T is for Time Machine

Can you imagine time travel? Race through the time stream or vortex in electric blues and greens. Who decides the colour of time?

I'm sure you have seen plenty of movies and TV shows about time travel, with elaborate machine, telephone boxes, and such; maybe even read a book or two. The concept is fascinating and Wells' novella has been made into radio dramas and four different movies.

The Time Machine, which was written by H. G Wells in 1895 and my definitive version is the 1960 movie starring Rod Taylor and Alan Young. I have also read the novella at least three times. The story is of an unnamed scientist who builds a time machine and travels far into the future, the year 801,702 to be exact, where man has become child-like and innocent (the Eloi) and under the control of another race of humans called the Morlocks, who are subterranean. The Time Traveler learns the fate of humanity, but rather than return to his time, bring a bit of knowledge to the Eloi, the race of above race of child-like man, and thus build a new world out of what was left.

It is included in the Dying Earth subgenre, where the earth is naturally dying (End of Time), and not caused by an apocalyptic situation. It goes as far back as 1805 with Le Dernier Homme but Jean-BapisteCousin de Grainville, a story about the last man on a sterile earth..

It poses an interesting question by the end of the book and movie; what book(s) would you take to help rebuild mankind?

The Traveler's Path

Not standing still, but always moving

time has a way of never resting.

A traveler hurling through time,

beyond anything he knows.

Time has a way of never resting.

onward it travels, passing

beyond anything he knows

when the world has begun to die.

Onward it travels, passing

through minutes and hours

when  the world has begun to die;

after eons have passed.

Through minutes and hours,

now more than seconds and

after eons have passed

mankind dwells within the garden.

Now more than seconds and

the serpent is revealed twisted, perverted; and

mankind dwells within the garden,

and is mere fodder for the serpents, the Morlocks.

The serpent is revealed twisted, perverted; and

raising mankind to like cattle,

and is mere fodder for the serpents, the Morlock;

is the future of the human race.

Raising mankind to be like cattle--

A traveler hurling through time,

is the future of the human race,

not standing still, but always moving.