Draft of a story: Birth of the Time Master

(This is a rough draft of a story I began at the prompting of my good friend Luna Raven. It’s based on a dream I had about time travel yesterday. Please enjoy and any feedback is much appreciated! – C.)

I awaken to another day in this sordid hell hole that is my existence. The usual routine begins: drab coffee that’s always a touch too hot, paired with the only savory meal of the day: a much-needed cigarette. After dressing in my grey unimaginative uniform, I proceed to the work which is my life.

One by one the mindless drones carry out their tasks, lifting and lugging the huge bricks and materials to build the new edifice. I am a god among men, so it should be fitting that I live in a temple where they can worship at my feet. After all, don’t I deserve this? I brought these wandering, mindless sheep of a people to order and prosperity! Their empty lives were drowning in mindless entertainment, eyes glued to screens and monitors. I simply tweaked this arrangement, guiding their fallow brains toward utility.

No more were the people to spend endless hours watching videos of cats or babies. This was meaningless. Instead, I led them to think of greater things, much more meaningful things: I taught them how to master Time itself.

Of course, this required discipline. The complex navigation through the science of Time travel and mastery could not afford idle time or thoughts intruding upon its excellence. And so I banished everything that made the mind idle: books, movies, music and games. These are the work of feeble minds, hampered by the need to feel elation and distraction. Time has no room for such obstacles.

And so, my world is grey and ordered, with every moment of each day structured and planned for the people. One less thing they need concern themselves with: original thought. Now, they do as I bid, with my instructions detailed on their precious screens. They perform my calculations, build my machines and carry out my wishes throughout all of time. And, when necessary, they kill for me.

Time is the greatest resource of mankind. We are all born with exactly the same amount at our disposal. Each day we have the same 1,440 minutes, that we can either use for good or waste. No one has any more or less. Only the dead use these minutes for naught…but even they still exist in time. I have learned how to make time my slave. There is no need for me to rush or hurry any more, because I have all the time I need. You see, I found a way to steal the minutes given to each human being and use them for myself. Before I brought Salvation to humanity, they foolishly wasted time. Now, time will never be wasted again.

I created a technology that allows our precious screens to not only view events in Time, but also to take us there. We are told that the human brain is a super computer. I decided to take this literally, experimenting on (sometimes unwillingly) available subjects until I found a way to connect the hippocampus with the electrical impulse and wireless signal of cellphones. That part of the brain is responsible for both memory and spatial awareness. In effect, one can dial into your memory or a particular location and then BE THERE.