It was a cold, November morning in New York. I was up in the attic, working on my latest project. It was a time machine. No, it was the Time Machine. I had spent three whole years up in this warm, damp place to work on this Machine. Call me crazy if you’ll like, for many people have done so, but believe it or not, this Machine really works!

            Who am I? My name is Tyme McDougall. I was a professor at Johns Hopkins. Cunning I was in the areas of mathematics and quantum physics. I believed that time could be reversed by exciting the electron particles in an atom and then rearranging them in different ways. One day I began experimenting with time in my lab at the university. Then my director saw that I was a fool to waste my time on such out-of-the-question experiments. He expelled me from the teaching board. I landed right in this attic and continued my experiment until today.

            As each day passed by, my Time Machine drew closer to completion. Today, I was installing the dials and buttons on the dashboard. I was beneath the cockpit trying to screw on the time o’ meter. It tells you how far back in time you have traveled.  Another vital component was the time selector. This brass knob lets you select the time period you would like to enter. It is accurate within a tenth of a second. To the left of the brass knob is the large red switch that labels “RETURN”. You could probably guess what this one is for. When you want to come back from your time travel, you flick this spring-loaded switch back. It will take you back to the place that the machine started which will be my attic. All the way at the top of the cockpit is the most important switch, the “GO!” knife-switch. Upon slamming this switch against the contacts, the Time Machine will take you to your destination is seconds.

            The exterior of the Time Machine looked like a combination of car and airplane.  It sported a turbine jet engine in the rear and a streamlined, aerodynamic nose in the front. At the bottom were wheels that automatically retract when cruising at high speeds. The cockpit window consisted of highly shined shatterproof glass that protected me from hazardous objects while traveling through time. However, the best part was the machine gun mounted at the bottom of the Time Machine. I loaded it with armor piercing shells just in case violent scenarios lie ahead of my path.

            Well equipped, I decided to jump into the cockpit for my first journey to travel time. I secured myself onto the seat with the seat belt.  Next, I turned the brass knob to 3000 BC. Finally, I hit the knife-switch down. The jet engines roared to life. A bright tunnel appeared out of nowhere in front of me. All of a sudden, the Time Machine gave a violent jolt. It hurled itself forward into the time tunnel. For a moment, I was dazed. Every color spun crazily in front of my eyes. But not to worry, for the controls were automatic. When I drove deeper into the time tunnel at light speed, purple and blue streaks of light whizzed past me like bullets. Blurry objects appeared in front of me. Some were just holographic images, but others were real, solid, dangerous objects. The worse part was that you could not tell them apart. Once, I narrowly avoided a solid steel boulder. In fact, the contact was so close that the boulder left a rough scrap mark on my side cockpit window.

            I felt the machine slow down to a halt. Then the Time Tunnel began to dissolve into the ancient air. As the view cleared, I saw nothing but sand and desert. The dry wind blew against my face. At the edge of the horizon, I saw something moving. It looked like thousands of little ants crawling around. However, they were carrying something that looked like rectangle boulders. These were no doubt humans. I had to squint to get a better view. They were stacking the stones together to form what? “What would they be doing?” I said aloud. “They are building the… the… the Great Pyramids of Egypt!” So I’m in Egypt at the time that they are building the Great Pyramids!

            Using my time machine, I drove quickly across the desert to where the Egyptians were building the pyramids. Once I was in an earshot’s distance, I yelled “Hey, you pyramid builders! How is your work proceeding?” Somehow it seemed as though they did not hear me. I tried again. “Could you hear me?” Now it was clear to me that the people of the past could not hear or see me. I was merely an illusion misplaced in time. “But maybe I could physically touch them.” I said aloud. I decided to give it a try. Remembering the machine gun attached to my Time Machine, I grasped the trigger. Then I carefully aligned the cross hairs at the Egyptian man commanding orders. The man was easiest to shoot since he was standing on the large rock, clearly above the workers. Then I pulled the trigger. As six bullets flew towards the Egyptian, I felt the Time Machine recoil at the force of the gun. Because I saw the man fall and taken away, I knew that people of the past could be physically touched. With this in mind, I was determined to further interrupt the Egyptians’ building process.

            “Ha! Ha! Ha!” I laughed when I shot down the three thousand pound Golden Cap that took the workers more than three days of backbreaking work to lift. All of a sudden thousands of workers lined up in a row and started murmuring prayers to their gods. They had thought that the gods were angry with them for building such a lousy pyramid. A worker even offered to sacrifice his life for forgiveness of their carelessness. Bam!! I shot down the slave who had offered his life. “Apology accepted.”

            What should I do next I thought. “I know! I’ll mess around with the King’s body!” Since he was being mummified right now, I headed towards the chamber to ruin the process. Within the dark room, I was hovering my Time Machine right above the servants’ heads. They were wrapping the king in cloth. Next, were going to brush the body with oil. “I know! I am going to switch that bottle of oil with my bottle of sulfuric acid!” I had to be careful when I did this, for if they turned around, they would see their bottle of oil floating in the air when I carried it away. Now I stood there and watched it happen. As the servant dipped the brush into the bottle nothing happened. But when she applied the sulfuric acid the mummy, the body started to sizzle. Then smoke rose out of the body where the acid was applied. The servant starred in horror as the Pharaoh’s body smoked and sizzled. I laughed and laughed until I could laugh no more.

            I walked back into my Time Machine and drove out of the tomb into the light again. When I was thinking of what to do next, the low fuel indicator started to flash. “Well, the fun is over for one time period. It’s time to go back.” I pressed the shiny “RETURN” button on my panel. The Time Tunnel appeared again right in front of me. The Time Machine rocketed back to my time. Within seconds, I was back in my old, damp attic. The engines died away. I stepped off and started smelling the familiar “attic” air.

            “Everything is back to normal!” I looked at my old social studies textbook to see in-depth of what happened to the Pharaoh. I read the lines aloud. “The Pharaoh’s body was never recovered. Rumors say that an evil servant brushed magical oil onto the mummy and turned it into smoke. It disappeared into the heavens forever.”