(Discontinued) Adventures of Tim the Random Time Traveler

Chapter One:

I lived a normal life in a normal neighborhood in a normal world. The bane of my existence was my abnormal neighbor Tim, who liked to call himself the Random Time Traveler. Everyday he'd drag me into his "adventures" since I was too polite to say no. Thanks to him the whole neighborhood had labeled me an eccentric and shunned me.

This particular day was less normal than usual and I knew it from the moment I woke up. It was similar to how you know it's going to rain later even when the sun is still out. I dragged myself out of bed and prepared myself for the day. As I ate breakfast, I began to anticipate the regular knock at my door. Everytime I would ask, "Who is it?"and everytime it would be the same person-- Tim. But today there was no knock-- which aroused my suspicion more than anything. At about ten minute intervals, I would check the door to see if someone was there, but there was no one.

All the anxiety that came about from this break in schedule began to bubble up, and I rushed outside my house to knock on his door- something that never happens. There was no answer and looking through the window, I concluded that no one was home. Now even more worried, I headed to the fort he kept out in the middle of the dump. While questioning what I was even doing outside in the dark at the dump, I looked for him, calling him by name. Despite all my searching I could not find him and went home to eat dinner even though I wasn't hungry.

Eventually, there was a knock on the door, and although I hadn't been asleep, I was still annoyed that someone would bother me at 11:30 at night. It was Tim, and in a mixture of happiness and anger, I half hugged him and half strangled him. "Where the hell have you been all day?" I demanded.

Tim shook off his initial shock of the hug and after I let go, began to explain that he met a man today that had a time machine. "I'll have to show it to you, Willow. It was amazing!" he exclaimed like a child.

And if Tim was in the role of the child, then I was acting like the frustrated mother. I had my arms crossed telling him that there was no way that was possible. "Go to bed, Tim. I don't want hear about it."

He grabbed my hand. "Come on, I'll show you," he told me. "I'll show you." He began to drag me down the street, to the dump. I was too tired to put up much of a fight.

We arrived to find a very large and strange contraption that not been there before. It was a box, twice as wide as I am tall and foot taller than myself. It seemed to have no entrance or exit, but without looking very hard Tim was able to open it to reveal a strange metallic blue glow on the inside. "As I said, Time Machine."

"Ok, let's just say I believe the whole time traveling thing," I said. "Then why did you come back so late? If you could travel to any point in time then couldn't you come back 10 seconds after you left?"

He stood there stone faced for a moment before meekly responding with, "I didn't think about that." He then added with a bit of a smirk, "I didn't expect you to be so worried anyway."

"I wasn't worried! It was just--" I paused to search for the right words, "a break in my normal schedule. Yeah, you always show up at the same time to ruin my day, so it bothered me when you didn't. It has been far too long since I've had a normal day without you in it-- I just wasn't used to it." I laughed awkwardly hoping my lame excuse would take. I didn't want to admit it even to myself-- but on some level I did view him as a friend.

"You don't even know what normal is," he muttered as we enter the machine. The place was filled from top to bottom with buttons and levers and gauges.

"I know what normal is," I argued. "It's just about the opposite of what you are." He ignored me, closing the door behind us. Then, he pulled the lever closest to us and in the flash of light, we were gone.