Professor Heidelberg’s theories on breaching the fabric of time were published in 2320 and by 2350 the first working model of a time machine based on Heidelberg’s equations was perfected.
Soon after Heidelberg’s publication, a special committee of the World Council was convened to develop sound ethical guidelines in the use of time travel , and this gave rise to the ten commandments of time travel that were introduced into the public domain with great fanfare.
Due to evolutionary concerns, the first and immutable law of time travel was that limits were set on manufacturers to not manufacture a machine that could travel more than one million years into the past.
It was with mounting excitement that I adjusted the controls of the the time machine to propel me to 19th century London where I would perfect my research into the Victorian era for the new novel I was working on.
Adjusting my eyes to penetrate the fog clouding the busy streets of East London, I looked on in consternation at the strange apparition of Londoners with heads beaked like vultures, long reptilian tails and four arms hanging from their shoulders, only two in use.
I stood transfixed as I glanced at my reflection in a passing hansom cab and realized that the World Council’s first law of time travel had been broken.
I love this story! I’ve always been interested in time travel.
I’m curious about the other nine commandments. 🙂
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Thanks, Romi. The first three commandments are related to evolution and the last seven are related to good conduct in differing time zones.
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Len, this would make a wonderful Twilight Zone episode. They need to bring the series back.
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I completely agree, JadeLi. One of my favourite series, I loved the imagination of the writers and how they had to constantly come up with different twists in the series.
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There’s always someone, isn’t there. Well told!
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I agree, Mimi. One rotten apple in every cart, who has to make trouble for everyone else.
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Nicely done piece of time travel and use of the cue.
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Thank you, Pat. It just wrote itself.
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Ah, you’re in my wheelhouse now… 🙂
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Have you just come back from your time travels, Lynn. Anywhere exciting.
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And maybe a few more were broken too! I love a good time travel story. Excellent use of the prompt word 😀
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Thanks, Denise. One can only hope that another rebel went back to pre-evolutionary time and changed us for the better. Perhaps adding a hundred more years or so to our life span, definitely a little taller and with eyes at the back of our heads as well as the front.
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Can I just say, ‘Who doesn’t love a good time travel story?’
That being said, among those of us who would write such stories, after the first draft sits on the screen inviting us to refine, who doesn’t have images of ships-in-bottles with an infinite number of tiny, little parts?
Good Six.
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The invisible maker who manipulates these tiny parts to make a worthy vessel. Be interested to read one of your takes on time travel, Clark.
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rummaging through my memory for time travel Sixes. (Of course I have a serial story, the Hobbomock Chronicles, but it is more of a transposition of a character to another time through unknown means.)
…hey! I’ve an idea
What say I try something I did here a couple of years ago in the way of a ‘collaborative Six’ … what we did was I wrote a Six and a couple of the others took the scene and ‘wrote more’… using my Six as the jumping off point. (A character in my Six who did not play a major role was the branch for Valerie’s Six).
… let me know your thoughts, it might be fun and surely will be interesting.
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Sounds right up my alley. Count me in Clark.
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I really like this, and the photo ties it together well. Nice.
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Thanks, Paul. One of my favourite periods is 19th century London.
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Wonderful, creepy, steampunk work! The exposition sets a clear and calm, we’re-on-top-of-this tone. Then there are the punches toward the end, smack into our complacency. This is marvelous, speculative narrative, Len!
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Thank you, Christopher, for your kind and inspiring comments…..and for giving me the idea of the Skeksis.
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Love a good time travel story!
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Thanks, Lisa. So do I.
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Looking forward to it, Clark.
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Ha! Great twist. Well done.
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Thank you, D. Appreciate your kind comments.
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A defective machine? Or was it intentionally made like that for someone else?
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I don’t think the machine was defective, Bernadette. I think there was some nefarious plan in place to unsettle the order of things.
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Fun story. It strikes me that it is told in past tense. Once the fabric of time is breached what do tenses really mean?
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“To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools”
Shakespeare….Macbeth.
Thanks for visiting and commenting. I’m losing all track of time these COVID days.
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