11 DAYS IN A TIME MACHINE
Chapter 1: The Time Machine
Chapter 2: The Creation of Earth
Chapter 3 – The Jurassic World
Chapter 4 - The Mummy’s Tomb
Chapter 5 – The Mayan Culture
Chapter 6- The Muslim Invasion
Chapter 7- The Bloody War
Chapter 8 - Back to Base
Chapter 1: The Time Machine
This year, our term-end pajama party was scheduled on 14thApril. We had been looking forward to it. Fortunately, all my best friends were with me in the pajama party group: Shantanu, Navneeth, and Aryan. In the beginning, the entire group was made to play lots of outdoor games. It was great and we were all having a great time.
Suddenly, during one of the games, near the basketball court, Navneeth noticed that there was an object with some blinking lights. Since we couldn’t leave the team activity, we decided to get back to investigate later. All of us finished our dinner fast and sneaked out with our torches. We all gathered around the blinking object – it was a shoe-shaped object with red, green and yellow lights. We were curious and bewildered!
Curious Shantanu pressed a red button. Shantanu giggled mischievously and said, “Dude, let’s have some fun!” and in the blink of an eye, we were in the cosmos. “Oh my god! It is a time machine. Let’s go to the early-man era!” I said excitedly. The others exclaimed. Almost in a minute, we landed with a loud thud!!! But where? Where were we?
Chapter 2: The Creation of Earth
“Looks like we are in the middle of nowhere.”, Shantanu said. Suddenly, we saw a prodigious figure. “Run, it is a leviathan!” I exclaimed. We all headed to the time machine as fast as we could. When we were about to go back to the time machine, the monster roared, “Where are you going? Don’t you want to meet me?” “No! You are a leviathan!” we all said in unison. The monster looked vexed and said, “Leviathan? I am the God of Thunder! What are you four doing here?” We were taken aback. “Uh, nothing.” we replied.
The God of Thunder seemed irritated by our presence but can’t say the same for us. We were just relieved to hear that he wasn’t a monster. We wanted to tag along with him. “Where are you going? Can we come with you?” we asked. He replied “No! I am busy creating the Earth right now!” We looked at each other in disbelief.
I asked the God of Thunder, “Are there any men on the Earth?” “No, not yet. We are just making plants and micro-organisms.”, he responded. And there, we were left alone with the God of Thunder on his way. All of us decided to head back to our time machine. The next stop turned out to be a place with some of the world’s most precarious creatures!
Chapter 3 – The Jurassic World
We saw a huge shadow and wondered what it was. Navneeth reckoned that they were dinosaurs. He told us that dinosaurs had lived between 243 and 233.23 million ago. “Wow! You know a lot about dinosaurs” I said. Feeling chuffed with himself, he giggled like a Cheshire cat!
“The dinosaurs first appeared in the Triassic Period. They were reptiles. They could be divided into avian and non-avian.” said Aryan. While we were busy gossiping, I spotted a Triceratops that looked unsteady. I gathered some courage and petted it against the advice of my friends. The moment I looked up I saw a T-rex started coming menacingly towards us.
We ran for our lives. But the T-Rex had halted. We wondered what happened. I told my friends, “Guys look there. The triceratops is tackling the T-rex.” ‘My’ triceratops was giving the T-Rex a run for his money! “It is buying us time, run!”, said Shantanu. We ran back to the time machine and wished to go to a place where humans were there.
Chapter 4 - The Mummy’s Tomb
We landed right in front of the wondrous and incredible pyramid of Giza in Egypt. Shantanu said, “The pyramid of Giza is also known as Pyramid of Khufu and the Pyramid of Cheops.” We went further and, to our amazement, saw some humans.
They all seemed to be worshipping. But whom? We were perplexed. We asked one of the Egyptians to tell us what they were doing. He told that it was the fiesta of Amun. We all wondered who Amun was.
Another Egyptian walked towards us. He explained, “Amun is the Egyptian God of sun and air. We all are praying to him and offering him food.” After this explanation, we carried on in the desert and saw some mummies. One of them got up and started chasing us. Luckily, the time machine was near. We grabbed it and rapidly closed the door. It was a great escape.
Chapter 5 – The Mayan Culture
The next stop turned out to be the Mayan civilization. Shantanu said, “This is great; we have reached South America.” The Mayan civilization was a Mesoamerican civilization developed by the Maya people. It occupied a wide territory that included Southern Mexico and America.
“Whoa!” exclaimed Navneeth. We were standing in front of Tikal's main plaza, which was similar to the pyramids in Egypt. Nearby, we saw some people playing what looked like a team game. Boy, was it a fast game! We approached a group of elders, but they didn’t speak our language. Thankfully, Aryan had some experience in sign language and managed to communicate with them.
“What are they saying?”, asked an eager Shantanu. Aryan started explaining, “They are playing a game called Poc-a-Toc. Two teams of seven players each try to score a small rubber ball through a vertical hoop affixed to a wall while defending their own goal. And as you can see, they can only use their hips, shoulders, head, and knees.” “Wow! This sounds like a combination of our football and basketball. We should also try this version!”, I said, and we all laughed while heading back to the time machine.
Chapter 6- The Muslim Invasion
We landed in a scene of fights and wars! All of us were dumbfounded. Shantanu said, “This looks like the Muslim invasion.” “Yeah, the early Muslim conquests are also referred to as the Arab conquests and began with the Islamic Prophet Muhammad in the 7th century, as early as 622 AD.”, I added. Navneeth said “Of course, what did you expect? It was in 2020?” We all had a hearty laugh.
The resulting empire stretched from the borders of China and the Indian subcontinent, across the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia, the Caucasus and parts of Europe. “They took up so much land and fought so many wars.”, said Shantanu. “They were so mighty!”, said Aryan. “Imagine how rich they must be!”, I exclaimed. Shantanu started daydreaming about owning gold and being an emperor until we snapped him out of it.
In Arabia, swords from India were greatly valued as they were made of the finest steel, and were the favorite weapons of the Mujahideen. Navneeth was extremely silent and looked afraid. He started talking about the impact of war on nature and humanity and cited the various wars of the world. That reminded me of WW-II. “Let’s go to the 1930s. Who is with me?”, I asked. Everyone exclaimed, “Yeah, that is a great idea!” And with that plan, we went towards the time machine.
Chapter 7- The Bloody War
Now, we were transported to the late 1930s. The world was about to suffer from the aftermath of WW-II. There was bloodbath everywhere, and we could see malnourished women, children, and fatigued soldiers. Shantanu asked me to tell about WW-II, as he knew that I had studied the event in great detail. “Hitler attacked Poland, and the Second World War started on 1 Sep 1939. During WW-I the Allies had defended France for 4 years. This time, it lasted only 4 weeks.” I said. “Oh no! this is not making me feel good.”, said Navneeth. I said, “Come on! It’s history, and there is so much that we can learn about human nature from this. These serve as lessons for the future.”, I replied.
“I want to hear about it.”, said Shantanu. “It was the deadliest conflict in history, marking more than 75-80 million fatalities. The Axis included Germany, Italy, and Japan. The Allies included British India, France, USA, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa.”, I continued. “Wow, there were so many allies!”, said Aryan.
I went on, “The Japanese jumped into the war with bombarding the Pearl Harbour where they bombarded the US troops without a warning. The US troops suffered many casualties. Then the U.S troops avenged them. The President of the U.S, Theodore Roosevelt, was sure to retaliate and he did. The Americans invented the Atom bomb and dropped it on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.” Aryan asked, “They named the atom bombs something like ‘Fat Boy’ and ‘Little man’, didn’t they?” “Exactly!”, I said, “The one dropped on Nagasaki was way more powerful than the Little Boy. Hitler committed suicide on 30th April 1945. The Soviets continued the war for 3-4 months. It was finally over on 2nd Sep 1945.”, I concluded. “Oh please, can we go home now?”, asked a visibly distressed Navneeth. “Ok, ok…let’s go.”, I said. We all headed to the time machine to get back home.
Chapter 8 - Back to Base
On our way back, Shantanu asked, “Our parents must be very anxious that we were gone for 11 days.” I calmed him down, “True Shantanu, but what if we tell them the knowledge we learned?” “Yeah”, exclaimed everybody; now we felt confident enough to face our parents.
“Guys, bid your farewell to the machine.”, Aryan said. “Let’s keep the machine.”, said Navneeth. I told them that I could keep it. Everybody was fine with it. It was my duty to keep the time machine safe. Finally, we reached our apartment gate.
Our parents were discussing something with some police personnel at the gate. On seeing us they came running. They gave us the tightest hugs and asked, “Where were you? We have been so worried!” It took a while to calm them down, and then, one-by-one all of us recounted our marvelous adventures. They were spellbound. My mother said, “Let’s all take a trip to the early man era, Shaurya.”
And so, our next adventure was already underway!
Written by:
Shaurya Sinha
Edited by:
Aanchal Agrawal
Lovely creative story Shaurya. Thanks Aanchal for your guidance.
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