by Zack Mason
Now that he thought about it, a mind-altering device couldn’t explain the first watch disappearing before his eyes because he hadn’t even been wearing one yet.
No, as hard as it was to believe, this thing was sending him somewhere. The question was where?
Was it a teleporter after all? Was he really considering such fantastic ideas?
He returned to the oak and carved a cross deeply into its surface. Then, he pushed the button.
He stumbled, yet would have stayed on his feet this time except for the violent nausea that returned with a vengeance. It racked his gut and drove him to his knees. He lost control of his body while his vision swam. It was a good fifteen minutes before he could pull himself together.
When he was finally able to stand again, Mark staggered to the oak and searched the trunk for his carving. He saw no cross, but the question mark he’d originally carved was back.
Check that. He could just barely make out the faint form of a cross right below the question mark. It looked like the bark had swollen up and over the marking, almost completely covering it, as if the cross had been carved decades ago.
Suddenly, Mark struggled for control over his breathing. Had he been shifting back and forth between times? Was the watch a time machine? How could such a small device do such a thing? It wasn’t possible.
He closely examined the digital displays. He’d only changed the lower one, and it read:
010000P-09071890
If you read that the right way, the numbers could represent 1:00 PM, September 7, 1890.
1890.
Impossible. Absolutely impossible.
Ridiculous.
The upper display read: 080347A-09072011. If he followed the same line of reasoning, it would be read: 8:03 AM (and 47 seconds), September 7, 2011.
That could be today’s date. Honestly, he’d lost track. Was it September already? Mark had purposely not kept track of the days since he’d begun this long hike of his, but he had left “civilization” in July, and that had been about two months ago. It could easily be around 8:00 in the morning. In fact, he’d be surprised if it wasn’t.
Time travel was impossible — yet here he was, witnessing strange things that had no other explanation.
There was no easy way to prove what was going on one way or the other, at least not while he was in the woods. Since there was no obvious means of ridding his wrist of his new adornment, he was apparently going to have more than ample opportunity to test his new theory, and there were a lot better places to experiment than the middle of a forest. A town of some sort, for example, would provide definitive proof.
Plus, he was going to have to wait longer between pushes of that button if this nausea were going to continue. He couldn’t take much more of that.
For the first time in a long time, Mark felt intrigued and excited about something.
What then is time?
If no one asks me, I know what it is.
If I wish to explain it to him who asks,
I do not know.
~ Saint Augustine
Mark wandered, not fully decided on what his next course of action should be. He was still grappling with the idea, this inconceivable possibility of time travel through something as small as the thing encircling his wrist.
He’d left the clearing and headed west through the woods, but he hadn’t walked more than the length of a football field when the trees parted again unexpectedly. A simple, two-story house stood in the center of a much larger, second clearing. Its style was traditional American and an old-fashioned, wrap-around porch dressed its bottom floor, adding a flourish of character. The siding wasn’t painted, but stained a golden oak color you might see on someone’s back deck. He instantly liked it.
At least one mystery was solved. Whoever owned this home had to own the shed as well, although the shed did seem much older. This house couldn’t be more than fifteen to twenty years old.
With luck, perhaps the owner would be at home and could start answering some questions — and Mark had a lot of questions. If the house was as empty as the shed, maybe he’d just give into temptation and get a good night’s sleep for a change.
He climbed the porch and pulled the screened door outward, cringing as it moaned loudly.
He knocked. No answer. No movement from inside.
Well, he’d already broken into one building. Why not go exploring a second time?
The front door turned out to be unlocked, but unlike the screen, the smooth silence of well-oiled hinges accompanied Mark’s push as he swung it inward.
“Helloooo?” he called, listening expectantly.
No answer. He called a second time with the same result.
The home was indeed simple, outside and in. The furniture was sparse and minimalist, yet modern, all of it neatly arranged and dust free. The faint smell of freshly cut lumber lingered in the air, just like the shed, yet this time mingling with a stronger scent of lemony Pine Sol. The place seemed lived in, but was spotlessly clean.
Finding no sign of life on the first floor (Nor, to his dismay, any food in the refrigerator), Mark ascended the stairs. He winced when the last step creaked awfully.
On the second floor, he found the home’s apparent owner.
In the master bedroom, an old man lay on his back in a king-sized bed. His countenance was peaceful, his eyes shut and his hands at his sides. His suit looked pressed, giving him an eerie appearance, as if he’d been laid out for a funeral.
Mark crossed the room to feel for a pulse. The moment he picked up the man’s wrist, his eyes fluttered open and he stared at Mark intensely with a look that pierced him through and through. It was as if the old man knew every inch of him, as if he could see into the very depths of his soul with that penetrating gaze. Yet, somehow, the old man also felt familiar to Mark.
The fragile face smiled. It was a weak smile, but warm, animated by an intensity that momentarily equaled the stare. The man gripped his wrist and squeezed, like he was holding on for dear life, never taking his eyes from Mark’s. After a moment, his grip loosened and fell away, taking the brief smile with it. The man’s eyes fluttered shut and a strange, rattling breath escaped his lungs. His whole body relaxed with that breath, as if sinking deeper into the large bed. Mark felt his pulse fade, and then it finally ceased.
He waited several minutes to be sure, but he knew the man had died. He recognized the death rattle, that strange last breath the dying make as they expire. He considered calling the police to report the death, but he couldn’t find a telephone anywhere in the house and they were a long way from any town. The old man had obviously known he was dying and had wanted to die here. Mark would just leave him where he lay.
Mark’s earlier impression of the house being “simply” furnished crystallized into clarity. With the exception of a few items like the refrigerator, there was not a single modern appliance or amenity to be found. No television set, no radios, no telephones.
Maybe Mark really had traveled through time and was still stuck in the past. No — the refrigerator was stainless steel, a newer model. Puzzled, he continued to search.
The closets were bare. There were no toiletries in the bathrooms, no sign of anyone having living here. Except for the body in the bed.
It reminded him of the apartment of an old college buddy who traveled all the time for work: Sterile like a hotel room. He’d asked his friend once how he could stand to live in such a bland environment. His friend had replied that the opposite was true. Being gone so much, the only way he could stay sane was to keep his apartment clutter free and as low-maintenance as possible.
Was the old man a traveler like his friend? Even more importantly, was he a time traveler?
Mark took a closer look at the dead man and saw his wrist bore a silver “watch” identical to his own.
Guess that answers that.
Gently, he lifted the man’s arm, trying to get a better look at the device’s settings. Upon his touch, the device began to whi
r softly. Its band loosened and slid from the dead man’s wrist to the floor with a considerable thud.
Startled, Mark snatched it up, eyeing the body suspiciously for signs of trickery.
No movement. The guy was dead.
If Mark’s theory was correct, then the bottom setting of the old man’s watch was set to three weeks ago. The top setting matched today’s date and the current time.
Wait a second. How could the top setting match the current time if the man had died a few minutes ago? Checking his own watch, Mark saw his top setting matched the current time as well. Perhaps the top setting was actually nothing more than a normal clock which acted as a reference point, an anchor of sorts for the time travel mechanism. That made sense. It would almost be a necessary feature.
The rest of the house was pretty bare, but he was curious to see what he would find if he “traveled” back to three weeks ago, the time on the dead man’s watch.
He didn’t dare put this newest watch on since it would probably lock onto him just like the first one had. One irremovable, time-traveling device stuck on his wrist was more than enough, thank you very much, and unless he wanted to start looking like some New York City jewelry hawker, he’d wait until he found a way to get the first one off before adding a second.
If he activated the dead man’s watch, it would probably just disappear from his hand. So, instead, he set his own to match the same time three weeks prior. Then, he dropped the old man’s watch into his backpack.
He now had a total of three devices. One on his wrist and two in his backpack. How many of these things were there anyway? He definitely needed to start paying more attention to people’s wrists.
Mark pushed his red button and felt the now familiar, but still unsettling sensation in the pit of his stomach. The bedroom in general did not change, but the old man’s body disappeared from the bed. In his place was a sheet of paper.
Your suspicions are correct.
The device you are wearing is a time traveling engine of sorts.
Follow your instincts.
These notes were really starting to freak him out. They had been expecting him. Somebody had been expecting him.
Frantically, he turned the house inside out searching for further clues as to what was going on but found nothing of interest.
The face of his watch was glowing red. He hit the button to go back, but nothing happened. Great. He’d broken it. Now what was he going to do?
He redoubled his search efforts and delved into every nook and cranny, but there was nothing in the house or the shed that would tell him more.
The note said to follow his instincts, and instinct told him to head back to civilization. So, he set off into the woods in the direction of the closest highway.
What exactly does one do with three time-travel machines?
Had somebody specifically intended for Mark to find them, or were they left for whomever came along first?
He hiked the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon pondering these questions. In his imagination, time machines were big, bulky chambers, great unwieldy things with wires sticking out from all sides. How could something as small as a watch be so powerful?
From what little he knew of physics, time travel, if it were even possible, would require an immeasurable amount of energy. It was effectively unachievable.
This had to be some kind of elaborate hoax. If a person can mentally smack themselves on the forehead, Mark did so now. Of course, that was it. Traveling through time wasn’t possible, and sure as heck nobody was going to find a tiny little watch in the north Georgia woods that could.
What about the nausea and the loss of balance though? Maybe that had been the result of some kind of electrical shock. Yet, the trees in the forest had shifted. The old man’s body had disappeared from the bed before his eyes. The first watch had evaporated from his hand, and the cross carving had clearly aged. Were those just optical illusions?
He glanced down at the device. The red glow was gone. It was back to normal.
There was one way to settle this.
Stopping short in the middle of the trail, he flung his backpack to the ground and altered the second setting to match today’s date, but twelve hours in the future. He punched the button.
Suddenly, he found himself shrouded in darkness. The sun was gone, stars twinkled overhead and the moon was out.
It was a time travel machine. He had just traveled twelve hours into the future.
Pushing the button again, he returned to the glaring heat of the midday sun. Along with a severe case of nausea of course.
He emptied the remaining contents of his stomach into some colorful shrubs which soon reeked of bile. Thankfully, he hadn’t had much to eat since his last vomiting session and it wasn’t long before the peaceful, post-regurgitation calm settled in. Then and there, Mark vowed to be more careful about how often he “shifted”. Doing it too frequently was not much fun. He just hoped the effect wasn’t cumulative.
The nausea was probably part of some kind of time-travel jet lag, he reasoned. A person could probably get a serious case of that, jumping around like he was.
A few hours later, Mark ran into Highway 129. He knew if he followed it to the left, he’d end up to North Carolina. To the right led down to Cleveland, Georgia. He turned right and started walking.
Curiosity was picking at him again. It had been several hours since he last used the watch. That had to be enough time to mitigate the nausea, right?
He twiddled with the buttons and set his target time back to the original 1890 date. He wanted to see what the road would look like back then.
Familiar stumble — a sense of falling about an inch.
The forest “shifted” as it had before.
Slight nausea.
The highway was now a dusty, dirt road, and it lay twenty feet to his right instead of under his feet. They must have changed its path when they paved it.
Besides the road jumping around, nothing else was different. Same Georgia woods, same sounds, same air and sky.
Kind of unsettling actually. In his mind, the late 1800's was life in brown sepia. Photos of the early 1900's were always in black and white, and those of the 1800's were brown. He knew those were just photos, but still, seeing 1890 in full color seemed weird.
The road was barren of movement. Just like a hundred years in the future. It was anti-climatic in a way. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected to see, maybe a parade of people dressed in Victorian clothing, but there wasn’t anything remarkable aside from the road. He poked around a little bit and then pushed the button to return.
A long, high-pitched tone sang out, and the display flashed to red again.
Dang!
It hadn’t made that noise before. What did that mean? Frantically, he punched at the button over and over, but all it did was beep and flash.
The display had turned red before in the house, but it hadn’t beeped then, and he’d only used it a couple of times since. He feared it might be breaking down on him. His breathing shortened. If he didn’t even understand how the watch worked, how could he fix it? Its body felt warm against his skin. Maybe it had just overheated — or something. Would it reset itself again or was he marooned in 1890? He had no clue.
Broken or not, there was nothing he could do about it for now except to keep walking.
Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead as he continued down the dirt road that would one day be Highway 129.
Time goes, you say? Ah no!
Alas, Time stays, we go.
~ Henry Austin Dobson
A few hours later, he arrived in what he guessed must be Cleveland, Georgia. The town was much smaller than the version of Cleveland he knew from his day. Its roads were a messy confluence of dirt and mud, and their configuration was also different from what he remembered.
Horses pulled wagons and buggies. Women walked about in cotton dresses and bonnets, and the kids had on outfits he’d only seen in the movies. Some were
accompanied by men in rough-looking pants held up by suspenders. It was all so hard to believe....but there it was.
He suddenly realized he would stick out like a sore thumb in his 21st century clothing, so he decided not to go all the way into town, but instead retreated back into the woods to give himself time to think.
The watch was either broken, or it had overheated, or.....who knew? It could be anything. He hoped the problem was only temporary. He did not want to be stuck in 1890.
Well, now....wait a minute. Why didn’t he want to be stuck in 1890? Why did he care? There was nothing left for him in the future. Hadn’t he already given up on that life? Maybe he could get a fresh start here.
Yet, something about the idea bothered him. Perhaps he hadn’t really cut all the emotional ties to his old life after all. Or maybe he just didn’t like being stuck somewhere, regardless of where that place was. After all, any prison is a prison still. Whatever the reason, the bottom line was: He didn’t like it. Not that he could do much about it though.
He’d give it overnight. If the watch didn’t start working again by morning, he’d assume it was broken and regroup then. For now, he wouldn't panic.
“Son, ya look loster than a frog in a desert!”
The voice came from behind.
Slowly, Mark turned. The voice belonged to a farmer wielding a shotgun. Thankfully, its barrels were pointed toward the ground. The man’s crooked grin signaled a wary friendliness. His overalls were well-worn, patched in several places. Gray beard stubble lined his jaws.
“Them’s gotta be the craziest lookin’ citified duds I e’er seen. Where’d ya get ‘em?”
Mark was still trying to recover and doing a poor job of it at that. He hadn’t expected to speak to anybody. Psychologically, he’d woefully unprepared himself for the possibility. This world hadn’t seemed quite real until now. This man was really here though, really speaking to him, and he’d probably died long before Mark was even born. It popped any lingering perception he’d had that this was somehow just one big, long dream. It wasn’t.