A Glitch in Time Read online

  "Uh, well, not exactly," I replied with the swiftness of wit for which I am known.

  "I had hoped to find you in a more congenial frame of mind this morning," he said, putting his papers to one side. He began to tap the ruler against his thigh. "But I finally saw last evening that Herbert has been absolutely right about all this. I've been inconsistent and weak-kneed. But that, my love, is about to change."

  I backed up just a step or two, intending to go back upstairs until Edward's own frame of mind had improved.

  "I'm sorry to have interrupted your work, darling," I chirped sweetly in a tone neither of us believed. "I'll just go upstairs now and finish the sketch I began this week of the house. I want to give it to Aunt Jane for..."

  "You can sketch later, Abigail. Right now, there is the matter of your calling me a pig this early in the morning, before I've even had my coffee." (Edward was born in Philadelphia and insists upon downing an entire pot of this American swill each and every morning.)

  "You surely don't expect to spank me again?" I cried.

  "Oh, but I do." He smiled and slapped the ruler against his palm with a loud crack, "but much differently this time, over the tall stool there with your skirt up."

  "Uncle Herbert may come in," I protested. "And besides, I've decided just this morning that I don't want to do this any longer!"

  "He and Jane are out shopping, and the staff is off for the entire morning. The house is empty, my love. You may howl and kick and shriek to your heart's content, and call me every filthy name in your extensive vocabulary, but this spanking will proceed! After which, you will stand in that corner with your backside ablaze and your nose to the wall to consider your many sins, while I enjoy the view. This evening, we will discuss the arrangement again, and if you still wish to discontinue it, I'll honor your wishes. But now, you are about to be spanked in a manner I hope will make up for six months of half-hearted and apparently wasted effort."

  Behind me, sitting on a low wooden platform and looking very much like a gaudy Christmas ornament, was Uncle Herbert's "Time Machine." It was my intention, when I moved closer to it, to simply put a more comfortable distance between myself and Edward's ruler, but instead, I got up on the platform and plopped down on the saddle-like seat in the center of the device.

  "Stay exactly where you are," I demanded, "and we will discuss it now, with you there, and me seated here."

  "Get out of there," he snapped irritably. "If you break anything, there'll be Hell to pay."

  "I'm not a fool, Edward. I don't wish to get electrocuted, and I won't harm anything. What on earth is this glass thing, anyway?"

  When I touched the crystal bar that extended across the machine's smallish interior, the machine seemed to lurch, and a flash of tremendously bright light filled the room. I heard Edward's shout as though from a very great distance, and then, for a moment, I seemed to lose consciousness. When I came to, the machine and I were sitting across the room, and Edward was kneeling beside me with his hand on my forehead. He was shouting something and shaking me.

  "Please quit screaming in my ear," I complained. "I'm not hurt. I received a small electrical shock, that's all."

  "Abby!" he said urgently. "You don't understand. The machine moved. You need to get out, at once!"

  "It probably tipped and fell," I suggested with an irritable wave of my hand, "when you leapt in here like that. If the foolish device is broken, it will be entirely your fault, and I will expect you to tell Uncle Herbert that."

  "Darling," he breathed, his face still showing fright. "I tell you, it disappeared. Just for a second, and then it reappeared all the way over here, yet… and yet I didn't see it move."

  "Not surprising," I scoffed. "You were more interested in assaulting me with your damned ruler than..."

  Enunciating every word very slowly, as though I had suddenly lost my wits, he explained. "The machine disappeared, Abigail, with you in it. It seemed like only a second, but according to my watch, it was three hours." He thrust his watch before my face to show me the time, and I began to laugh.

  "Your silly watch," I laughed, "is probably in need of repair, not unlike your mind, which you appear to be losing. All I did, darling, was to push this..."

  "Don't!" he cried, and threw his arms around me to prevent my reaching the bar.

  I tapped the crystal lever again, not hard really, with less force than I might press down the key of a spinet.

  * * * *

  I will not be able to adequately describe here either the sequence of events that occurred next, or the physical and visual consequences of that slight but portentous movement. To describe in concrete terms that which has neither substance, nor time, nor color, nor taste would mean little or nothing. To describe to another person, in meaningful terms, an experience he has neither seen or felt, nor ever will see or feel, is almost beyond our capabilities. How much more difficult then, to describe an experience unlike anything in even the narrator's experience? Consider, for example, explaining the concept of blue to a person who has been without sight since birth, who has never seen the sky, or a mountain lake, or his mother's eyes. Next, consider how that first blind person might describe the concept to yet another sightless person. What misapprehensions about what it is to be blue would pass between them?

  What happened in that infinitesimal fraction of a millisecond seemed to be as much an electrical discharge in my brain as anything real; a random, fleeting fragment of thought, perhaps, an ephemeral glimpse of something unremembered even by myself. If that makes no sense at all, and I'm sure it does not, then you will perhaps understand that whatever I write here is not real, in any intelligent sense, but a vague perception of a dimly-registered sensation, and nothing more. As I sit here today, with pen and paper in hand, I cannot promise that it even happened.

  Primarily, there was color. As an artist, all of my thought processes include light and color; color, not only as a tangible thing, but also as it denotes emotion and sensation. Thus, my experience that evening was of an incredible radiance of light and of color. (I spent some months in the North of Scotland once, where, for the first time, I witnessed the phenomenon called the Aurora Borealis, which on some level mimicked this, but only in the faintest sense, as cheap cologne mimics the first armful of spring lilacs.)

  White, at first; white perceived not as colorless, but incandescent and vibrantly alive, and so dazzling in its brilliance that it approached pain to look at it. Then, the whiteness seemed to explode, fragmenting into millions upon millions of individual prisms of color. I descended into a vortex of color, whirling madly through showers of purple and Gentian violet, and then magenta. Then, a further descent into a field of perhaps cerulean blue, where streaks of light and luminescent color of impossible and unnamable hues seemed to ripple and undulate in waves behind my eyelids. And then, there was a rapid, breathless rush through interminable space, into the deepest blue an artist can create on a palette and still call his creation blue. A blue that was seemingly alive with stars and comets whizzing past at too great a velocity to recognize, but only to sense. And, then, abruptly, there was nothing but a black and utter silence.

  It has taken me two years to compose the above paragraphs, and yet now, my entire description seems ludicrously pallid and lifeless. I fear that the experience is, and may remain forever, impossible to describe.

  * * * *

  The landing, if that is what one can call it, will be simpler to describe. It was something, I would imagine, not unlike smashing into a brick wall, or perhaps a large oak tree while driving in a modern motorcar going at its maximum rate of speed. At one moment, there was a perception of unearthly speed, a rushing of wind, and the next moment, a violent halt.

  For some moments, both Edward and I simply sat and said nothing. I felt dazed and somewhat nauseous, and my entire body seemed to tingle, as though a mild current was passing through it. Later, Edward reported a similar sensation, couching his own sensations in more scientific terms, of course. I fel
t flushed, as though I had been too long in the sun, yet at the same time, my limbs were extraordinarily cold and numb. My arms and legs felt heavy, their movement sluggish.

  The machine had done something, although it was, at this moment, uncertain what it had done. For, whereas, only moments earlier we had been inside, we were now, quite obviously outside, on a rutted and dusty road, beside a small stone bridge.

  "Well," I said, when I could finally catch my breath. "I must say that, as impressive as this device is in having gotten us from indoors to outdoors, it seems like a great deal of noise and bother for very little. It appears that we, at least, are exactly as we left, except that my hair is unspeakably mussed and I have somehow lost a shoe during transport. I believe we may have ended up in Cyrus Pettigrew's cow pasture. Isn't this the charming little bridge near his barn?"

  Edward rubbed his forehead where a small lump was beginning to form. His mood had not changed, and in fact, seemed to be worsening, and he still clutched the ruler that had caused all this trouble in the first place.

  "No, Abigail," he snapped. "This is not Mr. Pettigrew's charming little bridge. This is a different bridge, entirely, and God only knows where it is!"

  "Well, you needn't be so disagreeable, Edward." I pouted. "I'm sure we can't have come far, and think how thrilled Uncle Herbert will be to learn that his silly machine works, and that it has managed to move us down the road a bit, to somewhere or another. I cannot tell you how delighted and excited I am to find such a thing possible! I'm sure that the two of you will be written up in all the scientific journals. Maybe we shall be rich and famous in our own right. Still, I believe that such a device may have a somewhat limited practicality, don't you? It would seem easier to simply walk such a short distance as we've apparently come. Still, I suppose we should exit the device now and find our way home to tell him the great news. Maybe we've come down on the other side of the village. Does anything look at all familiar here?"

  Edward looked around carefully and shook his head. "No, but you're right about one thing. We can't have come far." He pulled his watch from his vest pocket and tapped the face of it. "Unfortunately, I don't recall the exact time when you first pushed the control bar, but it can't have been more than two or three seconds, by my watch, probably less."

  I looked down at the clock-like device on the machine's front panel. "Oh, dear!" I laughed. "I'm afraid that Uncle Herbert's adorable little clock, or calendar, or whatever one calls it, isn't working at all properly. The dial indicates we've been gone for… let's see… yes, we have been gone from the cellar for thirteen hundred and thirteen years." I laughed. "What an unlucky year to arrive in a new place!"

  Edward stared at me, and then leaned across to study the dials for himself. His face registered astonishment, and perhaps, fear. "As always, Abigail, your arithmetic is terrible," he muttered. "The correct figure is fourteen hundred and thirteen years. According to this, the year is 498 A.D."

  I yawned. I had not even eaten breakfast. It was nearing the lunch hour and I badly needed a nap before lunch.

  "Well, if we're not near the village, then where in Heaven's name are we?" I asked petulantly. "I think it very unscientific of you and Uncle Herbert not to have installed a proper… what does one call it? Navigational apparatus in this — this silly machine of yours. How is one to know where one is going, for pity's sake? Why, this vehicle is no better than Mr. Ford's motorcar. What do you suppose is the purpose of all these cunning little cubby holes?"

  Edward closed his eyes for a moment. "Those cunning little cubby holes are gauges," he said finally, obviously attempting to control his temper. "Or they were to be gauges, at any rate, when they were installed, as they are quite obviously not, at this moment."

  "Well, why on Earth not?" I asked. A very reasonable question, I thought.

  At this point, Edward completely lost his temper. "Because," he shouted, "The machine was not yet finished."

  I gulped. "It seemed finished." I pouted. "I have driven Uncle Herbert's motor-car, you know, and this looked quite drivable, actually, with all those little knobs and things."

  "I see," Edward said, his voice rising in volume and his tone becoming just a bit hysterical.

  "And exactly how many time machines have you driven? How many machines capable of transporting the occupant across time and space and human thought, millions of times more swiftly than the speed of light, using the as yet unproven techniques of electrotechtronic-astrodynomagnetics, with a thermo-kinetic propulsive quotient of 240 VPS, an anti-gravitational temporal synthesizer, a levitational bio-support capsule, physionuclear-galvanic oscillating dematerialization capabilities, equipped with dual geo-nautical auto-intellirobotic guidance systems and a self-cleaning ashtray? How many of those have you driven, before this morning, if I may inquire?"

  Wishing to be scrupulously honest, I thought for a moment before answering. "I believe this may have been my first."

  Edward leaned his head back against the seat and closed his eyes. Edward was thinking. I could only hope that he was thinking about a solution to our problem, and not about spousal murder.

  "I am extremely sorry I touched whatever it was I touched," I said sullenly, "but I can't very well undo it now, can I? We're here, and we will just have to make the best of it. Perhaps a motorbus will come by, although we appear to be too far out in the country for that. Perhaps a bicyclist of whom we can ask directions, or… "

  "Shut up, Abigail," said Edward without opening his eyes.

  I climbed out of the machine, and looked around for a farmhouse or a cottage to which we might walk. There were none in sight.

  "I think we should simply wait here," I said stubbornly, "for a motor-bus." I stuck out my tongue at him. "Or perhaps for a sort of Time Machine mechanic? Someone who knows more about their operation and repair than all those present on this stupid bridge?"

  Suddenly, Edward seemed to become quite irrational. He leapt from the seat, screamed the most dreadful oaths, and kicked the side of the machine, and was shouting 498 A.D. and Jesus Christ, over and over. Then, having gotten that out of his system, he suggested that we needed to conceal the device, in the event someone should come by and attempt to damage or steal the idiotic thing. Over my bitter complaints, we dragged it down the slope, under the bridge, and secured it beneath a large bush. We then piled what other greenery we could find all about the bush in order that it might not be seen from above.

  We climbed back to the road, and while I stood on the bridge, shading my eyes to watch for an approaching automobile, or even a farm wagon, Edward walked up and down, studying the dusty road intently.

  "I suppose we should be grateful for this bridge, and even for this awful road," he observed. "It at least suggests that you have deposited us in some inhabited place, and in some era of at least rudimentary science. Those are distinctly wheel marks in the dirt, and the bridge indicates some crude knowledge of architecture."

  "Edward," I cried. "You are surely not suggesting that you believe all of this nonsense about time travel! You know perfectly well that there are bridges in this country built hundreds of years ago. It's bad enough to have one dotty scientist in the family. I order you to stop behaving like such a bloody ass."

  "Now, I'm the ass?" he growled. "When I distinctly told you not to touch anything."

  Now, I ask you, isn't that just like a man? When things go slightly amiss, as things are simply apt to do, on occasion, they blame it on a poor, defenseless woman who had done nothing at all other than making the tiniest, most insignificant little error imaginable.

  "You may just go bugger yourself, Edward," I shouted, "and put your damned machine up your—"

  Here we were, dreadfully lost, not only out in the country somewhere, but if Edward were to be believed, lost in time and space as well, and yet the silly man was now taking the time to unbutton his shirt cuffs and roll up his sleeves, which, knowing Edward as well as I did, could mean only one thing.

  "Edward," I cried, realiz
ing immediately that I had gone too far. "This is neither the time nor the place!"

  "Ha!" he exclaimed, in that superior tone I so dislike. "And precisely how, may I ask, could you know that, since neither of us has the slightest bloody idea where, or even when, we are. For all you know, it may be the absolutely ideal time and place. This very spot where we now stand may be world famous as the absolutely ideal place to spank the holy shit out of one's idiot wife." (Edward has a tendency to speak very colorfully under stress.)

  "Now you're just being silly," I said. Well, I forgot to mention that I did say pooh, as well, and since Edward hates it when I say pooh to him, I'm afraid my saying it at this juncture simply made things worse.

  I hesitate to describe what happened next, since it certainly doesn't show my husband in a very flattering light, but since my purpose here is to report the events in as scientific a manner as I can, I will outline, in some detail what occurred.

  Wherever we were was quite lovely, really. We were in a little wooded glen and standing on a quaint and very pretty little old bridge, but as it happened, the bridge was not a propitious spot. It provided Edward the perfect place to commit upon my person the most unspeakably disagreeable whipping you can imagine. Rather than simply using his belt, as he customarily does at moments when he is most annoyed with me, he walked over to the closest tree and pulled down several slender switches. I detected a look of positive delight on his face as he stripped the supple strips of most of their spring foliage and tested their strength against his thigh. He then instructed me in a very stern voice to lower my underdrawers and my stockings all the way to my ankles (which boded no good whatsoever) and to lie down on my stomach on the stone railing of the pretty little bridge.

  I must explain here that I had never before been switched and was not encouraged by Edward's own experiences as a boy, wherein he had described to me being soundly switched by his mother when he misbehaved. He recalled with a certain gallows humor that he had found a good stout switch an unusually effective tool in changing his own unwholesome and rebellious behavior. Now, as he bent me firmly over the wall, I feared that I might quite possibly pitch head first into the charming little stream just below. Being a person of rather short stature, my toes could barely touch the ground, and I was compelled to cling to the rough stones for dear life, so as not to add drowning to my other miseries, which included being lost, overwarm, disheveled, and now, mercilessly flogged.