It is at the Traveler’s discretion to bring her affairs in order before the outset of the journey and all I ask for myself is for her to burn this notebook to cancel out the possibility of someone other than herself recreating the machine.
It is my sincere hope that I have taught her enough to prepare her for whatever is to come. She should always remember that however far she travels, she is always at home.
Once I finished reading, I started again from the beginning. The Traveler is an essential part of the machine. I had no idea what that meant. I closed the notebook and placed it on my nightstand. Then I shut off the light. I thought about going to the store in the morning to say goodbye to Paul. But I didn’t know how he would react, so I decided not to. I also didn’t want to say anything to my stepmom. "Remember that time machine I had told you about? I’m about to use it and I won’t be coming back."
I fell into a deep sleep. In my dream, I forged a mask of iron that resembled my father’s face. I tried to make it speak to me but it stayed motionless. He’s gone, was the first thought I had when I woke up the next morning. He’s gone and you’ll never see him again.
5
The snow lay heavy on the tall pines, their lower branches almost touching the ground from the weight. I had to shovel a path to the shop. I saw my sister’s husband cleaning off the front stoop and clearing a walkway to the garage. We nodded at each other. I never spoke to him much. My sister and he lived in a completely different world. For them it was all about Christmas decorations and holiday cards and filling stocking stuffers. They wanted to make this year special to keep my dad’s spirit alive through the holidays. I found myself thinking that was a nice sentiment but I couldn’t bring myself to admit it to them.
I made a small fire in the woodstove, if for nothing else than to burn the notebook. I didn’t really want to burn it. It was filled with memories and seemed the last remaining document involving my dad that meant something. I sat in front of the stove for a while, at one point thinking that I should have made copies and hid them somewhere. Just in case. Eventually I opened the fire door and tossed the notebook into the flames. I’d never thought of myself as brave. I think that moment was the first time. Brave or stupid. It couldn’t be helped. Some things you can postpone only for so long.
I opened the door to the storage area. The light came through a few gaps in the siding and illuminated the machine enough to see its contours. I walked around it, inspecting the chassis like a pilot checking her airplane before take-off. Then I climbed into the seat. It was cold but surprisingly comfortable. I had never thought about where to travel other than into the past. According to the notebook, the machine did not travel automatically to a predetermined point in time. After activating it, I needed to use the pedals to move. Left for the past, right for the future. The display of the old alarm clock was supposed to give me an idea where I was at any given point in time. So far so good. I closed the cabin top over my head. The metal fencing allowed me to see out with almost no interruption in my visual field. Just don’t touch it, I thought to myself.
I had mounted the on/off switch to the right side of the alarm clock display. It was a basic one-way toggle switch. It seemed too simple, too rudimentary a device to control my travel through time. As I sat there, I became aware of my sweaty palms, despite the cold. I didn’t want to think about the notion that the switch would do nothing; that it wouldn’t jumpstart the machine, and me, into a different time. I felt a wave of nausea creep up inside me. All this time, I had held on to the hope of this moment and now that it was here, I was paralyzed and unable to move my arm and flip it.
"Dad, help me," I said into the quiet. "Please."
There was no answer. Of course there was no answer. Did I really expect one? I stretched out my hand. My fingerless gloves were worn and smudged with grease. My fingernails were dirty. I had stopped cleaning them a few weeks ago. The dust of the forge had settled deep into my skin. I touched the tip of the switch, applied a little bit of pressure, not quite enough to move the lever. I breathed in and out once more and flipped the switch. Except the echoing sound of the switch itself, there was nothing. The battery should have released electrical current into the large capacitor and from there, a charge should have jumped up and over the top of the cabin to the back where the centrifugal rotor was installed.
So silly, I thought. Did I really think this would work? I sat there for a while. The knot in my stomach slowly grew. The feeling of failure was a thin blanket over the truth—the realization that I had spent the last six weeks trying to avoid the unavoidable. That this was a well-meant gift from my father to occupy my mind and get through the hardest part of the grieving process. It had worked. Up until now. The tears blurred my vision. It was as if the ground below me gave way and I’d dropped into a dark nothing. The pain, as excruciating as it was when I had felt it a few weeks ago, was so powerful now that I keeled over in my seat. I opened my mouth but no sound escaped it. I couldn’t breathe or form words or even thoughts except the one that I would never see my dad again. Ever. That he was gone and I had no way of feeling his hand on my shoulder or him ruffling my hair.
I began to moan. It seemed to help with the pain. My moans became louder. I saw my hands holding the bars of the seat on either side. I didn’t feel the cold of the pipes beneath my fingers. And when I could not hold it in any longer, I screamed. It was as if all my pain, my heartache, and the loss of my father’s love, my father’s big love, was in that scream. My voice was raw and I let it swell to a high-pitched sound while everything poured out of me and into the world. At that moment, it was as if he had called me and I had answered…
The blue spark was blinding, and even though it was brief, I couldn’t see anything for a few seconds. It was followed by the sound of the arc—the moment the welding rod connected with the steel. It obliterated my scream for an instant. A second spark followed. I could see that it came from the front where the battery compartment was installed.
And then, through the blur that was my tears, I saw the charge leave the capacitor and rip across the top of the cabin to the back. I felt my hair standing up in all directions. A snapping sound was followed by a deep humming sound. The light in the storage room was suddenly so bright that I had to close my eyes. When I opened them again, the walls of the shed were bathed in golden light. The machine was activated.
When I lifted my left foot, it shook uncontrollably. But I was afraid the activation was only temporary and I wanted to go back as fast as I could. I put my foot onto the pedal and applied the tiniest amount of pressure. The alarm clock display moved. First, it was only a few minutes. Then a dozen and, next, an hour. I took my foot off the pedal. The display moved another hour before it stopped. Saturday, December 22nd, 3:08AM. I didn’t see anything different in the shed. The light was as bright as before. I pushed the pedal down again. The display went back a few more hours and into Friday the 21st. I increased pressure and skipped three days at once before I slowed down again.