THE TIME MACHINE

THE TIME MACHINE

March 25, 1925

It was a chilly morning the day that Benjamin, an assistant to Albert Einstein, put his key in the door at the laboratory in Zurich. Seeing that Einstein was already there, he commented, “You’re here early, Mr. Einstein.”

“I’m on to something, Ben. I’ve been working all night.”

As he hung his key on a hook by the door, Benjamin asked, “What is it that you would have me do today?”

“Well, right now, I need to catch some sleep.” Then after Einstein did a deep yawn, he looked around, tapped his chin and looked back to Ben. “Why don’t you just take the day off.”

Excitement ran like electricity through Benjamin’s body as this was the day he had long awaited. In the corner of the laboratory stood a machine that he had been working on for a long time... a time machine. It was finally complete and ready for a test run.

He had shared the idea of breaking the barrier of time with his close friends, but they scoffed at him, saying it was impossible and called him a dreamer. But it Einstein who encouraged him, telling him that dreams do come true.

Eager to get started, Benjamin entered the capsule and sat down. In front of him was a control panel where he could set the date he wanted to travel to.

Well, he thought, I’m not sure what will happen, but I simply must try.

Slowly he turned the knob to 100 years into the future. Placing his finger on the start button and with his mind about to explode with expectations and doubt, he closed his eyes and pushed it. Immediately, the machine began to shake with an ear-splitting blast, tossing him from one side of the capsule to the other. Then he felt his body and the machine rapidly accelerating forward. I must be going a thousand miles an hour, he thought. Then, suddenly, with an abrupt jolt the machine stopped, and it became eerily silent.

He sat there a moment drawing in a deep breath. He felt his arms and legs and when he was satisfied he was all in tact, with caution, he unlatched the door. Immediately, a bright ray of sunlight burst in, stinging his eyes and feeling hot on his skin. Humm, he wondered. Is this the same sun I knew from a hundred years ago?

Although his body felt wobbly, he climbed out and for a moment stood looking around. To one side was a large grassy field and on the other side in the distance, he saw rows and rows of multi-colored houses, much more colorful than where he came from.

“Well, I made it,” he whispered. “But I wonder where I am!”

He no sooner said that when he saw a woman walking toward him. Unsure what to do, he immediately looked away as the woman appeared to be quite unclothed with short pants and a skimpy top that didn’t cover very much of her.

“Hey,” she yelled as she came closer. “You can’t park that contraption there. I would appreciate it if you would...”

Still looking away, he interrupted her. “I beg your pardon, ma’am, but you see, I can’t move it.”

“Come now, sir...” She was almost upon him. “Why do you say you can’t move this, this thing? You got it here, now move it away!”

“I would be most grateful if you would allow me to explain.”

Now standing close in front of him, she crossed her arms and waited.

“First,” he said, “May I ask what year this is?”

“Are you serious? It’s 2025! Hey, come on, what’s going on?”

He looked at her, but of course, looked only at her face. “Have time machines been invented yet?”

She scowled and rolled her eyes, but decided, anyway, to go along with him. “Time machines? No, not that I’m aware. There has been talk of such, but I don’t think anyone has been able to invent one.”

“Well,” he stepped to the side and waved his arm. “What you see here is a time machine.”

“Oh, come on... you’re kidding.” But then observing the style of his apparel, a flat hat and knickers - against her better judgement, she decided to believe him. Her face softened and with a smile, she asked, “What is your name? Where, or when, did you come from?”

“My name is Benjamin; I’m from Zurich in the year 1925.”

Oh boy, she thought. This guy is a real nut! But... he is kind of cute.

“Well, Benjamin, if you’re really from Zurich, how come you can speak English?”

“When there were rumors of war, my American father went to Germany. Eventually, he met my mother and they were married.” He smiled as he added, “Thus, there is me!”

“Okay, I guess. Well, my name is Lisa, and I guess it will be kind of hard for you to understand, if you are really from where you say you are, but I’m in training to be an astronaut.”

“An astronaut?” He shook his head. “What in the world is an astronaut?”

“Well, we get into rockets and travel into space. Right now, there is a space station way up in space, and we can travel back and forth from earth to it. We have already traveled to the moon and right now we are planning a trip to Mars.”

Benjamin, shocked with this unimaginable information but overly excited at the same time, felt his legs weaken and give way. Kneeling on the ground, he looked up at her. “Rockets? Space station? Please tell me more of these things! I want to know all of what has happened in a hundred years.”

Seeing that he was genuinely sincere, she chuckled, “Benjamin, I run a small boarding house where I rent out rooms. If you have nowhere to stay, your are welcome to rent a room. Then I can tell you all about our space program.”

Quickly, overwhelmed with hunger for this new information, he thought... This is luck! A place to stay and valuable information about people traveling into space. I can’t wait to tell Mr. Einstein about this!

When they arrived at her home, she pointed to a porch swing. “Sit here, Benjamin, while I go and get us some cold lemonade.”

He sat there only a few minutes when a group of teenagers, passing by, held their hands over their mouths, stifling laughter, as they stared at him.

“Hey, what’s so funny?” he demanded. “Have you no decency?”

Then one boy boldly stepped up onto the porch and, still laughing, asked, “What are you dressed for, Halloween? Knickers went out with the turn of the century!”

“I am from the turn of the century,” Benjamin answered.

“Yeah, right!” Then the teen, jumping off the porch, turned to his friends. “Yup, there’s one born every minute.”

As the group started to walk away, Benjamin couldn’t resist shouting after them, “I want you to know, I’m an apprentice to Albert Einstein!”

“Don’t pay any attention to them,” Lisa told him, returning with a pitcher of lemonade. “They don’t understand why you are dressed like you are. But one thing for sure, we need to get you different clothes!”

That night after dinner, Benjamin sat with her in the porch swing. After a deep sigh, he looked down and quietly said, “I would like a room here, but I have no money.”

She turned toward him and laid her hand on his arm. “I know where you can get a job right away... at the NASA Kennedy Space Center where I work!”

Benjamin, wide eyed, jumped in his seat. “I would love that!”

“Well... First, I will have to convince my boss that you came here in a time machine, then you will have no problem at all!”

That night, Benjamin was too excited to sleep right away as he thought about his day and possible dreams for the future. And best of all, he thought, I like Lisa a lot. And to my good fortune, she is single. It was late into the night when he finally fell into a light sleep.

The next morning, Lisa took Benjamin to work with her. She introduced him to her boss, Lennard, the Director of the Space Program.

Benjamin explained to him about Einstein and then went over the details on how he built the machine.

“Well,” Lennard explained, “it will be hard to convince me of your time machine until I take a look at it. But Lisa seems convinced, so in the meantime, there is an entry level position open in the science department. Are you interested?”

“INTERESTED? You bet I am!”

The day went way too quickly for Benjamin. He had barely touched the surface of learning about extracting resources from asteroids and other celestial bodies. When the sound came for the workday to be over, and the director was ready to lock the door, he had to call to Benjamin three times, telling him to leave.

Returning home to the boarding house, Benjamin, feeling as if he were walking on air, asked Lisa to sit with him in the porch swing. “Lisa,” he said and took hold of her hand. “I don’t know how to thank you; this was the best day of my life!”

Then his heart raced even faster as she smiled and squeezed his hand. “Benjamin, I really like you, I hope we can be good friends.” Then she leaned toward him and kissed his cheek.

“Wow, Lisa, maybe you better pinch me, I feel like I’m dreaming. I thought my life was as good as I could have ever imagined when I got to work with Albert Einstein. But now working at the space center and...” he grinned and lowered his head. “ “And now being with you... this is more than I could have hoped for.”

“Do you believe in love at first sight?”

He thought for a moment and then answered. “I’m not sure, Lisa, but I have to say, I know I liked you a lot when I first saw you.”

Lisa smiled and then warned, “We had better get some sleep. We have to go to work in the morning.”

Then one evening a few months later, while they were sitting in the porch swing, Benjamin reached for her hand. “Lisa, I have grown very fond of you.”

“I, Ben, well, I think, I have fallen in love you.”

“I guess that is what I was trying to say, Lisa, I love you, too.”

He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. At first he put his face close to hers, kissed her cheek several times, his lips searching for hers. Then he pulled her closer, and as fireworks were exploding in his chest, he passionately kissed her.

Slowly he sat back, catching his breath, when abruptly the thought that had been plaguing him, came full force to the forefront of his mind.

It wouldn’t be fair to her, he thought, to wait any longer to tell her.

“Lisa,” he whispered.

She interrupted him. “Ben, you have fulfilled my life more than you could ever imagine, I’m so happy. And...”

Suddenly, his heart hurt for her. Darn, he thought, I wish she hadn’t said that. How will I ever be able to tell her now?

Then to his utmost dismay, she continued further, “Now that Lennard has inspected the time machine,” she jumped in her seat and clapped her hands, “he is very impressed with your enthusiasm toward the space program. I found out that he is about to consider getting you into astronaut training.”

“Wait, Lisa. I don’t know,” his voice almost a whisper.

“Oh, Benjamin, just think... you and I together stationed at the International Space Station!”

“Lisa,” he shouted. “Stop!” He got up and leaned on the porch railing. “Lisa... there’s something I haven’t told you...”

Fear took over her emotions as she sensed the seriousness in his voice. Slowly she got up and went to him. Almost afraid to ask, but having to know, she very slowly asked, “What? Ben, what is it?”

He turned to her, pulled her to his chest and held her tight. “Lisa, I can’t stay here too much longer.”

She pulled away and looked up at him. “What do you mean? You’re here, why can’t you stay?”

“It has to do with the time machine. I can only be here for six months... and already five months have gone by.”

Just a moment before, her face, that was filled with the promise of love, now bore lines of grief, as tears, hot and stinging, streamed down her cheeks. “No, Ben!” she shouted. “I won’t let you. No, you can’t leave me.”

“I could try to stay, but I’m not sure what will happen. It’s possible that when my life comes to an end in the past, maybe, at the same time here, I will die... oh, my God, Lisa, I just don’t know.”

“I’ll go back with you,” she pleaded, her tear-filled eyes searching his. “I won’t mind living with you in the past. Please, Ben, please, if you have to go, take me with you!”

The next morning, Benjamin remembered something that Einstein had shared with him... the theory of relativity called time dialation! Depending on the gravitational field, an effect that can be measured with atomic clocks located at different elevations, it will slow aging. With that thought in mind, Benjamin, with a ray of hope, decided to seek whatever information he could get from Lennard.

On the way to Lennard’s office, he tried to rehearse what he would discuss... Lisa and I have fallen in love? Oh, God, no! He’ll think I’m crazy; he deals in science not emotions!

Then, before he came up with a better solution, he found himself standing in front of Lennard’s door. In his enthusiasm, as soon as he entered the room, he blurted, “I don’t want to go back, Lennard. I want to stay here!”

Lennard jumped up, took his arm and led him to a seat. “Benjamin, what is it? Do I hear you saying that you can’t stay? Are you sure?”

After explaining the situation to him, Benjamin took a deep breath and put his hands over his face as he blurted, “Lennard, I know this sounds crazy, but I have fallen in love with Lisa. I want to stay here and grow old with her.”

Lennard returned to his seat behind the desk. Rubbing his chin, he stared at the celestial map hanging on the wall. Thinking he disagreed with Benjamin, he couldn’t see where slowing down the aging process would do much good. None the less, it did excite him when Benjamin shared firsthand information of Albert Einstein’s with him.

“You realize, Ben, that his theory of relativity would hardly slow aging. It’s been proven that in space-time, the aging process would only slow to 0.005 or 5 thousands of a second, and even that would depend on the force of gravity. Unless, of course,” he gave a hearty laugh. “Unless you can find a way to put a space station on top of a black hole.”

Immediately, he regretted mentioning the black hole as he watched Benjamin’s enthusiasm turn from hope to despair. Feeling a tinge of guilt, he said, “Look, Ben, I’ll see if I can come up with something, but until then, go and enjoy your relationship with Lisa.”

That evening as they sat on the porch swing, Benjamin repeatedly punched his fist into the palm of his other hand. Then he turned to Lisa, put his arms around her and pulled her close. “Let’s do it, Lisa! I can see no other way that we can live out our lives together, except for you to return to Zurich with me. I’m not sure what will happen, but if you’re willing to take the chance...”

“Yes, Ben,” she answered, her voice high-pitched with excitement. “I just can’t imagine my life without you... I’m willing to take the chance.”

The next morning, Lisa’s suitcase in hand, the couple walked arm in arm to the time machine. Although there was only one seat, Benjamin set blankets next to him for Lisa to sit on.

“Ready?” he asked.

Her eyes gleaming with hope, she answered, “Yes.”

“Well, just in case...” He pulled her body tightly to himself and passionately kissed her. Then he adjusted the year to 1925 and as he was about to push to button, he whispered, “Lisa, I love you.”

It was only a moment later that with an abrupt jolt the machine stopped and became eerily silent. Immediately, Ben gasped as he looked toward Lisa. She was slumped forward, her head falling to her chest and she wasn’t moving. He pulled her to himself, her body limp and lifeless. “Lisa! Oh, my God!” he cried. “Please don’t be...”

Tears moistened his eyes as he sat holding her, all the time scolding himself for bringing her back with him. But then suddenly he heard her moan and then slowly she opened her eyes. “Did we make it to Zurich?” she whispered. He took a deep breath, put his lips close to her ear, and answered, “Yes, Lisa, we made it!”

A few weeks later, Ben and Lisa were married in St. Peter’s Church in Zurich and to Ben’s delight, Albert Einstein consented to be Ben’s best man.

As for the time machine, it sits as a monument in the corner of Einstein’s laboratory to this day. It’s not known if anyone else has used it.