Herbert Never
Told
by Zvi A.
Sesling
Herbert liked
to invent things. His latest contraption was a
large chair in an even larger frame with a giant
fan at the back and a clock in the front. There
were dials and numbers and other doo-dads that,
when the gizmos were turned on would spin and
whistle and make clanking noises. So Herbert
decided he would sit in it and turn it on. It was
July 4, 1898 and outside an Independence Day
parade was in progress. They were playing
patriotic music that seemed to fade along with
the horses and buggies leading the marchers.
Herbert moved the handle to stop the machine and
saw strange vehicles that moved without horses
and whose metallic frames shone in the sunlight.
He heard music he had never heard before and
clothing on men and women that he could not have
imagined in his wildest dreams.
He pulled a lever back and the dials spun in
reverse until he was back to where he had started.
It had been an exhilarating but exhausting
experience. Climbing into bed Herbert George
Wells told himself that when he awoke in the
morning he would write his next novel, The
Time Machine.
Originally
published in the Boston Literary Magazine
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