The Time Machine Did It by John Swartzwelder

Author:John Swartzwelder
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: Private investigators, Humorous stories, Mystery & Detective, Humorous, General, Fiction
ISBN: 9780975579909
Publisher: Kennydale Books
Published: 2004-06-15T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

I took a walk around town. It was like I was living in a history book. A stinking history book. I never did like history when I was in school, and this wasn’t increasing my fondness for the subject. History is over, I’ve always felt, let’s move on. I suppose some people would have found it charming to suddenly find themselves in an earlier, simpler time, where everyone was friendly and stupid, but I didn’t. Try getting your mail in a situation like that. It can’t be done. The one thing that made me feel better was knowing that I had screwed up cases a lot worse than this before.

As I walked, I calmly took stock of my situation. Number one: I didn’t have the time machine anymore. So, number two: I was doomed. I calmly tried to think of a number three. There wasn’t a number three. Then I remembered something that had gotten me out of a lot of tight spots before – hysteria. It might work in this situation. I would give it a try. So I ran down the street screaming and waving my arms, then curled up in a ball on the sidewalk and rolled all over the place, yelling and gibbering. All this accomplished nothing. Hysteria, I discovered, didn’t work in a situation like this. Make a note of that.

When I calmed down enough to get my tongue out of my windpipe, it came to me that a person in my situation needed the help of a scientist. Since I didn’t have access to Professor Groggins, I went to a nearby physics laboratory and asked to talk to the guy with the biggest brain. There was a whispered conference amongst the physicists, tape measures, skull saws, and forceps were brought out, then finally one of them came forward to talk to me with a slight smirk on his face.

I outlined my problem for him, as best as I knew how. We quickly got into a shouting match, with him saying time travel couldn’t be done, and me saying then explain my presence here asshole. So he said make me. And I said I sure would in just about a minute. Then he punched me in the stomach. When I got my breath back, we agreed to disagree, and I left. So much for the scientific approach.

I knew at the time that it didn’t make a lot of sense, but I was getting kind of desperate and I needed to talk to Professor Groggins, so I went to a telegraph office with the idea of sending a telegram to 2003. I figured the worst that could happen would be I’d be out a couple of bucks and the rest of the telegram sending public would give me the horselaugh. Which is what happened, so I was right in a way. Score one for me.

The people behind the counter didn’t know what I was talking about at first. And they still didn’t know what I was talking about a couple of hours later.

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