A broken twig (standard:drama, 4497 words)
Author: Lev821	Added: May 27 2020	Views/Reads: 1196/849	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
What would you do, if you found a time-machine?

What would you do, if you found a time-machine? 

Yes, that's right. You would keep it for yourself, which is exactly what
Geoffrey Maitland did up in the far north of Scotland, when he was 
recceing a walk from Shegra to Keoldale across the rocky mountainous 
regions where it was easy to get lost. 

Well it wasn't exactly a machine, more of a swirling void. 

Trouble was, he was an experienced hiker and rambler of thirty plus
years and could read a map like the back of his hand, but he still 
found himself off the route he was intending to take, and wandering 
aimlessly around, trying to find his bearings. 

Near the top of a craggy hill which he had climbed in order to see his
surroundings, he came across what he thought was a pond. It was 
surrounded by shrubbery and tall grasses and he guessed he could rest 
here and take stock of just where he was going. 

When he looked into the pond itself he found not water, but a swirling
vortex. Like a miniature black-hole, except it was more white and blue, 
spinning around like a hurricane. He could feel a kind of pull, where 
gravity was stronger, and had to step back in order to resist its 
effect. 

However, it seemed the weather had other ideas, and as he stepped away
further, a gust of wind suddenly pushed him off balance, pushed him 
forwards, and the gravitational effect took its grip on him and he 
could do nothing but fall into the void. 

It wasn't long before he was thrown out of it. Out of the reach of its
effect, and he lay on the ground wondering just what on earth had 
happened. 

After he had gathered his bearings, tried to make a note of how to find
it so he could tell his friends, he continued on his way to find a 
route back to some sort of civilisation, only to find in the distance, 
in the middle of a valley where he had come from, a small village. 

That was definitely not there before, he had thought, as his route had
taken him through the same place, so he decided to go down to it, only 
to find some movement, people, dressed differently. He could see them 
clear enough to know that something wasn't right. The atmosphere was 
different, and he guessed these people weren't dressed this way for the 
fun of it, for some historical festival. There were several thatched 
roof stone cottages, a hay-barn and a couple of wooden tenements. 

If it was film set, or a recreation, it looked too realistic, and there
was nothing there to suggest it was modern day. It looked medieval. 

He saw a few more people and they were all dressed in similar attire,
and that was when he decided not to approach, because something in the 
back of his mind came straight to the front. Even his watch told a 
different time than what he was sure it was. He turned and headed back 
to the vortex. 

When he went through school and university, Geoffrey had a penchant for
things scientific. He studied chemistry, but still there was always 
part of his psyche reserved for the unknown, the spiritual. He believed 
in powers much greater than what science had discovered. Yet he guessed 
when such things were revealed, science would claim it. If you told a 
person five-hundred years ago that there would be such a thing as 
television, or aeroplanes which can take you anywhere in the world, 
they would have thought you mad, but science is a slow process, and 
probably needs to be, because where would we be if the cavemen had had 
computers? 

People are shaped by their beliefs, and Geoffrey quickly came to the
conclusion, as he headed back up to the vortex, that he had gone back 
in time. 

He stood before the swirling void, feeling its pull, and could just
about see the edge of the village from his vantage point. 

He allowed himself to go with the gravitational pull and fell in. Only


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