Seyunolu here. If you read El Goonish Shive, you know what that word actually means. Not that it has any meaning in the real world, I just thought it's make a cool username. Anyway, this is my first story, hooray! If you read my profile, you know that I wrote this for a school assignment. But go no further if you haven't read "The Time Machine" first!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter 1
At last, I will have proof of my time-traveling. At last, someone will believe my seemingly ludicrous claims of facing the eventual fate of mankind, deep in the hazy future. As the dial measuring days on my machine begins to spin forward ever faster, I contemplate just what man might achieve before degenerating into the Eloi and the Morlocks. As in ancient Rome, there must always be a period of glory before that of decadence! Surely our late nineteenth-century existence will seem primitive to humans several centuries from now! Of course, "now" is a relative term, and even more so when one is time-traveling… I plan to check on society's progress at several intervals of approximately one hundred years each, with written and photographical records. That should be enough documentation to persuade even my skeptical little dinner group, let alone my good friend Herbert!
Goodness! I have become wrapped up in my musings, and not paid the slightest bit of attention to what is happening outside! For although the year is now only 1965, I see great towers obscuring the horizon over London, and as time passes by, more keep going up with increasing speed, and the houses on the outskirts cluster together and sprawl further out… And yet I have only just come to the realization that I can observe all of this because my laboratory has been knocked down, as has my house... Ah! Yet again, I have become engrossed in my thoughts, and time has gotten away from me. Let's see… Grasp the lever, bring it back towards me… there. I have overshot my goal a bit; the year is now 2007.
That was what Alexander thought as he traveled to our own time. He landed in the middle of a street. It was night-time. He pondered the fact that the streetlamps were filled with bright white light rather than flickering flames. They must be powered by electricity rather than gas, he thought. I suppose we have Thomas Edison to thank for that. And what are all the strange metal carriages lining the side of the road? Could they be automobiles…?
A police constable rounded the street corner. No doubt he'll want to know exactly what is going on, Alexander thought. The officer noticed him, and hurried over.
"What's all this, then? What's that strange contraption you've got there, and why've you got it parked in the middle of the street?"
" What do you mean by parked, constable?"
"Are you funny in the head?"
"No, sir, but you'll believe I am if I tell you the answers to your first two questions, so I think I'd best not."
"Well, I don't really care if you do or not, as long as you get that thing out of the street, it's blocking the way… Hang on! It's got no wheels, how'd you get it out here in the first place?"
"Well, constable…"
SCREEEEEECH!!! HONNNNNK!!! Alex jumped right off the Time Machine. A car had appeared behind them, headlights blaring, radio blasting. I suppose they are automobiles, as there are no horses, he thought. A man in a suit leaned out the window and started shouting at them.
"What's going on? I've got to get through!"
"You might as well go around, sir, this chap's being difficult…"
"What!? I can't go around, my house is on this block!"
"Now, see here…"
Well, I'll leave them to it. Alexander dragged his Time Machine to the side of the street, pocketed the control levers and went on his way. Whatever there is to see of the society of the future, I suppose it is in the center of the city.