was different, but you had seen them.
Now it’s 2025. You’re twenty, making music on YouTube in your tiny Liverpool flat, your guitar always within reach, your notebook filled with songs that sound like the past because they are. Your fans call you “timeless,” but you’re not. You will age, and you will fade, like everyone else.
You don’t know them anymore.
John is eighty-five, living in Scotland, still wearing those round glasses, denim jackets, and letting his hair grow grey and soft. He walks to the village café in the mornings, orders tea, and sometimes hums to himself.
Paul is eighty-three, still working, still playing, always smiling at people who stop him on the street, remembering their names when they don’t expect him to. He plays gigs when he feels like it, small ones, big ones, it doesn’t matter.
George is eighty-two, alive because you told him to see that doctor, and he thanks you sometimes in dreams you have, even though he doesn’t remember you. He tends his gardens, plays slide guitar on his porch, closes his eyes when the sun is warm.
Ringo is eighty-five, still drumming, still laughing, still posting cheerful videos about peace and kindness. His grandkids love him, and so does the world.
Tonight, they’re all together, just the four of them, at Paul’s place in Sussex, watching old videos. Maybe they’re watching clips on YouTube, laughing at their haircuts, looking at ur videos