Greener Grass

Holding his breath, Dan Sturges depressed the red button of his time machine. The jolt was instantaneous, and he nearly lost his grip on the flag-wrapped bible in his lap. Together they comprised the only two things he couldn’t live without. His body lurched but the nylon belts of the leather seat held him tight—both transplants from his 2010 Porsche 911. It felt like he’d hooked up the car batteries directly to his nuts. He may have screamed but couldn’t be sure, his mind preoccupied, processing too much data. A whine ratcheted up to a shriek, an audible indication of his brain overloading as it chugged an ocean of information before vomiting. Everything went white. The sound halted, and for a moment all his senses ceased to register. The sensation was similar to free falling, but in this case it was Dan who remained still, while the rest of the universe flew by. He might have passed out; it was difficult to tell. The human brain wasn’t designed for what he’d just gone through, if he had, indeed, succeeded. It was entirely possible he had just electrocuted himself in the privacy of his own garage. He imagined his wife coming home, smelling something akin to cooked hot dogs, and finding him strapped in the cube like Ted Bundy in the electric chair at Raiford Prison.

Michael J. Fox’s stainless steel DeLorean was inarguably slicker than Dan’s milk crate special, even with its Porsche seat. He had always been concerned that the containers, which created the insulating walls and made his time machine look like a giant Rubik’s Cube, might melt. If they did, Carol would find a puddle of plastic resembling a melted pack of giant Crayola crayons with her husband, or what was left of him, in the middle strapped to a disembodied sports car seat. At least Dan would go out in style; like James Dean he’d ride a Porsche seat into oblivion.

Even if he succeeded Carol would hate him. In her mind there was no difference between going out for a pack of cigarettes, or pressing that red button and sending the combined wattage of eighteen car batteries into the metal and plastic cage. The result was the same—he left her.

She wouldn’t appreciate that he managed to be the first human to time travel. Nor would his wife care that the cancer eating his pancreas would cause his departure in a few months anyway. That it was possible—no matter how unlikely—to find a cure in the future wouldn’t justify his actions, so she would hate him. He didn’t blame her. If the situation was reversed, he’d hate him too. After being married for forty years, you got used to the other person being around. He could never convince Carol that dying in a hospital bed was the worst thing he could imagine. Worse even than frying in a homemade Rubik’s Cube oven. He did feel bad about the mess he’d leave, although Carol would likely just sell the house “as is” and let the new owners deal with it.

Dan either woke or his mind finally caught up to his brain. The white brilliance faded like the aftermath of a camera’s flash. Being sixty, Dan remembered flashbulbs and also Kodak film, typewriters, Ma Bell, Gunsmoke, and human decency. They’d all gone the way of vinyl records and the gold standard. Democracy was on its way out as well. The world suffered from its own cancers: terrorism, socialism, atheism, and all those other isms. It made pressing the button easier and saved him from watching the withering of a great nation. Dan hoped that if he went far enough a corner might be turned. Good old American optimism was the only ism worth believing in.

It took about a minute for Dan’s eyes to adjust and the colors to register. Green. Blue. Nice colors. The world hadn’t been reduced to a barren, irradiated hellscape at least. His milk crate time machine wasn’t as sophisticated as Doc Brown’s. He didn’t have a flux capacitor or a chronometer with years, months, and days. His destination was controlled by the number of batteries and the slider bar of the iMusic app of a modified iPad. How far he would travel, or more precisely how long he would manage to remain stationary while the universe moved ahead without him, was little more than a calculated guess. Eighteen car batteries wouldn’t send him millions of years, but he was hoping for at least a thousand.