Story Contest 2018 #1 Results » Highly Commended - Time Traveler's Diary
“Time Traveler's Diary” by John Rastioh, Canada, is the Highly Commended story in the junior category of the first biannual Short Story Contest 2018.
Time Traveler's Diary
The last two weeks of my life were terrible. Let me rewind a bit.
My name is Morris Small. I moved from America to Kaakhstan when I was seven. I am a 13 year old boy who has built the first time machine. I live in the year 12001. At school, all of us were assigned a project, but, the project was with partners. And as unlucky as I was, I got the biggest bully in the school, Bobby Longfield, the biggest, ugliest, and dumbest linebacker on the school's football team. We decided Boby was supposed to meet me inside my house, but he went to the garage instead, where my time machine was.
"What's that?" asked Bobby in a rude tone.
"A time machine." I replied, stepping in the way."Can I try it?"
"No."
"Once?"
"Mmm, no."
"Then I will help myself." Bobby said, pushing past me. I pushed him into the wall. He came back at me and shoved me towards the time machine. When I hit the time machine, it started to power up and the door to the time machine opened. I ran to Bobby and pushed him away from the time machine and he flew into my mini fridge. He got up and pushed me into the time machine. Then, he came into the time machine and the doors closed. He pushed me away from the control panel, punched in some numbers, and we were gone.
"Where are we going?" I asked curiously.
"1338," He replied.
"Oh, ok. Wait, WHAT?!? Why on earth would you go there?" I said, started.
"What's there? I wanted to see what they did in the old days."
"That's the time of the Plague!"
"What's the plague?"
"It was an old disease that killed thousands of... oh, never mind."
"Can't we just punch in new coordinates in the time machine?"
"Do you want to get pulverized?"
"No."
"That's what I thought."
Once we arrived in 1338, we powered up the time machine again, punched in new coordinates, and pressed the "START" button. The motors started running, but stopped. We tried again but it couldn't even power on. Then I saw a red, flashing light. I looked down at it and saw we were out of fuel.
"Why now? Out of any time, you chose when we are in the time of the plague," I said, whining. Out of the little glass hole, I saw people hiding in the alley ways and a man who was about 6 feet in height, slouched, and was looking for something. I opened up the door to the time machine. The man stopped his searching and looked at me.
"What do you need?" I asked him.
"I have the plague, and I am looking for a cure. People are scared of me so they hide from me." The man whispered. I remembered that I brought my bag with me. My bag had the cure for plague, leprosy, and scurvy. I reached into my bag and got out the antidote for plague and gave it to him.
"What is it?" the man asked.
"What you've been looking for. The cure for plague." I replied.
"What is your name?" The man asked curiously.
"Morris." I replied. I heard Bobby come out of the time machine.
"Can we leave yet? I have to get to a football game at 6:00 and I don't want to be late." Bobby asked.
"Who's that?" The man said, disgusted.
"Bobby," I replied.
"Thank you, thank you!" He replied and took the pill. In a few moments, the man wasn't slouching.
"I am the mayor of this town. I can give you anything we have."
"Can we have some iron?" I asked.
"That would be easy." The mayor said and clapped his two hands. Instantly, two people came with a kilogram of iron. I took the iron and put it into the tank and the machine started to run. Bobby and I crammed into the time machine and disappeared.
Back at my house, we decided to tell no one about that and just finish our project about the plague.
"We are never doing that again," I said.
"Agreed," Bobby replied.
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