"I don't have time to explain" the man said,
"I'm you from the future, come with me or you're doomed!"
Now most people would have responded to a bearded man
bursting into their house, spouting nonsense by calling the police, throwing
things at them, or screaming. But something about this stranger who looked identical
to me, except for a scraggly beard, appearing in my house with a magic blue box
makes me pause for thought. So either I have an incredibly resourceful evil
twin brother, or I have a doppelganger who is playing an elaborate practical
joke. But I guess the whole future self thing is also a possibility, so I
decided to hear him out.
Scraggly beard man dragged me into his big, blue box, which,
you guessed it, was bigger on the inside, but not by as much as you would
think. It was literally just big enough to hold maybe four people, but on the
outside it looked like you could only squeeze in two. After pressing some
buttons, which I assumed started the machine, he began his monologue.
"In two years, seven month, and 3 days, you'll invent a
time machine, and from there all hell breaks loose," he began, "the
second you finish the machine a bunch of time traveling assassins will burst
in the room and attack you, only for you to escape into the machine and jump
forward 3 months. What you'll find when you exit the machine is only
destruction and chaos, as hundreds of time travelers are swarming the world
searching for you, hoping to kill you and prevent time travel from ever
existing."
"So why did you come back here specifically," I
asked wanting to know the obvious (I mean besides the fact that it will only
take me two and half years from now to invent a time machine), "I mean if
there are time travelers hunting me, they could literally appear anywhere
anytime."
"Because this is the exact moment when you first had
the idea for the time machine," he explained, "all you have to do is not
have the idea for the time machine and not invent it."
"Okay, but if I don't invent it how do you get here,"
I started before he interrupted me.
"Wait, no don't inject logic int-" he started
before everything went white.
_________________________________________________________________________________
What was I thinking about again, time travel? Did I leave
the sci-fi channel on last night? Hey what are all these blue scraps doing on
my front yard? They remind me of the that time machine from that one show, you
know the one. Hey wouldn't it be cool to be the guy who invents time travel? It
might take me a while, but when I'm done I'll have all the time in the world!
Okay that was terrible, but no seriously I want to invent time travel now. Who
knows maybe the secret to time travel is right under my nose.
