Careful What You Wish For

 

by

Trevor Portiner

 

 

John is an explorer. He has traveled the world far and wide, but there is nothing that interests him more than the Mayans. John is also an inventor and a good one too. He invented himself his very own time machine. It is in the shape of a perfect sphere and can fit in the palm of your hand. He hasn’t tried his invention yet so that makes him the only person to know about it. In fact, John is on his way to the Mayan pyramids to try his invention for the very first time. Let’s go there now.

 

* * * * * * * * * *

 

John’s plane landed with a sharp jolt which caused his luggage to tumble into the aisle.

 

“Watch it,” John yelled to the pilot. “Haven’t you heard of important scientific inventions before?”

 

The pilot didn’t hear or else didn’t care because there was no response back. The plane soon stopped and John hurried off, carefully taking his luggage under his arm. He immediately found the cab that had been waiting for him and jumped in.

 

“Hotel,” John stated flatly.

 

When John arrived at the hotel he grabbed his room key and went straight into his room. For the first time since getting off the plane he sat his luggage down. He took out his beloved time machine and placed it with care in the room safe. Now time for bed, he thought. I need my sleep for my adventure tomorrow. As he lay there, waiting for sleep to come, he couldn’t help but think about his adventure for the next day.

 

RING. RING. His alarm had awakened him and within five minutes he was out of the hotel, time machine in hand. When he got to the pyramid he was excited and nervous. He counted the steps on the way up to the entrance. 364, 365, how did they know so much about time and dates? Why did their calendar end on December 21, 2012?

 

As he entered the pyramid he was amazed at the poor condition left by tourists. Walls had become illegible; pieces of stone had been chipped off and stolen by tourist. John wandered from empty room to empty room until he found the one that was just right. He pulled his time machine out of his bag. It was made of an aluminum metal that gleams as all shiny metal does.

 

As he gathered the nerves to activate the machine he pondered how accurate the stories really were. Had the Mayans just disappeared, and did they build these monuments by themselves? There was only one way to find out. With every ounce of confidence he had, John activated the machine and the room whirled as the sandy brown walls turned into a white blur.

 

Was he dead?! How could this be? He never miscalculated.

 

Then the white faded into the sandy brown of the pyramid again. But this sand brown wasn’t of the pyramid. It was actual sand. How could this be? Had he ended up in a desert?

 

He looked around in amazement. Sand as far as the eye could see in every direction. Had the Mayan world been a desert before it was a lavish jungle? As John looked around and around, not knowing which way to go, a figure wearing a white robe appeared in the distance.

 

Who is that coming? Is it a mere Neanderthal? I have to hide, John thought to himself. Wait, he wasn’t thinking clearly. There was no figure in the distance, it had been a mirage. Ha, he laughed to himself, hiding in an open desert. Nowhere to hide he laughed again.

 

For the first time since he had arrived in this place he looked down to his time machine, which had landed solidly in the sand. It had left the sand around it slightly pushed up like when a meteor hits the earth, only this was on a much smaller scale.

 

He reached down to pick up his time machine but just before he touched it a hand snatched it up first. For the first time in John’s life, he was scared to death. He jumped back as far as he could and landed on his back causing a sharp pain which quickly vanished. He lay in the sand motionless, eyes shut as tight as a jar of pickles which seemed to be impossible to open at times.

 

“What I can’t see can’t hurt me,” John screamed out loud until his voice was hoarse and had become nothing more than a whisper.

 

“Open your eyes,” said a calm soothing voice, but John was not going to be called now.

 

John knew he was about to die and nothing would take that out of his mind. His life flashed before him. He had never had children because he only had time for his time machine. His wife divorced him because he was too busy with his time machine. Why hadn’t he shown it to other scientists? Was it for fear of it being stolen or because of his pride? Now his beloved time machine had brought him death. Was he a failure or a hero for being the first person to travel through time? Even he didn’t know, nobody would ever know.

 

“Be not afraid,” spoke the calm soothing voice. “Open your eyes and look upon your new world. You are the first to see it.”

 

This person is crazy; he decided it was indeed a person. This world is not new he thought keeping his eyes sealed the entire time. This world is old, older than dirt. Funny he thought to himself, maybe he should have been a comedian. Then the fear sat in again. Had he gone back so far in time that he was the first person alive? This all had to be impossible. Suddenly he knew it was because the person talking to him had seen the world too. He couldn’t be the first to see it. John wanted to tell the person this but words refused to come out of his mouth.

 

“Yes, I know what you’re thinking,” the voice softly told John “that was a poor choice of words. What I meant is you’re the first completely “human” person to see this new world.”

 

Now John was certain he would die because this alien was about to suck out his brain. Could he run? Could he punch this alien until he had time to yank the time machine from its hand? Then, as if by magic, and against his will, his eyes were thrown open, revealing the figure in the white robe which he had seen from a distance.

 

The figure was a man who appeared to be human and not an alien. He had soft compassionate eyes, a white robe which gleamed with radiance, and dark brown hair about shoulder length. His skin was of dark complexion, maybe from the Middle East. He reminded John of someone oddly familiar and his fear of this person instantly vanished. Shocked, John suddenly knew who this person was. It was Jesus.

 

“Do you know what today is,” asked Jesus.

 

“I left on October 22, 2007 and went back in time 1,500 years. That would make today October 22, 507,” John replied smartly.

 

“Incorrect,” stated Jesus kindly. “Today is December 22, 2012. As I know you’re wondering, I brought you here for a reason. Today is the first day of the reborn world, the world is new.”

 

“Did the world end, did the rapture come?” John asked franticly. “How did it end, why did it end?!”

“This is the purpose of me bringing you here,” exclaimed Jesus. “Because of all the war, disease, and technology being used unwisely I had to bring the righteous to justice and the sinners to realization. If you mistreat your world it will decay and become no more. I say you must not give time travel to your world. I have not allowed you to visit the Mayans nor shall I to prove to you with this technology that your world will no longer exist.”

 

With this being said Jesus handed the time machine back to John who now looked at his once loved object with disgust. Could this really cause an end to the world?! Should he really destroy the world’s only time machine? John looked up from his time machine and again was alone in the desert.

 

RING. RING. The sound of an alarm clock awoke John. He sat up in his bad. Had everything just been a dream? It didn’t matter. He bounced over to his safe and quickly opened it. He was afraid to look inside because of fear that it would be gone. He looked inside and to his surprise it was still there. The world held only one time machine and he had it. There was no way he was about to destroy it. The world needed it and of course he would become rich, rich, rich. He laughed to himself. Like the world would really end.

 

He quickly dressed himself humming all the while. He was going to be a world idol. Rich and famous, this is everyone’s goal in life. He laughed again. Jesus is just mad because he can’t have everything he wants. John stepped outside the hotel with a look of contempt on his face. He stood, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. Today was a good day to be alive.

 

* * * * * * * * * *

 

Some say John was crazy. Others argue that he was brilliant. Only one thing is certain. As he stood outside taking a deep breath, a statue of Jesus fell upon John crushing him and his time machine into tiny pieces. Where did the statue come from? Nobody knows, nobody asks.