Caught in Time

Have you ever had one of those déjà vu moments? It appears to us all at some moment in our lives. Sometimes it is so innocuous, we are caught in a fleeting and surprising moment, you can miss it so easily. There is recognition or pre-recognition of sorts. Now think again, have you ever thought about the worst possible nightmare situation that could ever befall you as a person. Well, ponder this as a possible living nightmare, being trapped in a time loop, a continuous déjà vu moment for breaking the laws of time, and simply because you were stupid, foolhardy and curious, egged on by a girlfriend who you wanted to impress.

Caught red-handed - caught in time, by time itself!

It all started so innocently. You would do exactly the same, I know you would at the very least be tempted. I’m certain, just like me, you would do the same. It all started as my girlfriend pondered our fate in front of the infernal instrument from hell – the thief of time and human mortality – the time machine.

The time waster machine!

“Do time machines come with instructions?” Perpetua, my girlfriend said as she peered inside the glass bubble and was mesmerized by the banks on banks of endless dials, buttons, and beady little lights, like discarded fairy lights from a Christmas tree. There was a small seat in the centre of spherical contraption, with panel upon panel of instruments. One could only describe the glass bubble as a cockpit of sorts, like a helicopter cockpit, but the glass wasn’t clear, it was opaque. This was no cockpit, the glass bubble was never designed for surveillance of the surrounding area of vision, above or below and beyond. The time machine was not built to travel or hover in the air. The reason it was severely restricted to the confines of the small room, it was designed to vanish from sight and travel into the vast expanse of time and space.

“Just press a few buttons and see what happens!” Suggested Amordad.

“You are so full of bright ideas” Replied Perpetua full of sarcasm

“If I vanish into time, how are you going to find me? My shining knight in green tennis shoes.”

“Maybe, I could sit on your lap, and you could press the buttons. Then, wherever we go, we go together!” Suggested Amordad, he was flirting.

“OK H.G Wells. What happens if this contraption is only built for one body, one person, and there is some kind of molecular transfer process, and we end up as a mixture of one person, like vegetable soup or a stir-fry of each other. The thought horrifies me, the thought of having some of your body parts, and wearing those ugly green tennis shoes – it makes me unwell just thinking about it. It makes me want to throw up.” Wailed Perpetua in mock disgust, and she mimicked throwing up in the glass bubble cockpit.

“Aren’t you curious? Aren’t you eager to travel in time? Where’s your adventurous spirit?” Goaded Amordad

“My adventurous spirit mandates instructions, and then a lengthy study and understanding of those instructions.” Perpetua retorted

Amordad carefully entered the glass bubble and sat in the seat with extreme caution. He thought it might set off the launch sequence, perhaps the time machine didn’t need instructions at all, just an innocent unknowing person to sit in the cockpit seat would initiate all the processes automatically.

He gingerly sat on the seat.

“If you vanish into thin air Amordad, I’m not going to try and find you!” Perpetua said with a petulant warning.

As soon as his backside eased into position, and the full weight of his body relaxed into the seat, the time machine activated. Suddenly, there was a loud voice, one of those pre-recorded metallic voices, and a siren, and a flashing oscillating amber light.

The next milli-second Amordad was back in the corridor with Perpetua, only minutes before both had entered the room, with the huge sign – DO NOT ENTER. It was a déjà vu moment for Amordad, but it came dear reader with the worst ever nightmare, being caught by time itself.

“Let’s see what’s inside!” Perpetua hissed slyly, her voice was full of mischievousness and disobedience.

Amordad knew what happened next. He had served his time. He was unjustly treated for his curiosity, and trying to show off, to impress Perpetua. He had previously acted as the brave and unemotional adventurer, the time traveler explorer, intrepid and fearless. As he entered that cockpit and stupidly sat in the seat. How did he know he would spend his next 40 years of in purgatory. It certainly didn’t cleanse his soul, instead it sent him into insanity.

Time owed him a debt, and he wanted vengeance.

“No!” It was nearly an uncontrolled shout of rage, and to emphasize the urgent demands of his word, he gripped Perpetua by her upper arm to prevent her from moving forward, because he remembered from so long ago that it was the next disastrous move. To press on the door handle, and stealthily, evade any watching eyes, witnesses to their subterfuge, to step inside and enter the room.

“Stop, you’re hurting me, let go!” Perpetua was pulling at Amordad's overly tight grip.

“Why not?” Perpetua goaded.

“Because I don’t want to lose the next forty years of my life.”

How was he going to explain to her something so frightening, so nightmarish waited immobile inside the room. A curiosity trap for the inquisitive and the innocent exploring mind. It had changed his life forever, wasted years upon years trapped in a time loop. Her life was unaffected at this second, this fragile moment balanced in time. Open that door, and it would change forever, and restart the loop all over again. In the forty years of his imprisonment, he had prayed for forgiveness to the unseen, and hopefully sympathetic universe. To change the course of events, to erase the previous direction of time, triggered by his curiosity, trying to impress Perpetua and then the resulting error of trespass into that dreaded room, the pandora’s box of his wasted and trapped years.

He kept silent and held his grip firmly. There was no way, over his live body, that they were going to enter that room.