My Legacy

“Your legacy, Cornelius?” She laughed as she stuffed another piece from her ever present bag of bon-bons into her gigantic maw.

“Yes, my dear, this will be my legacy.” I was bragging to my wife as she watched me put the finishing touches on my wonderous invention—a time machine.

“Never work,” she said matter-of-factly, her mouth now spewing chocolate pieces around like a sprinkler.

“It will,” I snapped. “I’ve spent the past twenty-five years working on making this the quintessence of time machines.”

“Yeah, I think not,” she said as she sucked chocolate off her fingers.” Besides, since no one has ever created a ‘time machine’ before any piece of crap would be the ‘quintessence of time machines’.”

She used those stupid air quotes, which she knows I despise, making me more determined to prove her wrong.

“When you get back,” she paused for a reload as she dug into the bag again, “be sure to pick up the dry cleaning like I asked you yesterday. And get this … this … this thingamajig out of here so I can park my car in the garage again.”

She waggled her once-again-chocolate-covered-bony finger at my invention. Finally, I could endure her no longer. I shooed her, like the rabid racoon she was, from the garage locking the door behind her. I turned back, clapping and rubbing my hands together as I beheld the creation of my ideation.

I had used every time machine from the movies as examples. I realized they were only fictional, but I figured some research was done on the possibility of time travel to make the movie more realistic.

It turns out that the movies “The Time Machine” and “Back to the Future” were pretty close. I combined the most plausible ideas with more research of my own and I was able to unlock time’s secret. And hitting 88 m.p.h. in a DeLorean is not a requirement!

I selected my childhood home when I was six as my first destination. I still live in it and won’t actually have to ‘go’ anywhere on my first try. If my calculations are correct, I will end up in this exact location, just at a different time. I built my machine to be both time directional as well as space directional. That is, I can travel to any location at any time of my choosing. I’ve outfitted it with a number of systems that will calculate my exact position no matter what the technology in the year I visit. I cleaned up my work area so she couldn’t complain while I was gone. Remember life goes on here while I am there.

My machine has a heavy base so that if I land in an unknow area that is uneven, it should stay upright. I climbed in and secured myself. I set all my desired values and took a deep breath before sliding the operating level forward. While the expected whirring noises were more off putting than I had planned, I constructed the machine with no windows since all the movies showed there was nothing to see except flashing lights, and I didn’t need to witness that.

I wanted to see the time the President of the United States as he passed in front of my house in his motorcade.  I was too young to really comprehend what occurred that day, so I wanted to experience it again. I wasn’t sure of the exact time, so I guesstimated the time and I planned to land in the old garage, sneak around for a quick look and return without disturbing anything. I just wanted this to be a shakedown journey.

My first time trip ended with a tremendous thud and I could hear people screaming outside. I opened the sealed hatch and found I was in the middle of the road in front of my house. Men, many I recognized as my old neighbors, were coming at me from all directions. Women and children were crying. I could see a mangled mess of black steel beneath my time machine.

I heard people shouting, “he’s a Soviet spy” and “he killed him, he killed him.” I saw some of the men had axes and guns.

I leaned out and screamed “It’s me Cornelius Kerwin, your neighbor. Well, I was you neighbor. I mean I still live here, but in the future. I came back to see this wonderful event again. See, there I am right there on the curb.”

I pointed towards my younger self. I was in hysterics—I mean the younger me. I—the current me—had no idea what was happening. The men were still coming at me, so I got back into the time machine and sealed the hatch. I heard objects being hurled against the machine. I guess people were really upset I landed in the middle of the road before the president arrived. I had no idea how I had misjudged the landing site. Since I had landed about 50 yards east of my desired spot, I figured I needed to adjust for my return landing. I heard a gun shot as I was setting my return values. With a deep breath I eased the lever forward. Finally, I was going to return to the safety of my garage workshop.

My landing back home occurred in tandem with another terrible metal crunching sound beneath the machine. I opened the door to find I was a good three feet above the ground and outside the garage. I had missed again. I climbed out and lowered myself down only to find that I had landed on the roof of my wife’s car. The roof was now level with the tops of the fenders.

The back door crashed open as my wife came running out. She was hysterical. She dropped her bonbon bag and put her hands to the side of her head in the international ‘What the hell just happened’ gesture. Her cholate covered fingers were now stuck to her hair.

“What did you do? Just look at my car. Only you could do something like this. What were you thinking?” she kept screaming without taking a breath.

“I asked you to leave your car on the street. Why didn’t you?” I countered as calmly as I could. “You knew I would be coming back.”

“Coming back? I didn’t think you’d gone anywhere. When I saw the garage empty I thought you’d come to you senses and dismantled that … that thing and were taking it to the dump on you way to get the dry cleaning like you were supposed to.”

Before I could say anything else the music coming from the radio on the kitchen windowsill stopped and an announcer broke in with a special news bulletin.

“This just in. The United Nations general assembly, after years of deliberation, has passed its global wide ban on all time travel. Because of the devastating results of Mr. Cornelius Kerwin’s attempt to time travel, the leaders of all nations, except China, North Korea, and Russia, asked that no further time travel be allowed. You may remember this event. Mr. Kerwin returned to witness the President’s motorcade pass his childhood home. Mr. Kerwin miscalculated his landing site and crushed the presidential limousine killing the president and first lady.”

“My, you were right, Cornelius, my dear. This machine is your legacy.”