The Short Existence of Time Travel

[My first sci-fi short, and probably not my last, there's more science fiction coming from my pen. Maybe its too short, maybe its too wannabe-ish, but an artist can only create their type of art. Art which is for the public is not art, its a business commodity. Enough said already...]

The scientist gaped at his close-ended creation, what he preferred calling the magnum opus of life. What the gravitation laws had been for Newton and what the light bulb had been for Edison, the scientist wanted the time machine to be for him. All the toil and sweat and blood that he had spilt in his six year-long study had finally taken material shape.

It was tough to describe the oddly angular compartment-of-a-contraption, the brain-child of one of the most gifted minds of the world. It had intermittent pieces of metal roughly conjoined to it, giving it the appearance of a giant scaly fish with a circular base to keep it standing erect. And then there was a doorway (partly for the dramatics), that made that romantic, creaky sound reminiscent of ancient wooden doors featured in every other yellowing novel from good old times. 

All that there was left to do was to connect the machine to the power outlet. The scientist knew how all his research in particle physics and molecular electronics had come down to this very moment, as if all that had happened in his life till now was meant for the conception of this gadget.

He picked up the fat, black wire that plugged to the power outlet. The comforting, sonorous click of the plug sliding into the grooves of the outlet soothed him somewhat. He switched on the machine with the eagerness of an infant playing with his brand new toy, and it whirred to life, complying with its creator’s wish.

And at this very moment of unthinkable joy and mad furore, the creaky door opened with the promptness of a bullet, emitting a short, loud squeak of the door unhinging. Out descended a man, as if appearing out of thin air, with obscenely long and untidy hair on his head, face and chest, and being almost as tall as the scientist.  Before the scientist could have comprehended and registered this sudden arrival, the man from time unknown brandished a futuristic revolver from the depths of his coat, and punctured the scientist’s temple with a neat, direct bullet shot. Before the scientist could fall to the ground, the man turned his weapon towards the contraption he had only just alighted from, and emptied the revolver at the mainframe of the machine, each bullet choking the life out of it. Just as he was doing so, another human form had started appearing inside the machine, but before it could take complete shape, the machine had fizzed and cracked, dying an instant death.

The scientist, the man from time unknown, the revolver, and the incomplete human figure fell to the ground at the same moment, the gun with a clank and the bodies with a subdued thud. Time travel was no longer heard of in human history.

END.