Don’t really know where this is going, so it’s unlikely to become a short story any time soon, but it deals with an idea I had several years ago.
You are a time traveler. You float down the river of time so smoothly you barely notice you are moving at all. You think of the passing of hours and days and years, but they are not the ones doing the passing. You float on by at the leisurely speed of one second per second while they remain still along the banks.
You think you know the past. Not in the history-book sense, but you remember having been there and so you remember what it was like. You see the past as the trail of your former presents.
But you are a time traveler. You float down the river of time, with all humanity as your fellow-travellers. As you pass a moment in time, you leave eddies in the water behind you that quickly fade until no trace remains.
That does not mean the past is empty now that you are gone. For the river of time is long, and there are others who may pass the same way. But that does not mean they will be the same. They could be very different.
I know, because I have seen them.