“I know you must be overwhelmed.”  Wells says to me.  “Just take a breath.  And there are many who believe 2012 is not the end of the world or even of the human race.  Rather there are many who suspect it is the end of life as we know it, but not the end of life.  You’ve heard of the theories suggesting that whatever ‘catastrophic event’ takes place may just be a way to bring humanity to a new level of enlightenment, right?”  I nod.  I’ve heard this.  But I’ve also heard the theories about the end of the world.  Man being punished for all of our sinful ways.  At this very moment I began to regret every bad thing I may have ever done.  I used to think I was never a ‘bad’ person.  But I did steal once, a candy bar.  Granted I was only five and I thought I could have it.

I realize while I’m off in my thoughts that Wells and Ziggy have not been talking.  Rather, they are watching me.  I realize they are waiting for me to come back to reality, if this is actually reality, and join in the conversation on this grand plan of theirs.

“Sorry.  Right.  I’m not panicking.  I’m here.  Continue, what’s with this plan?”  Ziggy takes a breath before speaking.

“I know it seems like we have no shot here.  And perhaps we don’t.  Maybe the future is already set.  Perhaps the future is already based on the time machine and us traveling back and forth and tweeking little things.  Then again, maybe not.  How can we tell?  Once you begin time travel it is truly difficult to track all that happens and how each detail of each event will really play out.  You follow me?”

I eye him with a stare like “Oh sure I do.”  He gets my point.  Wells continues.  “You see there’s no limit to what we can do here with our ability to time travel.  The plan is not to go in the future rather travel to the past to find out more about what this prophecy really entails.  It is true that there are several theories and ideas but these are taken from person to person over the years.  With each translation something is going to be different.  Even without intent.  So, lets get it straight from the horses’ mouths.  So to speak.”  Wells smiles a bit seeming very proud of his plan.

“And then what?  So these ancient people tell us of their prophecies and then what?”  I try to calm my nerves and not to get snappy, but I can’t help it.

“Once we do some digging we can find out what the reasons are.  Is this really punishment for our sins?  Or is this just a natural process of evolution?  Consider for an instance how self destructive the human race has been over the centuries.  War, crime, murder.  And if we aren’t killing ourselves we are certainly busy in destroying the world around us.  Tearing down trees, killing animals, polluting the planet, building new things.  I mean, I can’t say I’m all against technology, obviously.  But it seems we are moving in a very distinct pattern.  To the end.  Whatever the end may be, is yet to be determined.”  Wells and Ziggy seem almost giddy.  They look at my while I take this all in. 

I wish I could sound as happy as they are but I’m feeling rather queasy.  Then Wells says to me.  “So, what I want to know is will you travel with us?  We could really use your expertise.”

Any time now alarm clock!  Any time you can wake me!

“This is Mr. Wells”, said Ziggy.

We shook hands, Mr. Wells got me a chair and we all sat down.

“I guess you thought I was deep in this fine Missouri dirt by now, didn’t you?” – continued  Ziggy. I was perplexed as I looked at Old Ziggy; he looked younger than I remembered.

“Professor, I have to ask; how did your time machine work out for you.”  I probed, just to calm myself. Instead, my brain was telling me something that I should have realized sooner:

“H.G. Wells for Heaven’s sake, only the original author of the Time Machine!”.

I was dizzy and almost fell off the chair. If only my Dad could be here, I thought.

Then, I started asking myself; is this real? Am I dreaming? Just what is going on?

The questions came like a huge tsunami, and my brain was nothing more than a sailboat ready to sink at any moment. I looked at Mr. Wells, and my mind short circuited when I remembered that he was born in the Nineteenth Century. Wait a minute, “That can’t be” I told my self.  He would be well over one hundred years old.  I must have looked stupefied because they both pulled up their chairs close to me.

Ziggy looked straight into my eyes.

“Please don’t try to understand all this at once-he said and squeezed my hand – We are here, because we may be able to save the World. Have you ever heard of the prophesies of  2012?”

I did hear about that. I even watched the History Channel’s presentation of the topic, with all the different prophesies from ancient civilizations. I found those interesting, but I also found the “2000 Millennium” end of the world scare interesting, and nothing happened. Right about this point I wished that my alarm clock would go off to wake up from this nightmare, but again I realized this was real. I couldn’t stop thinking and must have pretty well shut out the world around me, because Ziggy was talking to me but I didn’t hear anything he said. I shook my head to clear my mind and heard old Ziggy

“Now, here is the plan……”

I wrote my piece in the first person, but you should use whichever point of view you are comfortable with.

There are only two guidelines that we felt we should follow.First, you can limit your story line to somewhere between 500 and 700 words, unless you feel that there are those few extra words that just have to be said. Second, keep your story within the PG rating.

Just be creative and have fun with it.

When I was walking into Border’s I had the same feeling I had when, as a kid, my dad took me to Zigmunt Zelinsky’s giant house at Westmoreland Place. There was an indescribable energy that filled the house, my skin almost tingled with it. The house was a museum of strange and unusual artifacts. My favorite room was the magnificent conservatory on the third floor with glass windows on the ceilings paned in beautiful oak frames. Mosaics and paintings from places all around the world covered every wall. The house, so grand and huge, you could get yourself lost in it without even trying. There is a lot of irony in that statement about getting lost when I tell you that upstairs in the conservatory, old Zigmunt, or Professor Ziggy as I always remembered him, was putting together a time machine. Said he always wanted to get himself lost in some other time and place. He always talked about being born in the wrong century. Obsessed about it actually to the point that I began to wonder if he was not just a little crazy. His obsession eventually became dad’s obsession also. At first dad would spend evenings after work tinkering around with the contraption, but eventually he stayed hours into the night, coming home long after I went to bed. Dad and I drifted apart when I went to college out of the country. Mom had passed away when I was a child. Dad passed away when I was a senior in college and at Dad’s funeral, Ziggy and I exchanged pleasantries, promised to keep in touch, but didn’t. Oh, I sent him a Christmas card every year with my name signed at the bottom of whatever was already printed on the card. I suppose there was some resentment on my part, feeling that Ziggy took my father away to chase after some unreachable dream of traveling in time. I eventually moved back to St. Louis, but didn’t look Old Ziggy up. I just always imagined that he would be up in that conservatory till he drew his last breath trying unsuccessfully to get his time machine up and running.

Imagine my surprise when I returned home from work to find this note taped to my front door:

I have the most amazing news. It will change your life forever. Please meet me at Border’s on Brentwood at 10:00   tomorrow morning. I will be in the science fiction section.    Until then, Ziggy

At 10:00 I stood in front of the door at Border’s. I thought back to the old house on Westmoreland and the conservatory. I got goose bumps. Something told me that what ever Ziggy had to tell me was connected to that time machine.  The glass doors slid open …

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