The Time Machine

The Time Machine

The morning was warm, shinny and chirpy. She looked outside the window with a pale and pretentious smile. Trying very hard to absorb the warmth, but her inner ice rebelled to be melted. She wondered if she could ever feel and cherish the happiness of that spring day.

Looking back at her laboratory, stood that giant “Magma” time machine which was the product of her toil and depression. The day was 3rd of March 2017 and she sat praying all things to go well.

Magma was her child. The only happiness a mother derives when she holds her baby for the first time alive. She wanted to experience it and she knew it was the time. The motors were switched on, the blades started rotating and now it was her chance to step into that blazing box, to revive her happiness.

She dared and stepped in. She typed in the Date & Time sector: 12th June 2007; 6:30pm. Soon after, there was a shake, a tremble and she understood nothing. Did Magma fail her? With this last thought on her mind, darkness crept in her and she lost her own motors.

“Where am I”? “Is it…”! She exclaimed looked around. It was a shabby dark cottage which was not an unfamiliar atmosphere. Her baby had given her the joy of her life. Happiness knew no bounds when she took a look at the mirror and saw her 16 year old self.

“Mama”, she heard, that voice gave her a thrill, euphoria, and she was dying to accept. It was none other than her father.

She looked back and saw the tall figure of her Dad, smiling down at her. Tears rolled up and she quickly embraced her father. She knew she did not have much time. She knew that science had given her this opportunity. “Is everything all right sweetheart?” exclaimed her father who stood perplexed not being able to understand his daughter’s outburst.

She told him nothing and kept on crying keeping her ear on his heart, because she was able to hear it beat after ten long years. They sat on the verandah and all she wanted was to hear his voice. She enjoyed each and every second that she was spending with her father.

For ten long years, every night she had hoped her father would return, that her father would ask her to straighten up her shoulder, to pull up her upper lip but now after all her toil, all her belief, all her knowledge, she achieved what she had wanted.

It was already 7pm and she knew that she would not repeat the same mistake that she had committed ten years ago. All of a sudden she remembered that her Magma would be allotting only an hour’s time in the past.

Her father looked pale and she knew what was about to happen. She took him inside and made him rest on the bed. She remembered that last time she had gone eccentric over the situation and had went out of her way to call up the nearby doctors but no one was available. This time, she dared not to commit the same mistake. Past cannot be changed. Magma had given her the chance only to visit the past but not to change it. She stayed calm.

There came the time, when it was soon about to get all over. Hari, resting on the bed, somewhere knew that the time had come. The time had come for him to leave the world. After four painful years of cardiac asthma which could not be cured in the place like Shakara, he had given up all the hope.

Deja-vu! He started calling out to her and asked her to sit beside him. She had no plans to leave and did as he told him to do.”Daddy, I know very soon everything shall be ending and you shall be leaving me. But promise me, the physical world shall not be a barrier in between us” she said. She for the last time saw her father smiling and he with a very inaudible tone said, “I shall always be on your side”. They grabbed each others’ hands. The grip was tight and painful. The pain she wanted to feel, the guilt of not being with him at his last time which had haunted and destroyed her was slowly failing. The grip loosened, he still had a smile and gaze at her.

She cried, she cried her heart out once again but this time with no guilt, less pain and peace.

It was 7:30 and she could feel the tremble and remembered that she had to return to her present. Everything disappeared she found herself back  in her laboratory.

“Thank you, my child”, she said looking at her Magma which had given her the bliss of her life.

By: Aditi Kar, B.Com 1st Year