The Time Machine

“Are your watches working?” I stopped two strangers walking past me and asked.

“No” one of them replied. “It had stopped working at 7 o’ clock today morning”

“Even my watch stopped working at 7 this morning” his companion pointed out to me. “But strangely, I remember seeing time at 9:00 and 10:15 today. I do not understand how can it go back and stop at 7 on its own?”

A third stranger overheard the conversation and joined in “Even my watch was working fine. I saw time on my watch several times today. And then the time moved back and stopped at 7”

This meant the gunman had not pushed the pin inside.

The confusion had just begun to set in. Our town was lost in time. I knew soon this confusion would turn into a chaos. I had messed it up completely this time.

I sat on a side pavement and tried to recollect the incidents of my life.

*******

In the year 1961, 25 students were invited to National Physical Laboratory, London by the famous physician Dr. Morgan. He was hired by an unknown person to build a Time Machine - similar to the one shown in an English film released around that time. His employer wanted a machine that could be used to travel to the future or past.

Dr. Morgan never shared the details of the person who had hired him nor did he ever explain the why this machine was needed. Mr. Morgan only said it was a matter of life and death for him. He also revealed that he was given Fifty Thousand Pounds pounds to build this machine and would be rewarded with more money, once the machine is built.

“He has promised me, that if we succeed in making this Time Machine, he will make us Millionaires overnight. But if we fail, he might kill us” announced Mr. Morgan to his students.

“What if we make the machine with his money, use it on our own and never tell him?” I interrupted.

“He will not only take away the machine from you but will also take your life; so please don’t do this grave mistake at all” Mr. Morgan advised me.

The offer was indeed attractive but we all could sense that there was something fishy about this project. Thus only 5 out of 25 students agreed to be a part of this project. I was one of those five.

2 Years passed but we could not derive a theoretical hypothesis on time travel, let alone building a physical prototype of Time-Machine. None of us had any clue on how to start building such a Time-Machine that could transport a man to past and future.

One Sunday morning when we arrived at Dr. Morgan’s lab we were informed that Dr. Morgan and his family died in a mysterious road accident.

Without Dr. Morgan’s guidance, the project was jeopardized. We still had Fifty Thousand Pounds lying with us, completely unused. We didn’t know to whom we should return this money. We finally decided to divide the amount among ourselves and left London forever.

*******

I fell in love with a nurse whose name was Prateeksha. She had an unusual fondness for watches.

“I wish I could wear a new watch every week” she would often say.

I had 10,000 Pounds in my bank account; I bought the only Watch Manufacturing Company of our town. It wasn’t hard to make her fall in love with me afterwards. We met every Sunday and I gifted her new watch.

Prateeksha was always engaged in hospital. Time was the biggest constraint in her life. Even if she didn’t like, she had to report for duty early every morning and then work for long hours. Her busy routine also affected our relationship. Many times she had to cancel our day-outs due to extreme work in hospital.

One day, Prateeksha’s father fell seriously ill and she missed her train merely by two minutes. Her father stayed in some other town and the next train was only after 3 days. By the time she reached home, her father had already passed away.

“Only if I had a device that could hold the time by just two minutes, I would have been on that train and I would have been able to see my father live one last time” she cried.

That is when the idea of Time Machine stuck to me.

Every Quartz watch consists of a thin piece of Quartz that oscillates or vibrates when a certain amount of current is passed through it. The electronics inside the watch senses the constant vibration and streamline this in order to create one pulse every second. This pulse generated every second moves the Second’s hand of the watch. The gears inside the watch drive the Minute’s and Hour’s hand in the correct ratio.

My plan was to manipulate the electronics inside the watch to draw more power from the cell in the watch and make the second’s hand move as fast as I wanted.

For this, I made a Master Watch and linked the electronics of all the watches manufactured at my company to take signals from this master watch. Thus if I pulled out the pin of the Master Watch and rotated it forward, the electronics in all the watches linked to the Master Watch would draw more power from the cell, vibrate the Quartz faster and moved the time forward in proportion.

Similarly when I rotated the pin backwards, the electronics in all the watches in the town drew more power from the cell, vibrated the element faster but created a pulse in opposite direction which further moved Second’s hand in the anti-clockwise direction.

Those were the days when people still used manual watches that required coiling every morning. Quartz watches were beginning to get popular in our town. Primarily because of they did not require coiling.  And since my company was the only Watch manufacturing company in town, people in the town, gradually started buying the Quartz watches without knowing that I had manipulated the electronics to control the time.

Prateeksha was going to visit her mother. She was again late by at least 10 minutes. She was sure; she would miss the train again. I assured her, that nothing like that would happen this time.

I simply pushed the time back by 15 minutes in my master watch. Consequently all the watches in town, including the watch on the railway platform, moved back by 15 minutes. She boarded the train a clear 5 minutes before the train departed. She was happy.

Some days later we came to see a movie of her favourite actor. We had reached early by 30 minutes.

“I wish, somehow the time passes fast. I can’t wait any longer to get inside the cinema hall” She said hoping for some magic.  

The movie started within 5 minutes. All I had to do was move my Master Watch faster by 25 minutes. She was happy yet again.

During winter mornings when she felt lazy to get out of the warm bed, I would move the time back by an hour and the entire town would sleep for an extra hour that day. Whenever she was late to hospital, I changed the time to make sure she was on time. And every time we made love with each other, after every 30 minutes and I pushed the time back by 15 minutes.

“Is it not romantic that every time we make love time seems to slow down!!” she was totally unaware of the fact that the man lying next to her was controlling the time.

Of course I noted the time before I changed it and finally adjusted it back to normal late in the night-when everybody in the town would be asleep.

In due course of time, I became super confidant of the smart game I was playing with time in our town. I was convinced I would never be caught. And then a telegram came:

CONGRATS ON YOUR INVENTION. NOW REMEMBER MORGAN’S ADVICE.

*******

We were buying vegetables in the market today morning when a gun man with a mask on his face came from nowhere and pointed a gun at me. Prateeksha instantly jumped between me and the gun. She was shot right in the centre of her chest.

“Rush her to the hospital fast… she doesn’t have much time” shouted a man at me expecting me to help him lift her and carry her to the hospital. But I wasn’t listening.

My heart was trying to convince my mind that we could save her life by moving the time back. But for some reason my hands were fumbling and I couldn’t get hold of the pin of my Master Watch.

I untied the watch from my wrist and tried to hold the pin again. With my hands still fumbling, I pulled out the pin and moved back the time back.

“Lau… ” Prateeksha called my name one last time. The watch dropped from my hand and without caring about it, I ran towards her. By the time we reached hospital, she had already passed away.

Dr. Morgan had warned me that “He will not only take away the machine from you but will also take your life”

Prateeksha was my life and he took her away and machine… Wait, where is my watch? I was not tied around my wrist

I rushed out of the hospital to the spot of accident where I had dropped my watch. I searched around that area but the watch was missing. A hawker said the gun man returned and took the watch with him.

I remember I had forgotten to push the pin inside in hurry. I hoped the gun man had pushed the pin inside.

I stopped two strangers walking past me and asked, “Are your watches working?”

“No” one of them replied. “It had stopped working at 7 o’ clock today morning”

“Even my watch stopped working at 7 this morning” his companion pointed out to me. “But strangely, I remember seeing time at 9:00 and 10:15 today. I cannot understand how could it go back and stop at 7 on its own?”

A third stranger overheard the conversation and joined in “Even my watch was working fine. I saw time on my watch several times today. And then the time moved back and stopped at 7”

This meant the gunman had not pushed the pin inside. I had messed it up completely this time.

The confusion had just begun to set in. Our town was lost in time. I knew soon this confusion would turn into a chaos.

I sat on a side pavement and tried to recollect the incidents of my life.