The Time Traveler Adventures

EPISODE 4 - BACK TO THE PRESENT

It was at that moment the apartment shuddered as the Time Machine activated again and I rushed to the back room………..only to find it empty. The Time Machine was gone!

I suddenly felt helpless! My family was missing and the Time Machine, perhaps my only means of finding them, had also vanished! I staggered back into the front room and slumped into my easy chair. What could I do? What was happening? Who had taken the Time Machine? My future self? Why was he doing this? What did he have to gain by messing with time?

As I sat there, I thought about what had happened over the past few months. This had started because of letters I had received from the past. Letters, which Emily had written, pleading with me to come back to her! Because of these letters, I had invented a method to travel through time and I used it. I traveled back to 1860, just before the Civil War, met and married Emily. When I returned to the present, Emily accompanied me, along with our newborn baby girl, Anna Marie.

At that point, things seemed to get out of hand! One morning, reality changed and my future self showed up with a relic from the past, a Golden Arrow. In order to fix this rip in time, I was forced to travel back to the past and replace the relic so the course of history could resume uninterrupted. I was severely wounded in the process. I had taken a knife wound to my side. Sitting there in my front room I realized the wound was hurting immensely. I got up and found the jar of Motrin. Taking two, I wandered into the kitchen.

I picked up a banana and sat at the kitchen table. This morning the Time Machine had activated again but this time, it had come back in poor shape, as if someone had tried to destroy it. I’m certain it was my future self, although there was no trace of him. I had decided to dismantle the Machine but in doing so, I had accidentally activated it and it sent me back to the dawn of time. Luckily I’d found tools to repair the Machine and was able to get back to my own time.

So now I sat in my kitchen in my pajamas, exhausted and hurting. The Motrin hadn’t kicked in yet. My family was missing and I didn’t know what to do. Then I realized I was unconsciously waiting for the Time Machine to return. Although I had no reason to believe the Machine would return on it’s own, here I was waiting for it!

I found myself staring at Emily’s purse and I felt something nagging at the corner of my mind. It was almost as if there was something wrong but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Then it came to me! Emily’s cell phone! It wasn’t in its usual place next to her purse.

Funny thing about Emily and that cell phone! The first day I brought her back from the past, she fell in love with the telephone. As she made friends, it seemed as if she spent more and more time on the phone. So much time, in fact, I recently bought her a cell phone. She never kept it in her purse. More than likely, it was in her hand or somewhere close by. I had joked with her that I almost didn’t recognize her without that phone. I remembered she smiled at that and then she kissed me. And then the cell phone rang and she answered it!

I got up and searched through her purse for the phone. It wasn’t there. I looked in all the usual places but came up empty! That meant she had her phone! I could call her! I dashed into the front room and went to grab the desk phone. That’s when I saw it wasn’t there! I hurried into the bedroom to use that phone and it was also gone!

Where were all the phones! I needed a phone to try and contact Emily! Any phone would do. Cordless, cell, princess phone! It didn’t matter. I just need a phone! Anyone got a phone?

I sat down and put the phone on my lap! Picking up the receiver, I dialed Emily’s cell phone number. I took a deep breath! I just hope she had it with her. I could hear the pulses as it dialed out and then it rang once. I waited almost impatiently as it rang again. “Come on”, I said under my breath! “Pick up Emily! Pick up!” It rang a third time and I prayed that it wouldn’t roll to the answering machine. Why wasn’t she picking up? It rang a fourth time…………       Phone dial by Barlekis the Wizard

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