"I told you, I'm not going in your stupid time machine."

"Well, someone has to test it out!" Ross yelled loudly in return.  His hands waved furiously in large sweeping motions as his frantic eyes raced back from the subject before him to the time machine sitting with mock innocence in the far corner, a floral bedsheet draped across it in a futile attempt to hide its existence.

"Why don't you try it?  After all, you did invent it."

"Because what if it doesn't come back?"

"Is that your sales pitch?  There's no way in hell I'm going now.  Look at these walls.  Every relic of mine would suddenly disappear.  I would no longer exist.  I'd be wiped from history."

"Oh, don't be a wuss.  You wouldn't be erased from history.  You would just have been born about two hundred years later."

Walter shook his head with disbelief.  "You're out of luck, son."

"Well," Ross began innocently.  "If you won't do it willingly, I guess I'll have to do it by force."  Without giving Walter time to react to his threat, Ross charged at him and tackled him to the ground.  Although Walter squirmed with previously unknown fervor, his surplus of age kept him from fighting off the bulky Ross.

Without much effort, Ross drug Walter across the linoleum floor and to the time machine, which he uncovered with his free hand while making sure Walter didn't escape his grasp.  With one swift motion, he swept Walter up and shoved him into the time machine.

Before Walter could recover, Ross threw the door shut and pulled down the locking handle on the outside.

As Ross jumped back out of range, the machine began to buzz methodically and rattle in its place on the floor.  After a few seconds of furious vibrating, the make-shift machine dissolved.

With little, if any, emotion, Ross swept up the bedsheet from the floor and headed for the door.  Before exiting, he stopped and glanced around at the bare walls.  "I could've sworn we had pictures of Dad in here," he mumbled to himself before shutting the door and going back to his study.
 

Copyright 1998 Jon Hodges

You can e-mail Jon j-g-jordan@juno.com