"Why don't you watch where you're going, pal?" the other Max shouted and then hiccupped.

"Why don't you watch where you're going?" Max shouted back.

"Oh no," Zeke moaned. "We just royally screwed up. Now we're stuck here forever."

"Why do you look like me?" the other Zeke said. "Did you steal my face? Are there face stealers here, Max? Give me back my face! Don't test me. I will call the authorities on you."

"Careful, Zeke," the other Max said. "They could be wizards."

"Is it just me or do the other versions of ourselves appear to be three sheets to the wind?" Max asked.

"They do," Zeke said.

"Uh, we might not be totally screwed here. Maybe we did run into ourselves one time when we were super shit-faced and we just blacked it out."

"Hopefully you're right," Zeke said. "Does it concern you at all that you assumed we were wizards, just like those people in the past did? I'm just saying you were trying to act all superior to them and their superstitious natures and you just did the same thing."

"Not at all, they thought we were warlocks that had to be burned at the stake. My other self here just mistook us for wizards. Completely different thing. Plus, everyone knows the proper way to deal with a wizard is to slap them in the face."

The other Max proceeded to smack Max in the face. "See, Zeke. That's the proper way to deal with a wizard. Smack them in the face. Go ahead and do it."

"Don't even think about it," Zeke said. "I don't care if you are me, I will drop you on the ground."

"Then give me back my face, man. Jeez, there's no reason to be a dick about it." The other Zeke leaped at him and attempted to slap him in the face. Zeke stepped aside and shoved his past self to the ground.

"Ow, my elbow. That was not cool, man."

"Wait, I think I remember waking up one time with a scrape like that on my elbow and not remembering how I got it," Zeke said."

"That's like an average Tuesday morning for me," Max said.

"I think I know when we are," Zeke said. "This is right after you took me to that horrible strip club and we got super drunk and wandered the streets all night."

"Oh yeah," Max said. "We both had some pretty major blackouts that night. We could have totally run right into our future selves and not even remembered it. I think the timeline's still okay."

"Hey, Zeke," the other Max said. "You're on the ground again. Get up, man."

"I'm trying," the other Zeke said as he tried to push himself up and collapsed back to the ground. "A little help here." The other Max stumbled over and offered him a hand, but got pulled down to the ground also.

"Jeez, this is kind of embarrassing to watch," Zeke said.

"Yeah, luckily it's happening to those chumps and not us."

"But those guys are us," Zeke said.

"No, those guys were us, but they're not us now. We may as well be completely different people. Also, I don't know if you noticed but they've left their stash of brews unattended. You want one?"

"Well, I guess we'd already had more than enough that night. I don't think we'll miss them if we have one now."

"That's the spirit," Max said as he tossed a bottle to Zeke. "So if your past self is here, we went a little too far forward again. We need to go a bit further back. But not as far as last time. I'd say a slight nudge to the left ought to do the trick. You ready?"

"Uh, yeah," Zeke said with a frown. "I know we're not supposed to change the past, but do you think I could give my past self some advice? Like tell him not to fall for that jungle princess and to take Sarah up on her offer to get some drinks and go to a movie? I really screwed that up the first time around. I'm so drunk I'm sure I won't remember I said anything, but maybe it'll sink in subconsciously and I'll make better choices."

"You'd better hope you don't make a different choice or you'll screw up the timeline."

"I guess you're right," Zeke said. "I'd better just let myself bumble on making the same mistakes as always. It just doesn't seem right to have a chance to fix one of your biggest regrets and not do it, you know?"

"Yeah, but you won't be fixing your regrets. That guy will. If he doesn't make the same boneheaded mistakes you did, he'll branch off and for reals become a completely different person. Meanwhile you'll still be living with your regrets, except it'll be even worse because you'll know some other version of you that's not even you is going to be living the good life."

"All right, I got it. There's no changing the past even when you go back in time. You just create parallel universes. I'm stuck being my loser self forever. Let's just get out of here."

"Yes, let's do that. I'm tired of hearing you whine, man. Tell you what, when we get back to our time I'll take you to a really good strip club. It won't be like those other times. Promise. It'll help you forget your woes."

"We'll talk about it later," Zeke said as he finished his brew and chucked the bottle aside, narrowly missing hitting his past self in the head. "Let's go."