Living In The Past
Clarence yearned for the ancient times when lucky people lived in villages, ate what they grew, developed practical skills, bartered for goods, lived a joyous communal life. The olden times were golden. Clarence decided to use his skills to find ways to return the entire world to those glorious days. Time travel was not the answer. He wanted to recreate the Olden Times now. And, fourteen years after having the concept, Clarence he stood before his new device, plugged it in and pushed the big red button.
He closed his eyes and felt a burst of energy.
Clarence opened his eyes and saw his apartment was gone. He stood in a small house one storey house made of logs. He wore hand stitched leather pants, a dirty shirt on top. Leaving his machine, which stood in the centre of the room, Clarence walked outside to see a lovely picturesque village. Grey smoke curled from chimneys and cows mooed in the dirt street.
It was ideal.
Clarence stopped the first person he met, a woman carrying pails of water. “Hello there, I’m new here!”
“Another pair of hands,” the woman muttered. “Good. Plague, bad farming, King’s increasing the taxes. Terrible. This is no kind of life. You. What do you do?”
“I’m a psychoneurophysicist,” Clarence told her.
“A what?” She shook her head. “Can you dig graves?” She spoke to several others who walked up and Clarence was given an iron shovel.
Clarence rushed back to his log cabin. These golden times were not what he expected. Possibly he had idealized them. He had to get himself and the world back to normal. Clarence reset the time machine and pressed the red button.
The machine remained dark.
No electricity.