My five minute Time Travel Story.

Paul requested my next book be a Time Travel Story.

Well, I have a five minute story...


"The first time machine was invented on July 1, 2015. From that moment on, people could move backward to the moment of the machine's inception.

The first time traveler was Mortimer Snurgens, the machine's inventor, who came back to change what he'd eaten for breakfast that morning -- it had given him heartburn. Of course, by doing so, he changed the daily sales total of the diner where he'd originally eaten.

The struggling owner of the diner looked at the sales totals for the morning, and quit. Thus creating the first time paradox. 

Soon, everyone was going back to change the past.  And the future was never the same.

And the world became a churning mass of change and more change and friends today were enemies tomorrow who were enemies yesterday and toast became eggs became bacon.

People stopped worrying about finishing projects, because it wasn't the same project. People began to sit around and watch the world change.  

Finally, someone put a camera on the time machine. All that could be seen was a blur, a rainbow of unfocused images.

Only the time machine was unchanged, black and stolid and looking the same no matter what else happened.

And the time machine thought --- "It is good."

The End." 


 "Mortimer Snurgens finished typing his little time travel story and was satisfied.

Five minutes later, thought, something occurred to  him and he came back and changed it.

The End." 


"Wait!" Mortimer Snurgens thought, five minutes later.   Is this a story of time travel, or time 
traveling story?   He have to think about that.

The End."


"Five minutes later it occurred to Mortimer that the words had changed, but the machine he typed the words on was the same.

Was he the machine or the words?

The End."  


"Paul read the Five Minute Time Travel Story and thought, "WTF?  Mortimer's messing with my head.  Screw this"

Five minutes later, the story changed.  Paul didn't notice.  He was stuck in the past.

The End."  


"Mortimer, who was a minor genre writer, decided to write a post-modern story.  Thus changing his career trajectory.

The End."


"Mortimer decided he didn't have the literary chops to be a post-modernist, and went back to writing silly vampire stories.

But there for five minutes, he was a post-modernist....

The End."


"Five minutes later Mortimer deleted the story.

It never happened Paul.  You just imagined it.

The End."