TIME TRAVEL: THE ORIGIN STORY

Since I began chronicling my adventures in the recent past, many doubters have expressed disbelief regarding my accounts. They demand that Phil X be truthful, that he confess there be no time machine invented by him, that he admit that these so-called "time travel adventures" are nothing more than a work of fiction.

Okay, ye naysayers. Here be the truth: Phil X is not really travelling through time in a homemade continuity cruiser he conceptualized. That’s right. I did not, in fact, build a time machine. The honest-to-God truth is, the actual means of chronological transgression (time travel for laypersons) was given to me by a member of the Zwevoids. The Zwevoids are an extraterrestrial race that has walked among humankind for centuries. They have infiltrated the highest levels of our society, and have borne witness to some of the most important events in human history. The particular Zwevoid who handed me the secret of time travel works in a small, private video store on Avenue U. His name was/is Rupert Zwevoid.

Three months ago, and five years into the future: I was perusing the shelves of that small, independently-owned video store on Avenue U, looking for a copy of the critically-acclaimed "Somewhere in Time," which starred the late Christopher Reeve. Since I did not see it on the shelf, I asked Rupert, who was working the register that night (Now that I think about it, he always worked the register, no matter what the day or time was) whether he had ever heard of such a movie. Rupert diligently searched through the computer database, and turned up the title. Unfortunately, the store had no copy.

"So you like time travel movies?" Rupert asked me. "We have ‘Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home’ on the shelf."

"Seen it already, Rupert," was my disappointed reply.

"Oh, okay," said Rupert. "Well, gee, I hate turning away a customer empty-handed. Especially a regular. So how about I give you the secret of time travel, which my extra-terrestrial race mastered several millenia ago…?"
* * *

Rupert gave me a remote. It looked like the handle of a gear shift, only with a small counter and a single, white button at the top. He asked me to please not press the button until he had finished explaining what the remote does. According to Rupert, this device was similar to what we twentieth-century earthlings would call a "garage door opener." Like said opener, pressing the button at the top of the remote sends out a signal that activates some very important Gears and Pulleys somewhere. However, the gears and pulleys Rupert went on to describe didn’t open a garage door so much as drastically alter the position of the sun, thereby undoing the chains of gravity binding our entire universe, effectively destroying it. The remote didn’t give off a "garage door opening signal" so much as an "Armageddon Signal."

But the Zwevoid machines destroy the universe in order to facilitate time travel. Rupert explained it to me best using a movie analogy:

"You know how in ‘Star Trek IV,’ the crew achieves time travel by sling-shotting their stolen Klingon ship around the sun? Well, we Zwevoids do the opposite. We achieve time travel by sling-shotting the sun around our ships."

Apparently, "Divine Machines," the source of the sling-shotting, wade invisibly out amongst the stars. But with a single press of the button on the remote, the machines could line up to form a pool cue of epic proportions, which could give the sun such a thwack as to make it do a one-time fly-by past the source of the "Armageddon Signal."

However, after seemingly destroying the universe, the Zwevoid "Divine Machines" would return the planets, moons, and the sun to their original positions mere milliseconds later. On certain weekdays, they also give some of Saturn’s moons a vigorous dusting. In the time frame that it would take one of us humans to complain that aliens were urging the universe to engage in the long goodbye, Zwevoid technology could have already obliterated, and resurrected, said universe a dozen times over. And the most amazing thing is, we humans would never notice it! Zwevoids have been blowing up and reforming the universe for centuries, but for us, the experience manifests itself as the most fleeting of momentary nausea or dizziness. Have you ever felt your eyes get tired while reading the paper on the subway? That ain’t eye fatigue, buddy. It’s the "Divine Machines" reassembling reality!

Of course, certain questions remain: How does the one who activates the "Armageddon Signal" avoid being caught up in the subsequent maelstrom, and destroyed himself? And how does any of this lead to time travel?

Answer to the first question: In order to avoid being torn asunder with the rest of the universe, it is essential to be inside the proper time-travelling carriage. Since most of the car companies on planet Earth aren’t designing vehicles for effective time travel, Rupert instructed me to simply get a cast-iron bathtub, and affix the helmet of a hair salon chair to it. The helmet, according to my alien adviser, would protect my skull from the elaborate special effects that accompany time travel, and could possibly take my head off if I wasn’t careful.

Cast-iron bathtubs are great, said Rupert, because they’re practically indestructible. Just climb inside one, squeeze the "Armageddon" button, and the bathtub becomes like a yo-yo on a ‘forward pass.’ The wrist, incidentally, would be like the sun, moving from down on the hip to out-in-front, shoulder-height.

The gravitational pull of the sun drags the timepod, as extremely formidible gravitational pull is wont to do. As the timepod accelerates, it eventually picks up enough velocity to achieve time travel. There’s your answer to question two. Of course, how the timepod manages to appear exactly five years in the past is something Rupert hasn’t been able to explain to me without blowing my brain up. Do the ‘Divine Machines’ handle these kinds of complex calculations? Is it the remote that somehow predicates the outcome?

Perhaps I should have gotten all my questions answered before I impulsive hopped into the cast-iron bathtub belly of the "Mr. Peabody," and jetted for the recent past. But I didn’t think it was my place to dissect the Zwevoids’ technology, since it’s clearly worked well for them these many, many years. And anyway, I’m more concerned with being a responsible caretaker for this radical remote. Remember: With a push of a button, the universe is effectively destroyed. This doesn’t weigh lightly on my conscience, and I promised Rupert I would only push the button three, four times a day, tops.