by Jack Finney
It was really an imaginative job. One of the neatest touches about it was the note of worry than ran all through the article. It was as though there were some awful problem connected with this rage for Time-Travel that the author didn't quite want to put into words. He kept hinting about it, wondering if new legislation weren't needed, and so on, but I couldn't quite figure out what he was supposed to be bothered about. Time-Travel sounded like a lot of fun to me.
That's a wonderful job, I told Ted when I finished. But what's the point? All that trouble — for what?
Ted shrugged. I don't know, he said. No point, I guess. Did you like it?
I sure did.
You can have that copy if you want. I've got another.
Thanks, I said, and laid it in my lap. But what did you plan to have happen next?
Oh, he said, you don't want to hear any more. He seemed a little embarrassed, as though he wished he hadn't started this, and he glanced over at his wife, but she wouldn't look at him. Matter of fact, he went on, the story sort of peters out. I'm really not very good at that kind of thing.
Yes, said Ann, that's enough.
Come on, I said to Ted. Give.
Ted looked at me for a moment, very serious, then he shook his head again. No, he said, it's too hard to explain. You'd have to know a good deal about a world of the future, a world in which people are sick with the fear of self-destruction. Unimaginable weapons that could literally tear the entire solar system to pieces. Everyone living in absolute dread of the future.
What's so hard to imagine about that?
Oh, hell. He laughed. These are peaceful times.
They are?
Sure. No weapon worth mentioning except the atom and hydrogen bombs, and those in their earliest, uncomplex stages.
I laughed kind of sourly.
All in all, he said, these are pretty nice times to be alive in.
Well, I'm glad you're so sure. I said.
I am. Ted answered, and he smiled. Then he stopped smiling. But it'll he different in another century or so. believe me. At least, he added, that's how this friend and I figured it out in our story. He shook his head a little and went on, sort of talking to himself.
Life will barely be worth living. Everyone working twelve, fourteen hours a day, with the major part of a man's income going for taxes, and the rest going for consumers' goods priced sky-high because of war production. Artificial scarcities, restrictions of all kinds. And hanging over everything, killing what little joy in life is left, is the virtual certainty of death and destruction. Everyone working and sacrificing for his own destruction. Ted looked up at me. A lousy world, the world of the future, and not the way human beings were meant to live.
Go ahead, I said, you're doing fine.
He grinned, looked at me for a moment, then shrugged. Okay, he said, and settled back on the porch rail. Time-Travel hits the world the way television has hit the country today, only it happens a hundred times faster, because it's just about the only way to have any real fun. But it's a wonderful way, all right. Within less than a week after the first sets reach the market, people everywhere are going swimming after work on an untouched beach in California, say in the year 1000. Or fishing or picnicking in the Maine woods before even the Norsemen had arrived. Or standing on a hill overlooking a battlefield, watching the Crusaders have it out with the infidels.
Ted smiled. And sometimes not so safe. In Newton, Kansas, a man arrives home in his living room, bleeding to death from arrow wounds. In Tallahassee a whole family disappears, their TT set turned on and humming, and they are never heard from again, and the same thing happens here and there all over the country and the world. In Chicago a man returns from a day in seventh-century France and dies in two days of the plague; everyone is worried stiff, but the disease doesn't spread. In Mill Valley, California, a man reappears in his home, his face gashed, his hand mangled, his clothes torn to shreds, and he commits suicide the following day. His wife has been stoned to death as a witch because they were fools enough to appear in a crowded eleventh-century Danish public square in modern dress, talking twenty-first-century English.
Ted grinned and winked at his wife; he was enjoying himself. I was fascinated and I think Nell was, too, whether she'd admit it or not. But then, he went on, warnings are soon published and televipped by all the TT manufacturers and by the government, too, and people quickly learn caution. Brief courses of instruction are published on how to conduct oneself in various times, how to simulate the dress and customs of earlier periods, what dangerous times and places to avoid, and TT really comes into its own. There are still risks, still accidents and tragedies, of course.
Inevitably some people talk too much — the temptation is terribly strong — and they land in insane asylums or jails. Others can't stay away from the danger times and are lynched by superstitious mobs. A good many people die of the common cold, which science had eradicated and to which the human race had lost its old resistance. But there's risk in anything. and the important thing is that once again it's possible to take a vacation. To really get away from it all for a week, a day, or even an hour before dinner. To go back to simpler, more peaceful times, when life is worth living again. And nearly every last soul in the world soon finds a way somehow to own a TT set or get access to one.
Ted looked at me, then at Nell. Naturally, then, the inevitable happened; the only possible ending to my story. Maybe you've figured out what had to happen?
I shook my head, and Ted looked at Nell to see if she knew; then he said, It's easy. People simply stopped coming back. All over the world, within less than a month after TT is introduced, the same almost simultaneous thought seems to strike everyone: Why return? By this time everyone has discovered a favorite time and place in the history and geography of the world. And everybody is enthusiastic for his own particular discovery; some one century or decade, some country, city, town, island, woods or seashore, some one spot on the world's surface at a certain time that best suits his temperament. And so the same inspiration hits nearly everyone: Why not stay there? Why come back? To what?
Ted slapped at a stray mosquito and said, Within forty days' time the population of the entire world is down to less than seven million people, and nearly all of them are getting ready to leave. Suddenly the world is left to the tiny fraction of one per cent of human beings who want wars and who cause them. But the people who fight them walk out. Before the governments of the world realize what's happening — before there's time to do anything about it — the world's population is nearly gone.
The last emergency Cabinet meeting of the U.S. government breaks up when the assembled members discover that all but one of them are themselves planning to leave for other times. In six more days the twenty-first century is deserted like a sinking ship, its population scattered thinly back through the preceding twenty-five hundred years. And of the very few who are finally left — the tiny minority who preferred the present — most are soon forced, out of sheer loneliness and the breakdown of a world, to join friends and families in earlier times.
Ted looked at us for a moment, then said, And that, my friends, is how the world ends. On the edge of a precipice, with one foot over the edge, it stops, turns and goes back, leaving an empty earth of birds and insects, wind, rain and rusting weapons.
For maybe half a minute Ted sat staring at nothing, and no one said anything; a cricket began to chirp feebly off in the grass somewhere. Then Ted smiled. Well, he said, how do you like it, Al? Good story?
Yeah, I said slowly, still thinking about it. Yeah, I said, I like it fine. Why don't you write it; maybe get it published somewhere?
Well, I thought about that, as a matter of fact, but on the whole I prefer inventing. It's easier.
Well, it's a good story, I said. though there are some flaws in it, of course.
I'm sure of it, Ted said, but what are they?
Well, for one thing, wouldn't people in those earlier times notice the sudden increase in populatio
n?
I don't think so. Spread the world's population through the thousands of preceding years, and at any one time or place it wouldn't be more than a drop in the bucket.
Okay, I said, but speaking of inventions, wouldn't everyone traveling back to simpler times start introducing twenty-first-century inventions?
Not to amount to anything. You mean like space ships in 1776?
Something like that.
Ted shook his head. It couldn't happen. Suppose you went back a hundred years; could you make a television set?
No.
Or even a radio?
I might. A simple one, anyway. Maybe a crystal set.
All right, Ted said. suppose you did. I doubt if you could find all the materials — copper wire, for example — but suppose you managed; what would you listen to? You'd tell people it was a radio and what it was for, and they'd lock you up. You see? And what do most people know anyway about the marvelous things they use every day? Practically nothing. And even the few who do know could never find what they'd need to duplicate them, except in the actual time they belong in. The best you could do would be to introduce one or two of the very simplest things people used in your time, like a modern safety pin in Elizabethan England, if you could find the steel. And a few things like that wouldn't upset the history of the world.
No, Al, you'd just have to take your place as best you could in the world as you found it, no matter what you knew about the future.
Well, I let it go at that. I didn't mean to get started knocking holes in Ted's story, and I went into the house and broke out beer for all hands. I liked Ted's story, though, and so did Nell, and we both said so, and after a while even Ann broke down and said she liked it, too. Then the conversation got off onto other things.
But there you are. It's like I said; the Hellenbeks were strange in some ways, but very interesting neighbors, and I was sorry to see them move away. They moved not too long afterward. They liked California fine, they said, and liked the people they'd met. But they were lonesome for old friends, people they'd grown up with, and that's understandable, of course.
So they moved to Orange, New Jersey. Some old friends were arriving there soon, they said, and the Hellenbeks were anxious to be with them. They expected them, Ted told me, sometime in the spring of 1951, and they wanted to be on hand to meet them.
There's a new couple next door now — perfectly nice people who play a good game of bridge, and we like them okay. But I don't know; after the Hellenbeks, they seem kind of dull.
Collier's, January 6, 1951, 127(1):20-21, 45-47
Husband at Home
In a big easy chair pulled up to the living-room windows, Ben Bennell sat watching the street five stories below. He wore blue-striped pajamas, a maroon robe, and slippers. His lips formed in a soundless whistle, his face was relaxed, happy, at peace with the world. On a small table at his elbow, a half-finished glass of orange juice stood beside a blue-and-white box of paper tissues.
He began to grin, wickedly, mischievously, as he heard his wife's footsteps in the hall leading from the bedroom, but just before she appeared in the doorway, he altered his expression to a look of exaggerated suffering. As she entered the room, wearing a house dress and apron, Ben glanced up.
Good-by, he murmured weakly. His black hair was mussed, his nostrils pink. So long, Reagh. We've had some pretty happy years togeth—
The bed's made, she said calmly, with fresh sheets. You can move into the bedroom again if you want. She was small, rather pretty, her hair very fine and blond in the morning light. Standing at his chair, she put a hand on his shoulder. How's your cold?
I'm finished, he told her. Done for. He began to grin. Good-by.
Good-by.
I have one last request—he coughed feebly—my final wish.
Smiling, Reagh pulled his robe closed over his knees. Now, you don't want to catch more cold; keep covered up.
It's too late for that. Ben sighed exaggeratedly. Reagh, I want you to know that I forgive you everything. He reached out and took her hand.
That's nice.
I have only this to ask. I hate the thought of the cold, damp ground; besides, I have claustrophobia. So I want you to have me stuffed.
Okay.
Just dress me in corduroy pants, a shirt and slippers, and keep me in my favorite place and position —
I know; flat on your back on the davenport. She looked thoughtfully around the room. I really should dust in here.
I also suggest you have me waxed. It'll make dusting easier; especially the ears. They're hard to keep cl—
Now, stop that. She picked up his orange-juice glass. You through with this?
Yes. He sat back and put his feet up on the window sill. You could dust my clothes, I imagine, with one of the vacuum-cleaner attachments. There's a thing in the box of attachments I never could figure a use for, but now I know; it's made just for that purpose, dusting the clothes of your stuffed former husband. The 'perpetual-care brush,' I believe it's called.
Ben, cut out that talk; it's morbid. Not to say silly.
He smiled sadly. I suppose so. And it would get pretty boring, anyway; me lying around like that, never having much to say.
Reagh turned from his chair. If that's all you can talk about, I've got dishes to wa—
Look—he smiled brightly—you ought to have one of those sink disposal things. It would make dishwashing easier.
What things? She looked at him suspiciously.
You know; you have them, installed in your sink, right in the drain. Ends garbage nuisance, according to the ads. It grinds up anything—orange peels, eggshells, even old bones—and they just wash away down the drain. So all you'd have to do when I'm … gone
Ben!
I only wanted to make things eas—
All right; that's enough.
I simply—
That's enough, now. She tucked the collar of his robe snugly around his neck, then turned toward the kitchen. Anything you want?
Well—he leaned over the arm of his chair, looking back at Reagh—what's there to drink?
She stopped. Ginger ale? More orange juice?
No. Something hot, maybe. I feel an instinctive need for something hot; it might just save me.
Tea? Coffee?
Either one.
Well, if you don't really care. I'll make it tea; it's easier.
Fine. Why is it easier?
You just drop a tea bag in a cup of hot water. Making coffee's a nuisance for just one cup.
Well, tea's fine. He pulled a tissue from the box beside him and blew his nose.
In the kitchen, Reagh put a small pan of water on to boil, then stacked the breakfast dishes on the drainboard. She wrapped the cord around the toaster and put it away, carefully removed a toast crumb from the surface of the butter, covered the dish, and put it into the refrigerator.
Reagh? Ben called from the living room. When's the mail come?
She stepped to the doorway. About ten or ten-thirty.
Well, it's after ten now. He looked at her questioningly.
It'll be here soon. She nodded toward the living-room windows. You can usually see him; he comes down the other side of the street.
The water boiled and Reagh turned back into the kitchen, got out cup and saucer, and made Ben's tea. Then she carried it out to the living room, walking cautiously across the rug, balancing the filled cup on its saucer. Ben was leaning forward in his chair, looking down at the street.
Here's your tea, she said. There's sugar already in it.
Oh, thanks. He turned and took the cup, then nodded toward the window. Look at that guy; all the time in the world.
Reagh glanced out the window to see the mailman talking to a doorman down the street. What's your hurry?
No hurry. Ben smiled and took a sip of his tea. I just like to get my mail on time, that's all; I'm a taxpayer and citizen. He set his cup on the table and slouched down in his chair, hands clasped over his stomach. Fact
is, I'm expecting mail from all over the world. Big fat envelopes covered with rubber stampings in several languages. Oddlooking inscriptions. Foreign stamps. Interesting mail, that's what I need today.
From where, for example? She sat down on the arm of his chair.
Rangoon. From Sir Henry Chumley, pronounced Cholmondeley, MP, and colonel in His Majesty's Rifles. He's one of my chess correspondents. He looked up at Reagh.
Okay, she said, you've got a cold; I'll stooge for you. What's a chess correspondent?
Master chess players always —
You couldn't beat a four-year-old at Chinese checkers.
Master chess players have trouble finding decent competition. So they play by mail with experts all over the world. In a special room of the house, never to be disturbed, they keep a board set up for each game. A few rare masters like myself dispense with that, simply keeping the board arrangements in our heads. You exchange moves by air mail. Just now, in addition to old Chumley, I am playing chess with an Oxford don, professor emeritus of Sanskrit, a Russian cavalry officer in Vladivostok, the ship's physician of a famous luxury liner, a railroad-crossing watcher in Mill Valley, California, and a life-termer at Alcatraz. He leaned forward to look out at the street again. Look at that guy; yak, yak, yak, all day long.
He probably has two ads for us and some soap coupons addressed to ‘The Occupant’; you can't expect the pony express for that. She stood up. Drink your tea while it's hot, now. You want some nose drops?
No.
Reagh went out to the kitchen, filled the dishpan, and began washing dishes.
After a few minutes, Ben called to her, Anything to read around here?
Holding her wet hands over the sink, Reagh leaned toward the doorway. There's a new magazine on the coffee table.
There was a silence, then, Where?
Reagh shook the suds from her hands and stepped to the doorway. She glanced at the coffee table in the living room. Right under the books where we always keep magazines.
Oh. Ben reached out to the coffee table and moved several books aside. He took a magazine from the stack and held it up. This one?