By Anonymous
Three friends and I were enjoying a few rounds of the Catholic Card Game in our dorm when our fifth friend—whom I shall refer to as the time traveler from here on—stumbled through the door, haggard and exhausted.
We paused our game, astonished as he sat down and began devouring our Takis. “You’ve no idea,” he began, “how terrible the food is from when I’ve just come.”
“Don’t you mean ‘from where’?” asked the philosophy major, brow raised.
After shoving another fistful of Takis into his mouth, the time traveler answered, “No, no. When is undoubtedly the correct term.” He gulped down this last handful and looked around at us, exchanging glances.
“Right,” the time traveler said. “I had forgotten that none of you were quite privy to my most recent experiments, and from your point of view I’ve not been gone but a few hours, perhaps?” He paused for a moment, pensively staring out the window. “Yes, we just had lunch together a few hours ago, didn’t we?”
We most certainly had eaten lunch together. However, looking at the time traveler’s torn, faded Baron Day t-shirt, which had been vibrant green a few hours ago, I marveled at what mischief he could have gotten himself into since then.
“Well,” he began again, “I suppose I ought to explain all this to you. Not, of course, that I expect you to believe me. Though I solemnly promise everything I’m about to share is true, word for word.
“It all began with my senior engineering project. I had just read ‘The Time Machine’ by H.G. Wells, and I was tantalized by his explanation of time travel. I decided to give it a shot myself.
“Now, as for my current appearance, it all began—”
“Wait just a minute!” burst the com arts major. “Are you seriously suggesting that you put together a functional time machine? And you expect us to believe that?”
“Yes to the first question, though not to the second. Pay attention.”
The journalist was silent, looking at the time traveler to continue, though skeptical.
“As I was saying,” picked up the time traveler, “it all began but a few hours ago by your reckoning. After lunch, I went to work on my project, as the deadline was fast approaching. After a couple of hours, I soldered the last wires in place, completing my machine.
“I straddled the seat and placed my hand on the handle. Tired from my work, I leaned back in the chair and inadvertently pulled the lever, flinging myself through time. When I arrived, I was thrown from my machine and lost consciousness.
“I awoke sometime later to a strange sight. I was in the nursing wing of Christ the Teacher, though the building seemed old … very old. Even stranger was the nursing major that came in to tend to me.
She spoke in a whisper, and it seemed every other word from her mouth was ‘just.’ She closed her eyes and extended her hand as she said, ‘I just ask that you just rest and just make a full recovery.’
“That was how all the people communicated: raised hands, closed eyes, soft voices, and the unavoidable ‘just.’ Her appearance, too, was noteworthy.
“The girl wore a flower crown atop her head at all times, and she had hardened fingertips and bottoms of her feet. Exploring the area, I realized that all the women wore flower crowns, and the calloused limbs and digits were from walking barefoot everywhere and playing excessive amounts of guitar, respectively.
“I soon understood that this was undoubtedly the same hill I had built my machine upon, and these people were the descendants of my classmates. It seemed peculiar, though, that they were all the charismatic type, and there seemed no trads around. My curiosity was sated, however, as I looked up behind the old friary, seeing a massive baroque-gothic hybrid of a church.
“I entered the wooden gates and found a rather different people inside. These folk had bowed necks, steel knees and only spoke in chanted Latin with the occasional Hebrew interjection. Their pupils had grown significantly, as they only used candlelight to illuminate their church.
“These two peoples, the trads and the charismatics, never interacted if they could help it, and, when they did chance to meet, they could not understand one another. I recall one such encounter, wherein the charismatic spoke first: ‘I just ask that Daddy God would just be with you.’
“Brow raised, the trad hesitantly replied, ‘Et cum spiritu tuo?’ They both walked away.” At that, the time traveler trailed off, looking toward the stars. He was silent for some time, and when he did begin again, all he said was, “I never saw the two peoples interact again.”
It seemed to us that his story had just begun, and we squirmed waiting for more. But that was all he had for us: “I’m sorry, gentlemen, but I’ve grown rather weary from my travels. Perhaps we can pick this up another time?”
TO BE CONTINUED …
MAYBE.