You can never get away

I’d had enough. I needed a get-away-from-it-all break. So I hopped in my time machine and went forward to the year 3,000,000. I picked that time because I was sure by then the Universe had enough of humans and was back to favoring dirt and rocks.

I was right. There I was, standing on a flat and treeless ground. There wasn’t a building, person, animal or car in sight. The silence was immense. I put my ear to the ground and heard the Earth creaking in its rotation.

Off in the distance, the wind whirled, creating a dust devil. The dust devil got closer. Soon it was hovering, inches from my face. The dust devil said, “Heeeyyy, how’s it going? My name’s Mitch. Do you wanna be my friend? Hmm? Hmm?  Hey, let’s have a tickle fight. Whaddya say, whaddya say, whaddya say?”

I ran in the opposite direction. The dust devil followed, saying, “Hey, where yah going? Can I come with yah? Oh, I get it, you wanna play tag. I’m gonna getcha!” I ran faster, but the dust devil kept up, just inches away.

I fell and the dust devil swept under me, lifting me forty feet in the air, spinning me around until I almost threw up, and saying, “I got yah, I got yah, I got yah!”

I yelled to be put down. The dust devil set me on the ground and said, “Okay, now you catch me!” It swiftly swept across the barren landscape until it was a tiny spike of dust in the distance. I ran to my time-travel machine, punched in today’s date, and found myself back home.

The phone was ringing, someone was knocking at the door, and a neighbor’s car alarm was going off. I closed my eyes and fell into a deep sleep.

Finally, I’m heard

When I was a kid I found it easier to make art rather than use words. I used to carry around a pad of paper and crayons and draw out whatever I wanted to communicate with another person. People would often get confused and say things like, “Oh, that’s a nice drawing. What’s it supposed to be?” Then I’d do another drawing to express my frustration that they didn’t understand the first drawing. Eventually people would avoid me if they saw me coming.

Before long I had to start using words in conversations, but I wasn’t nice about it, and people would say I was being belligerent. As a consequence I kept my interactions with others few and far between. I mostly spent time alone, creating multitudes of art that expressed my dissatisfaction with the situation.

When I got my time-machine, the first person I visited was the great painter, El Greco, in his home town of Toledo, Spain, in the year 1577. To me he was the ultimate painter because he was known for only ever using a few words, begrudgingly, and that was to buy painting supplies. I felt that we would communicate beautifully through our art.

I found El Greco in his studio, in the midst of painting his masterpiece, The Assumption of the Virgin. I took out a pad of paper and crayons and made a drawing that expressed my gratitude with meeting him. El Greco looked at what I’d drawn, snorted his disapproval, and went back to painting.

I got out another sheet of paper and drew a picture that expressed the hurt I felt from traveling through hundreds of years to meet him, only to be snubbed. I had to hold the drawing in front of his painting to get him to take a look. With his brush, El Greco plopped a dollop of carillon blue smack into the middle of my drawing.

I lost it and put my head through The Assumption of the Virgin. El Greco wailed and punched me in the stomach. We rolled around on the floor, gouging, scratching, and striking one another. We were soon covered in paint, splinters from broken frames, and soaked in turpentine. Finally we lay still in exhaustion.

We got up slowly, and in silence, cleaned up the studio.

Time spent with the boy Adolf

When I purchased my Casio Timer time-machine in 1982, I spent the extra money and got the Deluxe Timer. It’s a time-machine that allows the time-traveler to go to a point in the past or future, pick someone up, and give them a ride to another time and place.

I recently did this for the boy Hitler. I traveled to the year 1894, Passau, Germany, and knocked at the door of the Hitler homestead. Klara, the mother, answered the door. I said that I was the local proctor and needed to administer an exam to young Adolph to determine which levels he would attend when he started first grade in the fall. Klara brought me to the solarium where boy Adolf was attempting to teach their pet schnauzer, Jörg-Jürgen, the Der Deutsche, a traditional German dance.

Klara left the room and I asked boy Adolf if he liked dinosaurs. He got excited, and as he began naming them off, “Triceratops, Brachiosaurus, Stegosaurus,” I took the portable Deluxe Timer out of my pocket, held boy Adolf’s hand, and whispered into the device, “66 Million B.C., Pangea.” Back then, there was only one continent, it hadn’t split into the five yet, and it didn’t officially have a name. But the Deluxe Timer knew and brought us there.

Suddenly boy Adolf, Jörg-Jürgen, and I were standing in the outdoors, amidst a quickly moving heard of Ankylosaurus. Boy Adolf whooped, his dog howled, and they took off running alongside the heard. I panicked because I didn’t want the boy to get hurt. Sure, he was Hitler, but he was a lad and needed protection. I ran after them.

By now boy Adolf had climbed aloft an Ankylosaurus and was hollering and riding it like a horse. The dinosaur was covered with huge thorns, a mighty armor, and had a mace for a tail. I feared the worst. But it was a mother (it was trailed by five mini versions of itself) and was gentle with its rider, as it looked up at boy Adolf, and then at its youngins with loving eyes. Jörg-Jürgen ran behind, barking and corralling like a shepherd dog.

I was sprinting, but they moved faster and further away. I lost them in the distance.

I sat down on a rock and rested. What was I thinking when I brought the boy back to prehistoric times? Was I just planning to leave him here? I didn’t have an answer.

A Pterodactyl landed next to me. The Pterodactyl said, “My name is Phlinx. What’s yours?” I introduced myself. Phlinx the Pterodactyl lowered its head and I pet it’s scalp, which was surprisingly soft.

Question answered

Maybe things aren’t as horrible as I imagine

I woke up this morning with a feeling to visit my friend John Pintard. John is the most easy going person I know. He doesn’t seem to mind if things work out his way or not. When we get together, I tell John my worries and fears and he laughs and laughs. It makes me feel that maybe things aren’t as horrible as I imagine.

I got dressed, stepped into in my time-machine, and set the dials for the year 1810, New York City, Scudder’s American Museum, where John works. I went into the building and showed the attendant my life-time pass. I bought the pass many trips ago for only twenty-five cents. In my up-to-date life, I buy very little. But when I go back in time, I go nuts with the purchases because everything is so cheap. I recently purchased an 800 foot Hindenburg airship. It only cost me $300. I use it as my car. However, I fill it with helium rather than hydrogen so it won’t explode.

I walked past the lamb with two-heads, the guillotine beheading a wax figure, and a taxidermied President Millard Fillmore that moved its arms and shouted, “What, me worry?” I found my friend John in his office. He leaned way back in his creaky chair, put a piece of straw in his mouth, tucked his thumbs in his suspenders, and said, “Why if it isn’t my good chum, Hubbuby! Take a seat, lad.”

I sat across from John and shared my frustrations and foibles. John laughed so hard he slid halfway out of his chair. I felt a little better. He said, “In moments of pain and derision, we often react as if we are being attacked by a pack of wolfhounds. But if we avoid the wincing, we behold the sun shining out the arse of our misfortune.”

The time I almost fell off the Empire State Building

I remember when I was nine and almost fell off the Empire State Building. I was on the observation deck with my family. I was a natural climber and I scaled up the fence meant to keep people from falling off. I got to the top, looked back and said, “Dad, look at me!!” My dad asked me to wait while he got out the camera. He reached into the backpack my mom carried on her back. My mom was slight and tiny, but she was always the one who carried the heavy backpack filled with snacks, sodas, and various stuff. My dad couldn’t find the camera, lost his temper, and yelled at my mom. My mom nervously screamed back at him that he wasn’t looking in the right place.

Meanwhile a dragonfly buzzed around my head. I turned around quickly, lost my footing, and started to fall off the building. Just then a hand reached out, grabbed my foot, and swiftly pulled me back to the observation deck. I looked around to see who saved my life, but there was no one. Meanwhile, my dad had found the camera and got upset at me for getting back down from the fence before he could take the picture. I tried to explain what had happened, but he got further upset at me for making up stories.

That was July 6th, 1970. Today I took my time-machine back to the observation deck and that same fateful time and day. I wanted to show up and save myself since I figured the future me was the one who pulled the younger me back from the fall of certain death.

There was my sister, dad, mom and I. It was weird to see myself as a kid. I used to eat the worst kinds of crap back then. Soda, candy, hotdogs, and Wonder Bread from dawn to dusk. But I looked so healthy, like a triple-haloed angel.

I moved closer to my family as they approached the edge of the observation deck. As the younger me began to scale the fence, I got right in behind, ready to grab. The young Brooks was now standing on the top of the fence, glowing at the attention he was getting from his dad. Suddenly a dragonfly buzzed around him and he turned to watch it fly by. The now me was shaking with nerve juice, ready to leap and save the day. The younger me looked back at his dad who took the picture, and he quickly and safely climbed back down.

I was stunned and fell to the ground. “How was this possible? This wasn’t what I remembered.”

Suddenly my family was standing in front of me. My mom said, “Sir, are you okay?” I noticed that she wasn’t carrying a backpack. I nodded that I was alright. My dad took my arm and helped me up. He said, “Hey, old-timer, you’re probably dehydrated. Brooks, give him some of water from your canteen.” The younger me unscrewed the cap from his canteen, winked, and offered me a drink.