A voice called back to him, though not one that he knew. "We don't mean to startle you, my good man. We are simply a pair of weary travelers that unfortunately wound up in your domicile."
Great, thought John, some crazy hobo's broken in and now he's lost. Should I call the cops? Do the cops even deal with crazy hobos? While he was trying to decide what to do next, he stepped out far enough to turn on the lights.
"Ah, splendid! You have electric lamps!" said a different voice, with what sounded like a Russian accent. John's eyes were adjusting to the light, but he could see that there were two men in the living room with him, but they didn't look like any homeless person he'd ever seen before. One man was very tall and thin with a dark mustache and was wearing a very old-looking suit. The other man looked like, well, he looked like Mark Twain.
John tried to raise the baseball bat he was carrying menacingly, but his expression was far too confused to intimidate anyone. "What's going on here? Did you guys come from a play or something? Why are you dressed like Mark Twain?"
The Mark Twain doppelganger smiled broadly. "You recognize me! That is quite nice to know. Tell me what year is it?"
John was thoroughly confused now. "Is this like a gag or something? Are you guys, like, making a video for YouTube or something?" he asked as he lowered the bat to his side.
"What my friend means," said the Russian-sounding guy, "is that we have recently traveled and are no longer aware of the date. Would you be so kind as to inform us?"
Completely at a loss for what was happening, John told them.
Mark Twain laughed "Ha ha! Over one hundred years later and my name is still well known!"
"Your pen name is well known," corrected the Russian-sounding man.
"Very well, but he recognized my face as well. I would say that's even more remarkable!"
"Just a second," John said, gathering back some determination. "What is going on? Why are you in my apartment?"
"Our sincere apologies," replied the tall man who's accent wasn't quite Russian, John decided. "My name is Nikola Tesla. You appear to already know of my companion. We were conducting an experiment in my lab in New York City in the year 1896 and we were transported through space and time."
John rolled his eyes. "You expect me to believe that you time-traveled here?"
"The choice to believe our tale or not is entirely yours," said Mark Twain, "but your rejection of our explanation will not change the facts."
John thought for a moment. He decided that if he had to deal with crazy people, he might as well have some fun. "Out of all of history, why'd you come to my apartment at 1 in the morning?"
Nikola explained: "In truth, this is not our first journey through time. We were attempting to arrive back to our starting time, but we appear to have missed our target, but by only about one hundred years this time. I am confident that the next attempt will be successful."
John smiled a little. "It's starting to make sense now. You guys are high, right? You guys on mushrooms or somethi--" John was interrupted by the sound of glass breaking in the bathroom. "There's more of you?" he asked as he walked quickly towards the bathroom. As he walked, Nikola called behind him, "If there's another traveler, it is purely by accident!"
John opened the bathroom door and saw a guy in his late teens or early twenties, wearing a dress. All around him on the floor were shards of glass that used to be the bathroom mirror. The man looked up, clearly shocked. Nikola and Mark appeared behind John, peering over his shoulders. Without turning around, John addressed the two men to his rear. "A friend of yours?"
"Not quite," Mark said. "That is a young man we recruited to help us when we were last stranded in ancient Greece. He can become very distracted by his own reflection. For this reason, I believe that he is the one that the myth of Narcissus was based on."
"Okay," John said. "Let's get him out of here before he cuts himself trying to make out with a shard of broken glass."
~~~
Wide awake, John was pacing back and forth across the living room floor. "So let me get this straight. Nik, you worked for Thomas Edison and he stole a bunch of your ideas. Later, you started you own lab and became friends with Mark - sorry, Sam. You two were hanging out and tried an experiment when you were transported to sixteenth century England. You tried to duplicate the experiment, but ended up somewhere in France during the Crusades. You tried again and wound up in ancient Greece where you picked up this guy by mistake. And now you think you can make it back to where you started if you try one more time?"
"Yes, very good summary," said Sam from his seat on the sofa.
"Why will this time work when the other times just sent you off all over the place?"
"With each attempt," answered Nik, who was sitting next to Sam, "we obtain better control over the place and date of our destination. For example, we finally made it back to the United States, though Philadelphia is clearly not New York. Also, this was our first successful forward leap in time rather than go backwards again. Even if we don't make it exactly to where and when we are attempting, we will surely be much closer than now."
John nodded his head, thinking. "And the equipment you build to make these time jumps gets destroyed every time?"
"Correct. However, with your materials and appliances in this, our future, we should be ready much faster this time."
John looked over to Narss (as he had started calling him), who was sitting on an ottoman and was occupied taking selfies with John's cell phone. "And what about him? Are you going to take him back to his time first?"
"As much as I hate to say it," Sam said, "we can't risk getting lost again. We'll have to take him with us to our time. I'm certain that his family will miss him, but they surely won't miss all the time he took watching his reflection. That aside, we can provide him a good life in our time, one much better than he would have lived in his own."
"I can probably convince my sister to adopt him," offered Nik. "She is very caring, even to strangers."
John stopped pacing and looked at Sam and Nik. "Let's pretend that I believe what you're saying. Why should I help you?"
Sam stood up and looked John squarely in the eye while placing a hand firmly on his shoulder. "Why, for the adventure! Just think, no one in your time will have ever met a time-traveler. Not only have you already met three, but you can now help us get back to our own time. No other man in history will be able to say that!"
"Except for Narcissus," pointed out Nik.
Sam shot an annoyed glare at his friend. "Well, no other man will be able to say that and won't also be stranded in another time."
"How much time do you need to build your equipment again?" asked John.
"I expect that it should take only about one or two days," answered Nik.
~~~
Nearly three weeks later and the three men were finally ready to leave. Nik's estimation had been based on what technologies he assumed would be available in the year 2014. Even so, John was impressed with what they had accomplished. A couple of old TVs and a microwave from a thrift store, along with various odd bits of wire and parts from a few calculators, and Nik and Sam had supposedly built a time machine. Now, here in the parking lot behind the closed-down movie theater, it was time for the moment of truth.
"Thank you again for your kindness, John," said Sam. "This has been our best trip as of yet."
"Agreed," Nik said while still making some final adjustments to the machine.
"I still don't know why you two didn't want to look anything up on the internet," said John, "to see how things worked out for you."
"Knowing the future won't stop me from dying one day," Sam said, "but it would make me fret over each moment until the final day. I'd rather enjoy the time I have, however long that may be."
"And I," Nik said, turning to face John, "do not wish to lose out on the experience of discovering new ideas and concepts on my own."
"Beside that," Sam said, "Narcissus has been using your machine to view this inter-net the whole time, so we'd hardly have a chance ourselves even if we'd wanted it."
"I meant to ask about that," John said, looking over at Narss. "What's he been looking at?"
Nik called Narss over and said a few words in another language to him. After a reply, Nik translated. "He said that he very much enjoys something called the 'Book of Faces' and how anyone can take photographs of himself to share with others. He is especially impressed with some young woman named Paris. He has learned a lot from her about loving one's own self. Also, he says that he very much enjoys moving pictures of cats."
John nodded his head. "It looks like he really understands the internet. Did he see anything he didn't like?"
Nik said a few more words to Narss, whose reply was much shorter than the previous one. "He said that a man named Khan-yay West needs to get over himself."
With that, the three men each took turns shaking John's hand before grasping the coiled-wire handles that allowed them to interface with the machine. John stepped back to what Nik had assured him was a safe distance and waved good-bye. The other men waved back as Nik pressed the initiation button. Suddenly, there was a flash of light and John had to shield his eyes with his hands to keep from being blinded. After a few seconds, the light faded and John lowered his hands.
He had to admit, he was impressed. The three men were gone, along with about half of the machine. What remained of the machine was partially on fire. Everything looked about how Nik and Sam had predicted.
After such witnessing the operation of a legitimate time machine, and spending nearly a month with legendary historical figures, John summed up his feelings: "Man, that was weird."
1 comment:
Loved the ending quote.
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