On Time Travel

"Yes? Oh, hello! It is good to finally meet you. Come in! Come in! Have a seat."

The old man was bent and haggard. His cheeks were covered with patches of gray stubble and wrinkles spun around his eyes like a whirlpool. But the eyes themselves burned with a brightness that merited the faraway looks my professors gave when they spoke of him.

He led me to a large sitting room. The wood paneled floor was covered with an oriental rug, and several plush armchairs sat around a roaring fire, each different from the others. He sat in a small chair to one side. I took the one nearest him, a massive chair directly in front of the fire.

"What's that? Oh, yes. That was my father's chair. He was a big man. It seems large when I sit in it, too.

"If the fire's too warm for you, it will die down. I like a big fire. These old bones get quite a chill on a night like this. Something about the way the flames dance warms the soul. Would you like some tea? Cocoa?"

"Now... you want to hear about my experiences traveling in time, is that it?"

The old man chuckled. The smile revealed a toothy grin and seemed to double the wrinkles on his face. The fire playing across those wrinkles reminded me of the mountains at sunset. I sat expectantly, pen in hand and notebook balanced on my lap.

"All right, I'll tell you.

"As you have heard, I have been many times. Visited, that is. I have visited many times. I have seen a Tyrannosaur stalking prey, Caesar crossing the Rubicon, Jesus Christ performing His miracles, the American and French revolutions, and on and on. I have seen the first plasma drive activated, with disastrous results I might add, and I have seen the dawning on men's comprehension of the true nature of Space/Time and how she can be bent to our will.

"You've learned of all these things in your history lessons, I'm sure. I will try to tell you about the future as well, but those tales are more difficult to tell.

"Time - is an interesting beast. It's not as most people imagine it. Oh, I'm sure you know stories of some fanciful explorer going to the past and interfering some way that radically alters his own future. Ah - it makes a good story, I suppose - but true time travel is nothing of the kind. The time line, she is not so fragile as that.

"Most of these stories overlook a fundamental quality of time, and it affects all of time travel. There is a present. Yes, right now. This tale that I'm sharing with you is occurring just as we experience it. Observers from the future could come and watch us, but it would happen "again" - I say again loosely, of course - it would happen "again" exactly as it happens now. We would never realize they were here."

I had read many of those stories. Naturally, I knew his theories of time. Studying his work in my classes had led me to this meeting, but something still eluded me. And that question tickling the edges of my mind drove me.

"What's that?"

"Well, because of the present. You see, there is a focal point to the time line - a true present. All behind that focal point is truly the past, and all ahead of it is truly the future. Many have imagined that the present is only what you are experiencing at a given moment, so if you were to travel to the past, for example, you would experience a new "present" in the past. But it simply doesn't happen that way. If you travel to the past, the present carries on quite merrily without you, just as the mercury in a thermometer keeps rising on a hot day even if you hide yourself in a cooler. And it can be rather a chore to catch up with the present if you dally too long in the past - or the future, for that matter."

The old man creaked forward in his chair and leaned…