TIME MACHINES CAN BE DANGEROUS

By

Pete Reynolds

I'd like to tell you a story about a man.  "That's no great shakes," you might be thinking, "I've heard stories about men before."  But not about this man, you haven't.  You see, the man in this story was not like other men, no sir.  This man had a dream.  A dream of one day building a time machine.  (Author's Note:  By "time machine," of course, I am not referring to what we normally call a "clock"; rather, I am referring to a machine that would allow our man to travel across the space-time continuum.  Obviously.)

Now, this man, like many a man, lived in a town.  And in that town were townspeople, and these particular townspeople dismissed the man, as townspeople are wont to do, especially when they think someone is very stupid.

"You are wasting your time," some would say.

"Time machines are impossible," said others.

"Hey, great, I have one of those on my wall at home," said others still.  "Oh, wait, you don't mean a clock, do you?  You're an idiot."

They said he was crazy.  Was he?  Well, yes, technically he was crazy, having been certified as such by a state mental health facility several months earlier.  But maybe you have to be a little bit crazy to build a time machine.  And maybe, just maybe, most of the great inventors in world history were a little bit crazy, too, though, in fact, this notion does not withstand the scrutiny of even the most basic historical research.

So the man began studying, and studying, and studying, and eventually, he remembered that he was supposed to be building a time machine, so he stopped studying and built a fully-functioning time machine out of science.  He named the time machine "Clock," just as a little "fuck you" to the townspeople.

After building Clock, the man was very impressed with himself.  He felt that he was very special, and he decided that he should be the first to travel in his fancy-ass time machine.  The man strapped himself into the time machine, presumably adjusting various knobs and dials as he did so.  He pressed the main thing, and ZOOM, off he went.

If you had a time machine, what would you do?  Travel to ancient Egypt and watch the pyramids being built?  Attend the Gettysburg Address?  Have lunch with H.G. Wells while he's writing "The Time Machine" and laugh at how ironic you are? 

Not this man.  This man chose to travel to the future.

So off he went to the future, and when the man arrived, he found himself in the middle of a futuristic town.  And in that futuristic town were futuristic townspeople.  Townspeople just like you, and me, and more importantly, just like the man.  How were they like the man, you ask?  They were like the man in that each person in the town had his own time machine.  You heard me correctly:  the man had used his precious, one-of-a-kind, time machine to travel to a time when time machines were standard, and everyone had them. 

Who's special now, jerk?