I BUILT A TIME MACHINE

I made it with the time crystals my grandfather stored in the old shed.

I built a time machine by combining the time crystals my grandfather stored in the old shed with a novel method of energy generation which was capable of unlimited output. I set ground rules: to avoid the future, in order to eliminate the possibility of being captured there by savage but technologically advanced future warlords who could trace me back to the present and assassinate my family; to conceal my identity; to fix the problems of the past, where possible. I created a list of events that my influence could improve. I travelled back to London 1666. Pudding Lane. The bakery. The sun setting on the Thames. "Douse your oven, friend," I whispered to the baker, wiping the time-frost from my eyelashes. He was a short guy with thick hair and a big round chin and he looked at me with fear and curiosity. I mimed throwing a bucket of water on the fire and he complied. I wandered out onto the streets of London, Great Fire averted. My time machine was gone. "Vanish'd as though t'were a specter", an urchin told me. Away to another time, I supposed, glitched, malfunctioning. Ah well. I got a job in a stable and became medieval. I learnt how to shoe a horse and slept on a bed of straw. Not a bad life. Once I begged the stablemaster for a night off and walked in the dark to the palace stinking of straw and horse shit to try and tell the King's scientists about the science of the future but the guards turned me away. There's much I can teach you, I told them, shy but smug. Not a great offer. The king didn't need to be taught. The king's scientists had a good thing going too. I died and was tipped into a big hole with everyone else who couldn't afford a grave while my wayward time machine surfed cascading waves of temporality, from the far reaches of the year 99999 to the volcanos of prehistory, eventually getting crushed by a subway train in the late 22nd century. Where did this machine come from? the 22nd century detectives asked. And who built it? I'd left them clues, of course. But I hadn't accounted for the sticky graveyard clay.

---

Really enjoyed this post with five short poems from Mark Leidner, whose writing is always enjoyable and frequently inspiring. Subscribe him if you haven’t already!

---

My friend Matt has recently started Strange Aeons, a call of Cthulu-style adventure game. I don’t know what that means at all but Matt’s world-building is fantastic and worth checking out!