The completed time machine sat before my eyes. It had taken decades of research and the last of my now measly savings to get this far, but my work had finally paid off. I had been ostracized from the scientific community, my papers rejected, accused of falsifying data, but it had all been worth it. I would be the first human to travel through time—that is, if “first” actually meant anything when it came to temporal mechanics. The outer boundary of science would expand further than ever before, all thanks to my persistence.
Or at least, that’s what I had been telling myself for the past two weeks. Every day, I would come down to my jury-rigged basement laboratory and simply stare at the machine I had built. I had double and triple-checked every calculation, tightened every last screw, and yet I still felt a sense of unease. I had even sent various objects back in time to test for any lingering effects of time travel; there were none, though whenever I got a cup of coffee from my future self it always ended up cold. But despite all the preparations, I was still unable to step into the machine myself.
I took a sip from the very same coffee cup as I gazed on at my creation. It was freshly made—I must not have decided to do any experiments tomorrow, as I hadn’t received anything from the future yet. A fruit fly buzzed around my face, and I swatted it out of the way in annoyance. Why didn’t I have the courage to test the machine myself? Had Chuck Yeager hesitated before he set out to fly faster than sound, or Neil Armstrong before he first stood on the moon? I had to do this, for my own sake as much as for the sake of humanity. I had devoted my life to breaking the temporal barrier. I had to see it through.
But then, the same doubts began to creep back into the edges of my mind. I had gone over the calculations again and again, but what if I had made a mistake? Every last part of the machine functioned perfectly, but what if something broke? What if traveling through time killed me, or worse, permanently trapped me in a sub-temporal state? What if I inadvertently created a paradox and caused the end of all reality? My research had shown me such a thing was fundamentally impossible, but what if I was wrong? Was it worth taking the risk, no matter how small, if the consequences could end the universe?
I had to step inside the time machine… but there was no rush. I could always do it tomorrow. After all, what does one more day matter when it comes to time travel? I had told myself that yesterday, and the day before, but tomorrow would be different. For now, I would just go over everything one last time, make sure it all works. If tomorrow was the big day, the pressure would be off me for today.
At that moment, a sudden flash of bright light shone out from the far wall, combined with the now-familiar vorp of spacetime reasserting itself that I had heard in all my experiments. My eyes shot over to the opposite end of the laboratory. Had my future self decided to do another test? I always sent objects back to 10:00 on the dot, but it was already a quarter past. My heart jumped. Something had to be different. I waited with bated breath as the localized blurriness caused by time travel slowly faded.
After a moment, it became clear what the object was. It was my time machine, albeit a much older version of it. It looked to be in complete disrepair, as if it had been abandoned for decades. Small fractures spread across the hull of the pod, covered in grime and degrading paint. Before I had a chance to fully comprehend what I was seeing, the door of the machine creaked open, and I got a good look at its inhabitant.
My coffee cup fell out of my hands, shattering on the concrete floor, but I was too shocked to notice. There, collapsed inside the machine, was me—or rather, me as I might have been fifty years in the future. My hair was white and wispy, my skin cracked and wrinkled, and I seemed to have gotten a few inches shorter. I had received objects from the future with no warning, but seeing my own future self there in front of me left my mind completely blank. I simply stood there, too stunned to do anything or comprehend the implications of the situation.
After a couple seconds, I saw my future self’s eyes glance up at me. Age would clearly hit me hard; I seemed to be nearly on death’s door, unable to even stand. I nervously walked towards the time machine, crouching down in front of the door. The air wafting from inside was stale and dusty, with the faint smell of mold permeating the room. The temperature in the laboratory seemed to drop noticeably.
Suddenly, a hand shot up, grabbing hold of my lapel and pulling me down with a firm yet tired grip. Before I knew what happened, I was making direct eye contact with my future self. They were dull, unfocused, as though I was nearly blind, and yet I saw something else in them as well. It was a sense of desperation, of hope, as if this one moment was all I had left to live for. My future self’s mouth opened, and two faint, strained words escaped:
“Time… flies….”
And with that, the grip loosened. I saw the life leave my own eyes, and yet my mind was elsewhere. I had no concern for witnessing my own death—if anything, it was a relief to know I would live to an old age—and yet the mystery of the phrase called to me. “Time flies?” What could that possibly mean? What could be so important about those two words that I would spend my last moments delivering that one message to my past self?
A sudden realization hit me. Time flies. What if I had spent every single day telling myself that I would make my first temporal flight tomorrow, but I had never gone through with it? Could I have not realized where the time had gone until I was on my deathbed, and only then found the courage to step into the machine? The idea terrified me. I simply kneeled there, unable to move, unable to think in the face of the existential dread that the knowledge of my own hopeless future had brought me.
But then, I realized there was still a gleam of hope. My future self had come here to give me a second chance. None of my work had shown that the future was immutable; perhaps it could be modified. If the knowledge of my future could spur me on to change my actions, maybe this fate could be avoided. I couldn’t let time slip away from me the way my future self had. It took every last shred of willpower I had, but I rose to my feet and stumbled into the present-day machine.
The door swung shut as I primed the startup sequence. Every system roared to life smoothly, and I saw the faint shimmer of the temporal shielding flicker over the porthole. I punched in the destination to the terminal—the abandoned warehouse across the street, fifteen years in the past. I had scouted it out as the location for my first flight all that time ago, since it was a large, empty location with no risk of running into a person, at least at the time I had chosen. I only wished I had stayed at the time, to find out if my flight would be successful, but I was still concerned about possible paradoxes back then.
My heart pounded faster than it ever had before. Everything was working perfectly, but how long would that keep up for? I had installed countless safety features, even an abort button to send me back to my starting time in an emergency, and yet they could all still fail. But as much as I wanted to put it off yet another day, I had already made my decision. I had to go through with this, no matter how scared I was. My hand hovered above the “Confirm” button, ready to launch. I swallowed, closed my eyes, and pressed down.
There was a slight rumble, and I heard the vorp of the machine separating from the primary timeline, followed by a smooth hum. My eyes nervously flickered open. Every reading on the terminal was coming up nominal; the time machine had worked without a hitch. I glanced over at the porthole, my heart racing. Just as I had expected, the view was pure black save for the shimmering shielding: external light could not interact with the machine in this state. I had done it! I had become the first human to travel backwards in time! The fear I had felt earlier simply melted into the ether, now nothing but a relic of the past—or rather, the future.
A tiny fruit fly buzzed past my head. It must have been sitting in the time machine when I entered and inadvertently gotten trapped on a temporal voyage, the same way it might hitch a ride cross country on a car. How little it must understand of its situation, I thought as I sat down in my chair. When the door opened once again, it would be not just in a different place, but a different time. Would it even be able to recognize such a change, to understand the concept of past and future? No doubt it would simply return to its life of buzzing around, ignorant of the fact that it was the first fly to ever travel through time. A blissful existence for a fly, I supposed.
I leaned back in my chair, a wave of tiredness washing over me. It had been morning when I left, but the stress and excitement had taken a lot out of me. I glanced over at the monitor. For a journey of ten years, traveling at this speed through extra-dimensional space, it would take about twelve minutes of local time to reach my destination. I focused on the countdown timer, listening to the smooth hum of the machine. I had already traveled back almost a year; no doubt the next nine would follow just as smoothly.
Suddenly, something caught my eye on the corner of the screen. My stomach jolted. It was an error alert—a minor one, far from triggering any emergency sequences, but an error nonetheless. My fear quickly returning, I clicked on it to open the machine diagram. It was a tiny fracture in the temporal shielding, no more than a couple millimeters large. It wasn’t big enough to cause any meaningful exposure to exterior space—perhaps the hull near it might be a bit more worn—but it terrified me regardless. What had caused it? Had I hit some kind of temporal debris, or was the pressure of such a large craft putting excess strain on the shield generator? I had to keep watch on it for the rest of the flight, to make sure it wouldn’t spread. If the temporal shielding failed, I would be exposed to the full brunt of extra-dimensional space with nothing to protect me but simple airtight steel. I wasn’t quite sure what effects such a thing would have on a living being, and I had no interest in finding out.
The fruit fly shot past my head again and I waved it out of the way, keeping my focus on the display. However, a second one buzzing past caused me to shift my attention. Two flies? Sure enough, as I looked around the cabin, I saw two different flies hovering around. One fly getting stuck in the time machine was believable, but two didn’t seem right. The machine was relatively sterile. There shouldn’t have been any reason for multiple flies to be here. I was probably overthinking it, but something just didn’t sit right with me.
I glanced back at the display. There wasn’t just one hole in the shielding; there was a second one I had missed as well. I froze. It seemed completely inconceivable, but could the flies be related to what was happening? Before my very eyes, a third microfracture appeared on the shield. I looked around once more, and sure enough, three different fruit flies were buzzing around the cabin. I could feel a sense of panic welling up, but the adrenaline of the situation kept it in check for now. I had to investigate.
I slowly brought my hands up to one of the unaware flies and swatted it in midair, a strange cold feeling overtaking the part where it touched my skin. For whatever reason, the action made my arms feel fatigued. Had I really gotten that tired? Regardless, I had more important things to focus on. I felt my heart pound as I slowly unclasped my hands to get a good look at the fruit fly I had just killed.
It wasn’t a fruit fly.
It vaguely resembled the shape of a common fly, and yet it was completely otherworldly. Its body was composed of pure black shards reminiscent of volcanic glass, shattered into pieces by the force of the impact. Its wings shone a rainbow of hues as if they were pure energy, still pulsating and shimmering, vibrating in a humming sound that sounded near identical to the wings of a fly. It was clearly dead, and yet, as I watched dumbfounded, the shattered crystals began to restructure themselves as if the concept of entropy itself had been reversed. After just a moment, it took off from my palm, resurrected and returned to its course around the room.
I suddenly understood. It must be some kind of living being, native to extra-dimensional space. No wonder it had breached the shielding; I hadn’t even considered this as a possibility when designing it. A rush of excitement shot through me. Discovering alien life was one thing, but to discover a form of life outside our very dimension? Such a thing would leave my name permanently etched in the annals of history, immortalized as the one who first discovered the temporal fly—
I paused. Something about that name sounded familiar. “Temporal fly…” I had just coined that word off the top of my head, and yet I could have sworn I had heard it before somewhere. No, that wasn’t quite right, was it? My brain felt clouded, and the incessant buzzing of these temporal flies certainly wasn’t helping. Temporal flies… no, what was it? I had just heard it recently, I was sure. Temporal flies….
Time flies.
Suddenly, I was jolted from my thoughts by a blaring alarm. My eyes shot over to the terminal. There were at least thirty or forty tiny holes in the shielding now, enough to trigger the emergency systems. A dense cloud of flies buzzed around the room, seemingly growing larger by the second. Without thinking, I slammed my hand down on the abort button, dull pain surging through my shoulder as I moved it. I let out a groan of pain. I could feel the slight rumble of the time machine reversing course. The abort button would take me back to just before I left, so I could warn my past self and avoid making the trip in the first place. Why had I made the trip in the first place? My mind felt foggy.
This wasn’t right. None of this was right. It was supposed to be a simple trip ten years in the past. Why hadn’t I just put it off a bit longer, thought out more possibilities? Could I have avoided this if I had given myself more time? What made me change my mind?
There it was, again. That same realization. I had gotten it just moments prior, and yet it slipped away from me once again. I couldn’t think properly. I felt as if I was on the verge of remembering something incredibly important, putting the pieces together, and yet my mind simply didn’t work in the way that it should. The buzzing of the flies echoed unceasingly throughout my head, drowning out any thoughts I had once had. I could feel more and more of my memories slipping away from me. I wasn’t even quite sure where I was anymore. It was a machine of some kind, but what did it do? All there was were the flies. Time flies. I didn’t know why, but I knew those words were important. I had to remember them.
The machine jolted, and I collapsed out of my chair onto the floor. Every part of my body ached. The buzzing grew even louder, to the point where I forgot what any other noise sounded like. I could feel them crawling over me. I curled up as best I could, trying to protect my face, but it was no use. It felt as if every last bit of heat in my body had been sucked out. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t move. I just lay there for what could have been seconds, could have been years, could have been millennia. All that I knew was the buzzing, and those two words that yet echoed through what was left of my mind. Time flies. Time flies. Time flies. Time—
Vorp.
The buzzing was gone. I couldn’t feel the flies crawling on me anymore. My eyes opened, grasping on to the suddenly new sensation of light. A door creaked open, and I felt warm air flow over me. A crashing sound echoed throughout the room. It was faint, but it was the most wonderful thing I had heard. The buzzing was gone.
Though my eyes were blurry, I saw the faint shape of a person in front of me. I felt a brief spark of lucidity flash by, the fog in my brain clearing up just a bit. I remembered. There was something incredibly important that I had to say, something so important it had managed to persist in my mind when everything else had eroded away. I gathered the last of my energy and raised my hand, grabbing on to the figure’s shirt and pulling them down to me. My body screamed in pain, but I had long grown numb to it. My jaw creaked open, and two words escaped my mouth.
“Time… flies….”
And with that, there was nothing more. I was out of time.