Time Travel Tales

3. Time Travellers Stop

I sit my self in the leather chair and flick five of the switches in the row of switches in front of me, two from the left and three from the right. I pull down a lever and the glass dome closes. I press a green button and the lights within my spherical vehicle start flickering on like lanterns in the night. I fasten my seat belt, put on my helmet and type in the accurate number sequence into the glowing panel of numbers before me. My machine shakes and rumbles then there’s a sudden burst of white light and I start my journey into the unknown realms of time.

Gradually my eyes recover from the bright light. I look around and realise I’m in a white space an infinite expanse of white, nothingness.

 Then, from the whiteness materialises a black sleek object. It’s shaped like a mushroom and out of the circumference of its cap is emitted a red laser. As I watch astonished as it glides around my time machine, seemingly inspecting and scanning it. Suddenly the machine emits a screech, like wind blowing through a microphone, and then it makes a series of deep slow roars, like a voice being heard on extreme slow motion. Then these sounds gradually turn into English, “Welcome traveller from Earth, The Managers of Time kindly request your cooperation in maintaining an efficient, safe and environmentally friendly method of time travel. Please proceed as instructed. Please note that any aggressive behaviour to our staff may result in prosecution and a possible fine,” as soon as the machine finishes the sentence a crack opens up in the blank space ahead of me and gradually widens, “Please proceed through the gateway,” the machine’s instructs. I obediently do as it instructs me, manoeuvring my craft through the, now wide, gateway.

 Through the gateway I find myself in another identical space except here there are more sleek black machines and there is also a long queue of various different crafts.

 The queue stretches on like the universes most varied and long traffic jam. In the queue are vehicles each more magnificent and peculiar than the lost. Some look like levitating multi coloured cubes while others look more biological, there was even a ship which appeared to be a giant and live fish with wires, water tanks and various other mechanical items built into it

 The riders are as varied as their transports and within the queue I can spot giant beetles, tall felines, a squid like creature the size of a double-decker bus and other equally bizarre organisms. I turn around to spot a fish like creature staring at me with an expression of awe and wonder that mirrored my own.

 From what I can tell it seems I have a very long wait ahead but the prospect does not fill me with dread but rather joy, for as a scientist there could be nowhere more interesting then here among the time travellers of the universe.