Chet invented a time machine. It was actually quite simple. He mounted a laptop on an old moped with the rear tire removed. A belt was then attached to a neon tube salvaged from a Budweiser sign. Revving the motor charged the tube with neutrinos, a faster-than-light particle, propelling the operator forward or backward in time.
Two Christmas tree lights, one red and one green, indicated operation. Chet was not an engineer.
“What makes you think this thing will work?” Charles asked his friend. They stood in Chet’s garage.
“I’ve already tested it. It works.”
Chet had indeed gone back in time. A miscalculation, however, sent him only to the recent past. He was forced to sit a second time through the 2020 Democratic National Convention, that forgone exercise in platitudes and banalities. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.
Charles was suspicious. “Where do you think you’re going now?”
This is what Chet had waited for. The chance to rub time travel in his Republican friend’s face. “I’m heading back to fix things,” he said. “So the Democrats can’t lose.”
“Is that honest?” Charles asked. But he already knew the answer. Honesty and ethics had nothing to do with it. Trump was so dangerous he must be stopped at any cost. For the time-travelling progressive, ending wars, solving hunger, preventing pandemics would have to wait.
Chet snapped on a bicycle helmet and started the moped. The neon tube glowed. In a moment the green light came on, and he vanished.
Charles got a beer from the garage fridge. He sat in a lawn chair. He didn’t have to wait long.
Halfway through the beer, Chet and his time machine re-materialized. He removed his helmet and climbed off. “That,” he said. “Is that.”
“What did you do?” asked Charles.
“Look around you. Did you think where we are today is some sort of accident? I fixed it.”
Indeed, the present had always seemed suspicious. Somehow Biden, a creaking, old-time operative nearly identical to Hillary Clinton seized the nomination from a field of razor-sharp, highly qualified competitors. Then newspapers got on board and suppressed any scandal, including his son’s wacky dealings in the Ukraine and China, which would have knocked anyone else out of contention. Then every slip and burp by Trump was reported as a dog whistle, his base derided, conspiracy theories promoted. Polls showing Trump hopelessly behind were given breathless attention, pointing to the impossibility of his getting elected. It all sounded so… 2016.
“Why do you think it will work this time?” Charles asked.
“What do you mean?”
“We’re in the exact same place we were before. And Trump won.”
It took a moment for this to sink in. “You’re right!” Chet shouted. “I’ve got to get back!”
“Make sure you nominate Cory Booker,” Charles called, as the moped roared to life. “He can’t lose.” Charles was right. Booker, suave and honest, would have been a shoo-in this fall.
But Chet, in his panic, forgot to grease the flywheel. The belt snapped off, giving him a nasty slap on the leg. Then the neutrino collector burst, showering the garage with powdered glass.
“Son of a…” Chet cried. He dismounted, and threw his helmet into a corner. “Now I’ll never get back.”
“Why don’t you build another time machine?”
“I can’t. I’m not even sure how I built this one.” He slumped into a chair. It didn’t help to recall the old adage, now pinging through Chet’s brain like a loose neutrino:
“Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
Richard Donnelly lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Classic flyover land. Which makes us feel just a little… superior. He publishes a weekly column of essays on the writing life at richarddonnelly.substack.com