Post Initial Test - Log 1

The first test was successful. Fascinating results.

- Audio recording included. See notes. -

Good ev-en-ing, listeners. How are all my favorite hypothetical future historians doing? Should I start this off with something more formal? All my other logs are pretty casual, but this one is very important. It will be studied by scientists for generations to come. gasp Maybe they’ll use it in schools to teach kids about my work! I guess it’s too late to start this formally, though, considering I’ve already been “started” for almost a minute now. Whoops. I guess I’ll just...go for it then.

I am excited to report that I finally got the time machine to work. I, Mackenzie Bennet, have successfully invented time travel. Man, that sounds awesome when I say it out loud. Audio logs were such a good idea. Way to go, past me. I could totally actually congratulate past me, now that I think about it. I shouldn’t, though. Time is more resilient than sci-fi makes you think, but it’s still breakable. Going into the past and looking around is one thing; sending a note to my past self and confirming her future is another.

...Where does maybe possibly falling in love with someone from the past fit into that? Specifically, where does maybe possibly having a lovely conversation with someone from the past who maybe possibly is also into me fall into that? Okay, that sounds really bad, but hear me out. Not that you have much of an option, since this is a prerecorded historical reference. Should I be talking about my love life here? Yeah, yeah I should. This is relevant to the time travel thing because she’s from the past. Which brings us back to the maybe possibly paradox thing.

So. My first test of the time machine took me to 1495 CE. I’ll figure out the date later and add it to the notes. The Gregorian calendar won’t be designed for nearly another century, and I do not know the Julian calendar well enough to calculate the date on the fly. And I know what you’re thinking - “Mackenzie, going so far back in time for your first test was super dangerous! Why didn’t you pick a date from a few weeks ago so that if something went wrong, you wouldn’t be stranded somewhere without wifi, AC, and the polio vaccine?” Though I’m sure the future scientists studying my records exist in a world where time travel has been perfected, allowing you to choose your destination, unfortunately at this stage of development, the time machine kind of drops me in random locations and on random dates. I can return home with no problems, at least. I’m just glad I landed somewhere that had recognizable English. Any earlier and I would have been at a loss for words.

Anyway, I swear I was trying to be professional. I was going to look around just a little bit, make some notes, and then leave before anyone saw me. But then someone saw me. I turned, and there she was. She was wearing clothes that seemed a bit out of place, but I couldn’t quite tell how. I think they were a bit too flowing in the wrong places. Simple, but not in a stereotypical peasant way. And her hair. There was something familiar about the style that I couldn’t identify but I knew was not normal for that time and place. The way she moved, too. She carried herself like she was...not from around there. I got so caught up in the anachronism that was her existence that I forgot how out of place I was, and she started talking to me.

I tried to tell her I wasn’t real, that I was a spirit or an angel or a hallucination or something, but then she said she’d seen me before, in a dream. I told her you can’t dream of faces you haven’t seen, but she insisted that I was familiar to her. 

And here is where the situation gets tricky. She told me she saw me in Ancient Rome. While she was in Ancient Rome. She didn’t call it Ancient Rome though because when she was there, it wasn’t ancient. Let the record show that in addition to inventing time travel, I think I also have the first recorded meeting with an immortal. She said I had appeared from the air wearing clothes similar to what I have on now, and I was speaking a language she had never heard before. She now knew it had been English, though an English she hasn’t learned yet. I spoke to no one for just a few minutes, then disappeared again. She hadn’t thought of that moment in a long time, but she still remembered it clearly. 

I thought about telling her that flashbulb memories are as susceptible to degrading and becoming inaccurate as other memories, and that you rewrite your own memories a little bit every time you access them, and so a flashbulb memory from over a thousand years ago would almost certainly be entirely different from what really happened, but then I realized she probably wouldn’t know what a flashbulb is, so I just said “Oh.”

And, uh, from there, I basically spilled the beans. For future historical context, that’s an idiom that means I was an idiot and explained to a fifteenth-century woman what time travel was because she was pretty and looked like she needed a friend. So that’s ethically dubious.

Is it worse that I told her I would come back to see her again?

I couldn’t help it! Scientifically, an immortal is super interesting, but also, she’s been so lonely. Everyone she has ever known has lived and died while she has to remain stagnant. That kind of thing makes it hard to connect to people, makes it hard to want to be alive. Just drifting from location to location as people you might love appear and vanish in the blink of an eye. It’s impossible to really understand what time is like for her. But I can be a constant in her life! At least, I can last longer than anyone else she’s ever known. I’m obviously confined to my ordinary life span, but I can go back in time and see her throughout history. A familiar face amid all the ghosts.

I’m basically just trying to justify this to myself. A hundred years from now, there might be rigorous time travel laws that would make what I did with Aurelia - that’s her name, by the way. I don’t think I mentioned that - laws that would make what I did unconscionable, but for now, since time travel has only existed for about four hours current time and I haven’t had time to draft some bylaws, I’m going to say that I did the morally good thing.

Plus, I think I’m allowed to be a little selfish sometimes. I want to see her again. I haven’t felt like this about anyone in...in ever, really. This might be a little bit of oversharing for a scientific log, but young scientists of the future ought to know that giving too much of yourself to one aspect of your life is really draining. I haven’t had any real friends in...a while, and I think I’ve been basically dragging myself into each day. So maybe a little time travel crime will be good for both of us. If something terrible comes of all of this and I inadvertently cause the collapse of society as we know it and ultimately take over the world after harnessing the infinite power of temporal causality goes to my head, I officially give anyone listening permission to come back to the beginning of this recording and stop me from going on that date with Aurelia.

(beat) That’s that, then. I think we can call this a successful test. Until next time, future historians. Bennet out.

Author's Note

I recorded this one! Here is the link
https://soundcloud.com/user-845290266-567080838/post-test-1-log-1/s-hWZt4EcUQcl

Reviews

[Vertigo Cat1111]

A time traveler and immortal? Wow, I love this! That's such an amazing idea and the way this is written is so loveable and charming. I just love this story and the way it was written, I'd love to see a book written in this style, still about a time traveler and an immortal. It'd be a great representation too! This was a genius idea, keep writing!

[Pokegeek151]

Thank you! I actually have ideas for turning it into a play, though a novel would also be fun

[Vertigo Cat1111]

Actually, I didn't think of a play but that would be genius and so, so cool!

[Veracity_Fiction]

That's really interesting so far. I love the theme of a time traveler and an immortal! It's such a cool friendship/romance opportunity on each side, because they can teach each other so much.