The Butterfly Effect.

I flip the doodle and project my screen to the classroom's larger doodle device.

"Moving onto my riveting lecture unlike Ms Shetty's!" I smirked as Kavya left the batch to me. I prepared an interactive presentation for the students to know theories in time-travelling, even if it's beyond practical to achieve it. It didn't matter if it was an actual topic that may always be useful or not, but it is a stimulating one.

"So... What comes to your mind when you think of time travelling? Is it still a dream or a distant future?"

The class raised hands, and I pointed at Onyx who didn't and seems to have carried his terrible old-school fashion to the class.

"Maybe we're still dreaming because in 2010 most novels and movies claimed there would be flying wheels and field trips to the past and future. It has been 40 years and we're yet to scratch its unfathomable surface. Yes, Onyx?" said Eleena, nudging her partner who seems to have been sound asleep in class but has his 'super cool' bling shades to cover up.

"Ah, No! I've almost tamed The Algerian Fire Dragon," said Onyx in the most sorrowful way that exists, and the class burst into laughter, including me.

"Aw, young love" I teased Eleena and Onyx, and the class recited after me.

My students and I shared an active bond that allowed them to see me as an equal and that enabled them to learn without begetting lectures that otherwise may be tedious and inefficient.

"Here is the Butterfly Effect"

*A presentation goes on and around the class like they're real as Dave narrates*

"The Butterfly drinks nectar from the Milkweed flowers and transports pollen that allows the poisonous plants to breed if the plants breed enough there will be enough to produce a higher yield of medicines from milkweeds and much more."

"Nerdy words but in short---any activity in one position of a deterministic nonlinear order can cause enormous differences in a later stage, an important domino effect."

"A tiny change in a very complex system can have enormous effects. For Example.."

*Dave plays a realistic, live-sized animation around the front tables.*

"Henry Tandey! During the World War 1 onslaught in France, on the battlefield was a wounded young German soldier. His decision to not pull the trigger caused 17 million tragic deaths. Gnarly, isn't it?"

"Wonder why?"

"That man grew up to be Adolf Hitler, who poured fuel to the ongoing political embers by starting World War 2 and was responsible for mass murders of millions of Jews---The Holocaust." I paused.

The class dropped their jaws as they instantly begin linking the butterfly effect to this incident.

"DOES THAT MEAN WE CAN REVERSE IT IF WE GO BACK IN TIME?" bid a student from the backbench, enthusiastically.

"Wow, this is new," I muttered to myself with a grin.

"The incident was truly terrifying and gruesome and I hate to say this, but Brad Walsh from the University of London calculated that the population in 2050 could cross 10.2 billion if there were no historic mass murders or loss of life because of bombings and disputes. Instead of remaining 8.2 billion like today." I mentioned.

"Much more than the capacity the Earth can provide for, today." I pursued.

The class dropped silent instantly, and the expressions on their faces felt like they wanted to know more. Most of the dull children, too, got their backs off the comfortable bean bags as they drew more fond of this concept.

"Tell us more, now," Onyx demanded sternly.

"Did you know the India-Pakistan partition was because of fish trade and convertism? Everything from the Drug war in the Philippines, the Corona Virus pandemic in 2020, the Beirut Explosion to the lowest oxygen levels in 2035 or the North Korean uprising in 2043 is a Butterfly effect. But that's your work to find out as a reflective assignment due tomorrow." I smiled.

"Awhhh" The Class's voices sung and reverberated.

I asked the kids to give me examples of The Butterfly effect if they could recall any from their lives. Isis told us about how her parents clashed at a concert, and if she was a minute later, they wouldn't have picked up the wrong phones and never met in the first place. If that didn't happen, they wouldn't be friends and get close concluding she wouldn't even exist!

Another student, Ameer spoke about how their conservative parents never spoke about homosexuality because it was forbidden in their religion but as they were exposed to learning more and being friends with a colourful palette of people with various religions, sexualities and cultures they realised they could pick their own pronouns and be who they want to be unapologetically. Ameer said they had an awakening they felt like they needed their whole lives. A push closer to knowing who they are. A fresh perspective, even if it was hard for Ameer's family to accept at first.

They claimed that this wouldn't happen if they didn't move from Saudi Arabia to the United States.

Eleena raised her hand up in the air and stood up as if a question had been surfacing in her mind for long.

"If we could go back in time, could we alter figures like Kim Jong Un before they were even born to eradicate things in the past that have caused damage to humanity and have impacted many families? "

"Is there any viable way we could ELIMINATE people in his life that made him a bitter, power-thirsty person? "

"Could we undo the COVID-19 by helping people grow more crops in China to cope with starvation instead of making it legal to eat wild animals?"

"Could we go back in time and plant more trees or introduce new ways of cremation and alternatives to burial that would conserve so much land?" Eleena threw one question over another as if the building thunderstorm within her sought an exit.

Knowing the sensitive person she is, I know she needed to know one thing.

"Changes that take place can alter millions of peoples existences, it would bring in the good but it has the ability and power to absolutely etch everything we have today, at this moment," I replied.

"This is where our beloved crazy-hair-science-god Albert Einstein's theory comes into place, it's called the Grandfather Paradox." I played the next 12 D visual presentation.

"If an Onyx travels to a time before their grandfather had children and kills him, it would make his own birth impossible. This will kill his parents and him because your grandparents never had kids to produce-"

"Imbecilic offspring," said Eleena and I smiled.

"You see how it serves as a potential logical problem that would arise if a person were to travel to the past?" I continued.

Sadly, the next Professor walked into the class.

Therefore, I dismissed the class and airdropped their reflection assignments. The kids were great and so was the lecture, but all I could think of was to join Xara and how badly I missed her. There was only one way.

Time travelling.