Have Time Will Travel Read online

  Have Time, Will Travel

  By Thomas Duncan

  The sun was very bright and it’s rays were dancing on his octagon window. Then one of the rays broke through his curtains and landed on top of his wrinkly forehead. Oliver on his full sized bed suddenly woke up. He rolled his head over and stared at his digital alarm clock. The red numbers made out nine fifty-three.

  Oliver threw off his tree green sheets on the floor and raced to his dresser. He pulled out a drawer. It broke in his hands because it was made out of cheap particle board. He grabbed a white t-shirt and kicked the dresser, he hurt his foot. He cried a bit and wiped his eyes with the bottom part of his shirt.

  Next Oliver opened another drawer and pulled out a pair of khaki pants. He put them on and grabbed a navy blue jacket from his closet. Then he ran out of his room, skipped breakfast, and ran out the front door to the drive way.

  On the dirt driveway stood his mud covered fire engine red pickup truck. Oliver opened the dented driver side door. Then shoved his electronic key into the keyhole and turned it, but the engine wouldn’t turn on. He took the key out and put it back in a few times. Still it didn’t work. So Oliver decided he would run.

  He jumped out of his truck and then darted out of his yard and down the street on cracked sidewalk. His job was three miles away. On the way he hopped on the hopscotch patterns. After about six blocks of running Oliver ran out of breath and leaned on the fence of a mad scientist’s house.

  The scientist, Earl, was setting up his time machine. It was a washing machine with an attached pink umbrella, toaster, and an old German cuckoo clock. Earl looked up and noticed Oliver was leaning on his dirty white picket fence.

  “Hey there stranger.” Earl said.

  Oliver looked up and said hello. Then Earl asked him if he would test out his time machine for him. Oliver agreed. He hoped he could go back in time and wake up early so he wouldn’t be late for work.

  “How’s this thing work?” Oliver asked Earl.

  “It’s simple you press the buttons on the key pad for the time you want to go. Then someone pushes down the lever on the toaster. When it pops up the clock will either go forward or backward depending on the time you want to go.” Earl explained.

  Oliver typed in the numbers four, seventeen, and fourteen. Then he pressed seven fourteen am. Suddenly the lever popped up and the clock spun backwards at a mile a minute. The time machine disappeared into thin air.

  After a bumpy ride through the time vertex Oliver opened the metal side-load door and climbed out. To his amazement it didn’t look like his hometown. He scratched his head.

  “This doesn’t look like the place I live.” He said.

  The ground was of dry orange-yellow sand. There were very few trees. One about every four hundred feet or so. He knew he had landed in a dessert but he wasn’t sure which one.

  He looked around and the landscape looked like one he had seen in a film during Sunday School Bible lessons when he was ten. Then it hit him. He was not in Death Valley in the United States but Galilee, Israel.

  He left the safety of the time machine and walked to a nearby village, Nazareth. In this town Oliver walked into a carpenter’s shop. There he saw a fourteen year old building a wooden chair.

  “Hi Jesus!” Oliver exclaimed as Jesus was holding a stone head hammer. The surprise caused Jesus to whack himself on the thumb. He screamed “Ouch!” Then he threw the hammer and it hit Oliver in the leg.

  Now Oliver screamed “ouch.” Jesus turned around. Then he grabbed his half-finished cedar chair and aimed it at Oliver. Oliver put his hands up.

  “What do you want?” Jesus asked.

  “My name is Oliver and I’m a time traveler. I’m wondering where I am.” He said to Jesus.

  “You’re in Palestine, mate.” Jesus replied.

  “What year is it?” Oliver asks.

  Jesus told him that it is fourteen Anno Domini. Oliver then realized his mistake. The time machine though he meant the year fourteen not two thousand fourteen. Then he and Jesus shook hands.

  Oliver left the Joseph and Son Carpentry shop and went to a bizarre. There were some pots and statues he wanted but he couldn’t buy them. None of the sellers would accept his money. They thought it looked strange.

  After leaving the bizarre disappointed Oliver walked back to the time machine. There he found a camel lying by it. He tried to get past camel without waking it up, but the camel woke up because Oliver kicked a rock by accident and it hit him.

  Oliver started to walk backwards slowly. Then the camel jumped up on all fours. He then got his mouth full of saliva. He then spit out an entire hump and just barely missed Oliver’s pale face which turned red from the heat of the sun.

  After that Oliver turned around and ran as fast as he could. The camel chased him until Oliver climbed up a tall Olive tree. From atop the tree Oliver pelted the camel with olives. Then Oliver climbed on to a branch because he ran out of olives. He was too heavy for the thin branch so it broke and he fell on top of the camel.

  The camel was pinned to ground. Oliver quickly got up and dusted himself off. He then ran back to the time machine. This time no one else was there. So he hopped in, closed the door, and typed in the time he wanted to go. Then he remembered he forgot to press the lever on the toaster.

  Oliver got out of the time machine and pushed the lever down on the toaster and quickly hopped back into the time machine. Inside he locked the door and crawled up into a ball. He was embracing for impact. Then it went it to a time vertex.

  In the vertex it spun around and around. Curiously Oliver opened the door and looked outside. The vertex was a bright pink and light green dimension with all types of objects from newspapers to shopping carts swirling around. He leaned over and fell out of the time machine. Now he and the time machine were traveling at two separate rates.

  Oliver landed back in his bed. The time machine landed back in the mad scientist’s front lawn on the green grass next to the flower garden. There was smoke surrounding the time machine. It overheated.

  Earl the scientist ran into his house and grabbed a blue fire extinguisher. He sprayed the time machine and it was covered in white foam. Then he started to make repairs on the time machine.

  Oliver woke up on his bed to find it to be the same time again. “Oh no! Not again.” he said as he put his cold hands over his face as he braced for his day to happen all over again.

  He got out of bed and got dressed. Then he headed down the stairs and grabbed a granola bar from the kitchen to eat for breakfast. Next Oliver ran out the front door in his white running shoes.

  He tried his pickup truck again but still the motor won’t run. Oliver then looked at his cheap wristwatch from the dollar store and noticed he was still late. So he decided to run again. This time he doesn’t go directly to the scientist’s house.

  Oliver went a different way but there was construction going on so he had to go back and go past the mad scientist’s house. Having gone the extra distance Oliver was severely out of breath and went to lean on the messy white picket fence but he collapsed and fell to the concrete.

  The scientist looked up and noticed Oliver lying on the ground. Thinking quickly he raced over to help him. The scientist slapped Oliver’s face to wake him up but it didn’t work. Then he dragged him and shoved him into the foam from the fire extinguisher.

  It relived Oliver and he gasped for air. After a minute he got better and was handed a drink of water. Oliver thanked the scientist. They introduced themselves and shook hands. Oliver said to the scientist, Earl, “I think I met you before.” Then Earl replied “I don’t think so, sir.”

  Then Oliver noticed the washing machine with the pink umbrella on the top across from the re
tro fifties silver toaster. He then asked Earl what type off kooky contraption he was constructing. Earl replied that it was a time machine he was building to bring to his neighbor’s fifth grade science fair.

  Oliver then asked if he could be the first one to test it out. Earl thought about it for a minute and decided to let Oliver test out the time machine. He then explained every single nook and cranny of the time machine.

  Earl explained about the toaster first and how it was used to project the machine in the time dimension. In the time dimension he also explained that the time machine could travel backwards or forward in time depending on which you wanted to travel. The umbrella was attached to provide a disguise.

  Inside the time machine Earl pointed to the calculator and the adding machine. The adding machine was the main mode of time travel but the calculator was for backup if the adding machine ran out of ink. He also mentioned while traveling the inner rotating drum spins around, which could cause stomach sickness.

  Despite the dangers Oliver still climbed into the belly of the time machine. Then Earl closed the metal side load door and Oliver typed the time he wanted to go to. Earl pushed the toaster’s lever down and it popped back up causing the time machine to disappear into thin air.

  “Wow!” Earl exclaimed because he was amazed that the time machined worked. He only hoped that it would return to him.

  This time Oliver landed in his yard the same day but at five in the morning. Oliver then climbed out of the time machine holding his stomach because he was sick. After he got out Oliver walked to his porch and grabbed a wooden baseball bat. He carried it back to the time machine.

  Then Oliver hastily smashed the time machine into a million pieces and broke the bat too. Next he swept the pieces into his tin trash can and pulled it to the curb. After that Oliver walked into his house and got on the phone.

  He called his boss and said he was sick and couldn’t come in that day. Then he went upstairs and crawled into his bed. He was too tired to change into pajamas so he slept in his day clothes.

  The next morning he woke up early and was able to drive to work. The strange thing was no one else was in the parking lot but He still ventured inside.

  Inside Oliver walked around looking for someone. Then he noticed the calendar on the bulletin board. There was a big picture of a turkey on it and said in huge red letters “Happy Thanksgiving.”

  “I’m an idiot.” Oliver said to himself as slapped himself on the face. He walked back to his truck in the huge parking lot and headed for home. On the way he pulled up to the mad scientist’s house and went into yard.

  In the yard was the time machine. Oliver grabbed a wooden baseball bat from the back of the truck and started to smash the time machine. The Earl the scientist came out of his house carrying a small glass of fresh squeezed lemonade. He asked Oliver what he was doing.

  Then Oliver smashed him on the head with the black wooden baseball bat and drank what reminded in the glass. Earl lied motionless on the floor of his front porch. Oliver left Earl on where he was and went back home.

  Back at home Oliver made himself lunch. He had a turkey and cheese sandwich. After his lunch he brushed his pearly white teeth and took a nap on his couch.

  The next day at work was uneventful. There were no problems but Oliver was stuck at his boring old desk job licking envelopes. It was a decent day for him.

  The End

 

 

  Thomas Duncan, Have Time, Will Travel

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