Take Away the Saints

Switch: Part 1 || Shaun Allan

Of course not. Science and common sense and a strong hunch, like an imp whispering into my ear, told me that.

So, when I built the time machine, I had a perfect plan. Nothing I could do would change anything. A butterfly flapping its wings in Grimsby, England could potentially cause a tsunami in Eastern Asia somewhere, but stepping on one a million years ago would not change the course of Earth's history.

See, I know these things. Knew these things. I built a time machine. I had faith. I had confidence and was fooling myself that it wasn't arrogance.

A time machine. That's almost laughable, isn't it? Who builds such things? Who believes such a beast can actually exist? To paraphrase a favourite film of mine, if you build it, it will come. Not quite, of course, you have to have an understanding of the principles of energy, matter, Einstein, Hawkings and duct tape. Especially the latter. Very important, that one.

So. I built it. I believed in it. I understood principles. I created one. The tape was for the switch. The damned thing kept popping off. I don't know why that was. Maybe it knew what might come, so deliberately turned itself off. Maybe there was too much power and it kept tripping. Maybe I should have spent the couple of quid more to get a better quality one. We will never know.

But there it was. On the desk. Pulsing with that strange blue light that shouldn't have been there, as there were no bulbs.

I expected it to be bigger.

Don't people say that to Tom Cruise when they meet him? He seemed so much taller on screen? It was the same with this. It was so much bigger in my head. So much bigger in the movies. In the H.G. Wells book that originally inspired me so many years ago.

And, as I said, there it was. No larger than a cereal box - and not the giant family packs either. A simple Weetabix box-sized slab of wires and components and dials and hope.

And the switch.

I didn't know if it would work. I knew it should, but should and would are two sides of a coin that, like the sun and the moon, are destined to never be together, no matter how much they may long for it. There was, of course, only one way to find out.

I wasn't having surgery, but was as nervous as if I were. Probably more so. Amputation from the neck down might not have been a bad idea. Stop all this nonsense. But, I didn't believe it was nonsense. I didn't think I was being silly or misguided. I was an innovator. A game changer. A world changer. This was up there with the wheel. The television. The internet. Duct tape.

I was going to change the course of history! Not by going back and jamming a stick in the spoke of the wheels of Time, sending it sprawling down the road. No, that couldn't happen. Time was inviolate. Stubborn. No, I was changing the course of future history by giving the world the ability to become Bill and Ted and to make the world a much more peaceful place to live.

I could feel the Nobel Prize in my hands. I could sense the halo glimmering above my head, radiating my awesomeness.

I couldn't really. This wasn't for prizes or sainthood. This was because a spark had been ignited by the magical words of an author. That author brought us alien invasions, invisible men and time travel. I wasn't sure if aliens would ever invade. I knew they were out there, somewhere. Perhaps wondering if we were out here too. Invisible men? Well, I wouldn't know about them. I hadn't seen one, but that was the point. Maybe the world was infested with them!

But travelling through time. That was entering the realms of fantasy. Of make-believe. A land of wonder where, if I reached it, I'd be smiling like a Cheshire Cat.

In a package way too small for its innately implied ego, was my rabbit hole.

Where would I go? When, to be precise. When would I go? To kill Hitler? I wasn't a killer, so that was a no. I didn't fancy dropping in on the Blitz. I'd be ineffectual, unable to do anything other than dodge the bullets and experience the horror. I had something different in mind. I couldn't alter things so there was no point in trying. I was, instead, going to solve a mystery.

The pyramids had always fascinated me. Egyptian mythology in general. But that was too far back, at least for a first try. I wasn't prepared for such a trip. I couldn't speak the language and even a fancy dress shop wouldn't sell the authentic garb to help me fit in. There was something even more enticing, anyway. A mystery that had remained unsolved for over a century.

I picked up the machine. It wasn't heavy and I couldn't help feeling it should be. It should carry the weight of its intention or its implication. It should be almost breaking my back to carry it. It wasn't, however. I could carry it easily in one hand, as if it knew what was coming and was holding its weight in like a bated breath, preparing to exhale its potential explosively when I pressed the switch.

If I pressed it. Did I have the courage? I thought so. I mean, I came thus far. I followed my dream and built an actual, real, time machine. Untested, as it was, it was still a time machine. It might not work. It might spark and fizzle and give a little farting sound as it collapsed in a plume of grey smoke, not even having the decency to be nice and black.

The bus trip was a long one. I'd already travelled to the city the day before, fully intending on doing the do when I arrived, but I didn't. I couldn't. I was too nervous. Or afraid. I might have been afraid. I told myself it was just nerves. It was a big thing. I wasn't just opening a packet of salt and vinegar crisps. I was opening a hole in time and stepping through.

I was feeling a bit peckish though. I skipped breakfast and lunch. I didn't know if the journey would be like riding the Alakazam at the theme park near where I used to live. The park was abandoned now, much like my stomach contents had been the only time I'd ever dared go on. I'd forgone nourishment in favour of not splattering my clothes or shoes, or anyone else, with my part digested cereal and coffee.

I disembarked the bus, feeling as if I were bidding a final farewell to the joy that was public transport.

The landscape had changed dramatically over the decades. Multiple times, buildings had been erected and dismantled, altering the courses of some streets to make them unrecognisable. I knew the main ones still existed, though. I'd taken a tour the previous night, full of tourists but with a hugely entertaining guide. I knew where I needed to be. I knew when to set the dials.

So I went there. As permanently awake as London was, the small alley I settled myself into was an oasis of calm in the tumultuous ocean of noise. I could hear voices in close proximity, but they were either in the next street or a nearby building. They were not here to see me.

I set my time machine down on the pathway, making it as level as possible on the cobbles. It didn't, to my knowledge, matter if it was a little askew, but the momentous needed a certain level of respect. An OCD-like need to have the box set just so was obligatory, as far as I was concerned.

I changed into the correct clothes, needing only to remove the coat and hat from my rucksack to complete a look that was not too far removed from my everyday wear anyway.

I knelt by the time machine.

I stared at it for far too long. Someone would come. I'd be seen. Questioned, perhaps.

I reached out, finger extended.

I pressed the switch.