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5. They clinked their glasses. 4. 3. 2. They drank. 1. They drank their champagne. With a laugh. They looked to the sky, the golden air above the La Jolla coastline waited the moment for the great arrival was here. Now. Cried the young reporter, like a magician giving orders. Now, said Stiles gravely. Quiet. Nothing. Five seconds passed. The sky stood empty. Ten seconds passed. The heavens waited. Twenty seconds passed. Nothing. At last Shumway turned to stare in wonder at the old man by his side. Stiles looked at him, shrugged, and said, I lied. You what? The crowds below shifted uneasily. I lied, said the old man simply. No. Oh, but yes, said the time traveler. I never went anywhere. I stayed, but made it seem I went. There is no time machine, only something that looks like one. But why? Cried the young man, bewildered, holding to the rail at the edge of the roof. Why? I see that you have a tape recording button on your lapel. Turn it on. Yes. There. I want everyone to hear this. Now. The old man finished his champagne. Because I was born and raised in a time in the 60s, 70s, and 80s when people had stopped believing in themselves. I saw that disbelief, the reason that no longer gave itself reasons to survive and was moved, depressed, and then angered by it. Everywhere I saw and heard doubt. Everywhere I learned destruction. Everywhere was professional despair, intellectual Ennui. Political cynicism. And what wasn't ennui in cynicism was rampant skepticism and incipient nihilism. The old man stopped, having remembered something. He bent and from under a table brought forth a special bottle of red Burgundy with the label 1984 on it. This as he talked, he began to open gently, plumbing the ancient quark. You name it, we had it. The economy was a snail. The world was a cesspool. Economics remained an insolvable mystery. Melancholy was the attitude. The impossibility of change was the vogue. End of the world was the slogan. Nothing was worth doing. Go to bed at night full of bad news at 11. Wake up in the morn to worst news at 7. Trudge through the day underwater. Drown at night in a tide of plagues and pestilence. Ah, for the cork had softly popped. The now harmless 1984 vintage was ready for airing. The Time traveler sniffed it and nodded. Not only the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse rode the horizon to fling themselves on our cities, but a fifth horsemen, worse than all the rest, rode with them, despair wrapped in dark shrouds of defeat, crying only repetitions of past disasters, present failures, future cowardices bombarded by dark chaff and no bright seed. What sort of harvest was there for man in the latter part of the incredible 20th century? Forgotten was the moon. Forgotten the red landscapes of Mars, the great eyes of Jupiter, the stunning rings of Saturn. We refused to be comforted. We wept at the grave of our child. And the child was us. Was that how it was? Asked Shumway quietly. 100 years ago, yes. The Time traveler held up the wine bottle as if it contained proof. He poured some into a glass, eyed it, inhaled, and went on. You've seen the newsreels, read the books of that time. You know it all. Oh, of course there were a few bright moments when when Salk delivered the world's children to life. Or the night when Eagle landed. And that one great step from mankind trod the Moon. But in the minds and out of the mouths of many, the fifth Horseman was darkly cheered on with high hopes, it sometimes seemed, of his winning. So all would be gloomily satisfied that their predictions of doom were right from day one. So the self fulfilling prophecies were declared. We dug our graves and prepared to lie down in them. And you couldn't allow that, said the young reporter. You know I couldn't. And so you built the Toynbee Convector. Not all at once. It took years to brood on it. The old man paused to swirl the dark wine, gazed at it, sipped, eyes closed. Meanwhile, I drowned. I despaired, wept silently, late nights, thinking, what can I do to save us from ourselves? How to save my friends, my city, my state, my country, the entire world from this obsession with doom? Well, it was in my library late one night that my hand, searching along shelves, touched at last on an old and beloved book by H.G. wells, His Time device called Ghost. Like down the years, I heard, I understood, I truly listened. Then I blueprinted, I built, I travelled, or so it seemed. The rest, as you know, is history. The old time traveler drank his wine and opened his eyes. Good God, the young reporter whispered, shaking his head. Oh, dear God. Oh, the wonder. The wonder. There was an immense ferment in the lower gardens now and in the fields beyond and on the roads and in the air. Millions were still waiting. Where was the great arrival? Well, now, said the old man, filling another glass with wine for the young reporter, aren't I something? I made the machines, built miniature cities, lakes, ponds, seas, erected vast architectures against crystal water. Skies talked to dolphins, played with whales, faked tapes, mythologized films. Oh, it took years, years of sweating work and secret preparation before I announced my departure, left and came back with good news. They drank the rest of the vintage wine. There was a hum of voices. All of the people below were looking up at the roof. The time traveler waved at them and turned quickly. Now, it's up to you from here on. You have the tape, my voice on it, just freshly made. Here are three more tapes with fuller data. Here's a film cassette history of my whole inspired fraudulence. Here's a final manuscript. Take, take it all. Hand it on. I nominate you, as son, to explain. The father quickly hustled into the elevator once more. Shumway felt the world fall away beneath. He didn't know whether to laugh or cry, so gave at last a great hoot. The old man, surprised, hooted with him as they stepped out below and advanced upon the Toynbee convector. You see the point, don't you, son? Life has always been lying to ourselves as boys, young men, old men, as girls, maidens, women. To gently lie and prove the lie true, to weave dreams and put brains and ideas and flesh of the truly real beneath the dreams. Everything, finally is a promise. What seems a lie is a ramshackle need wishing to be born here thus. And so he pressed the button that raised the plastic shield, pressed another that started the time machine humming, then shuffled quickly in to thrust himself into the convector's. Seat. Throw the final switch, young man. But you're thinking here. The old man laughed. If the time machine is a fraud, it won't work. What's the use of throwing a switch? Yes, throw it anyway. This time it will work. Shumway turned, found the control switch, grabbed hold, then looked up at Craig Bennett Stiles. I don't understand. Where are you going? Why, to be one with the ages, of course. To exist now only in the deep past. How can that be? Believe me, this time it will happen. Goodbye, dear, fine, nice young man. Goodbye. Now tell me my name. What? Speak my name and throw the switch, time traveler. Yes. Now. The young man yanked the switch. The machine hummed, roared, blazed with power. Oh, said the old man, shutting his eyes. His mouth smiled gently. Yes. His head fell forward on his chest. Shumway yelled, banged the switch off and leaped forward to tear at the straps and binding the old man and his device. In the midst of so doing, he stopped. He felt the time traveler's wrist, put his fingers under the neck to test the pulse, and groaned. He began to weep. The old man had indeed gone back in time, and its name was Death. He was traveling in the past now, forever. Shumway stepped back and turned the machine on again. If the old man were to travel, let the machine, symbolically anyway, go with him. It made a sympathetic humming, the fire of it, the bright sun fire burned in all of its spider grids and armatures and lighted the cheeks and the vast brow of the ancient traveler, whose head seemed. Seemed to nod with the vibrations and whose smile, as he traveled into darkness, was the smile of a child much satisfied. The reporter stood for a long moment more, wiping his cheeks on the back of his hands. Then, leaving the machine on, he turned, crossed the room, pressed the button for the glass elevator, and while he was waiting, took the time travelers tapes and cassettes from his jacket pockets and one by one shoved them into the incinerator. Trash flue set in the wall. The elevator doors open. He stepped in. The doors shut. The elevator hummed like yet another time device, taking him up into a stunned world, a waiting world, lifting him up into a bright continent, a future land, a wondrous and surviving planet that one man with one lie had created.
