“Let me tidy up the kitchen a wee bit and we’ll see what Hollywood did with H.G. Wells’ story.”
“Oh, have you read the book?”
“Yes, laddie. It was Wells’ first novel, and it brought him instant success. Published in 1895, I think. Wells was wise to make one o’ his characters, David Philbey, a Scotsman. This character personifies one o’ the traits o’ true friendship, loyalty. After The Time Machine, he wrote more books, at least 100. But the more interestin’ ones predicted future scientific inventions that seemed to materialize.”
“What did Wells ever predict that came true, Uncle?”
“Ye can decide that for yourself. Read his book The War o’ the Worlds, which he wrote in 1898 and see if he correctly envisioned modern warfare.”
“How do you know so much about H. G. Wells?”
“Ye forget, I spent a gude part o’ my life in libraries, as a librarian and as a lover o’ books.”
While Mac put things away in the kitchen, Richard found the video and waited for his uncle. When Mac finally appeared, he was carrying a big bowl of fresh popcorn.
“Show time!” announced Richard, as he inserted a cassette into the VCR. Then he sat on the floor, close to the popcorn.
The film began silently, showing dark, eerie images of various timepieces. A sundial appeared out of the darkness. Then small clocks came into view, followed by larger clocks. Finally, came the largest clock of them all, Big Ben. The chimes of the great London clock coincided with the onset of thunder and lightning, which seemed to carry an ominous warning. Then orchestral theme music filled the room, as credits flashed across the screen.
Richard and Mac both became engrossed in the movie; it combined romance and adventure in the typical Wells’ fashion. The main character, George, time-traveled into the remote future and returned to tell his housekeeper and four friends what he’d discovered. Centuries into the future, he found a very different Earth from the one he left behind. Decades of war had devastated the planet. Two races of human beings emerged, one living above ground and the other below ground. George described the above-ground beings, the Eloi, as handsome, docile, and ignorant, and the below-ground beings, the Morlocks, as monstrous, aggressive, and ignorant. The Morlocks controlled and preyed on the Eloi. George told his friends how he had taught the Eloi to defend themselves against the Morlocks. At the close of the film, George indicated his intention to return to the future to help the Eloi to rediscover the noble ideas and truths of the past that had made humanity humane.
Richard wondered. If H. G. Wells could view our present world, would he see the beginnings of the fictional world of the future he’d imagined? The last scene of the film left him pondering the possibility of time travel. Yesterday’s science fiction often becomes tomorrow’s scientific truth. But time travel? Not even Einstein’s space-time continuum made that sound possible.
“Uncle Mac, do you think we will ever be able to travel in time?
“My boy, we can travel in time now. Our memory can take us into the past and we can see how it affects the present. And we can ride our imagination into the future, and see what consequences might follow our actions. But it takes more courage for that kind o’ time travel than the kind H. G. Wells had in mind. For it isn’t the Morlocks we must face, it’s ourselves.”
Mac’s unexpected response drew Richard into a thoughtful silence.
“I enjoyed The Time Machine! It was a braw film, so it was. I thank ye for showin’ it to me.”
“I’m glad you liked it. Do you think the film did justice to the book?”
The Scot cocked his head in silence and stared thoughtfully into space in a familiar look of contemplation.
“I must say this was one film that tried to bring the book to life. Indeed, it did do justice to Wells’ story!”
“Uncle, since we’ll soon begin a new millennium, do you think God will do something amazing to show His power?”
Mac’s eyes twinkled. “We mortals seem to think that God has adopted our calendar and marks off the centuries as we do. Wait a minute, my boy.”
Mac left the room, returning in a couple of minutes with a book.
“Here, let me read somethin’ to ye in Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain.” Mac paged through the book quickly, searching. “I have it now. Listen: ‘Time has no divisions to mark its passage; there is never a thunderstorm or blare o’ trumpets to announce the beginning o’ a new month or year. Even when a new century begins it is only we mortals who ring bells and fire off pistols.’”
“That’s an interesting quote. It makes me think.”
“What does it make ye think?”
“That we humans suppose we can slow time by dividing it. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll read that book.”
“Ye might enjoy it. But, back to your question. Ye can be sure that the new millennium is part o’ God’s plan, and He has miracles in store, as He does today. Ye must remember, too, a thousand years is but a wink o’ the eye to God. Now, I’m goin’ to take a wee kip before supper.”
“Oh sure, Uncle. Have a nice nap. I’ll go back to my book, and keep things quiet.”
A week later, Richard announced, “I have an e-mail for you, Uncle, from someone by the name of MacPherson, James MacPherson. That’s certainly a Scottish name.”
“Ye have that right, laddie. He lives in Dumbarton, Scotland, on the banks of the River Clyde. I’ve known Jamey since he was a wee bairn. He’s a pure soul, he is. I saw him a few years ago durin’ my last visit to Scotland. But he likes to take the mickey.”
“You mean he drinks a lot?”
“No!” Mac chuckled at how his nephew had misinterpreted the Glasgow expression. “I mean he likes to tease and make fun o’ his friends to make them laugh.”
“Sounds like someone I know. Here, I printed his message..” Richard handed the page to his uncle.
Mac quickly read. “Soonds like Jamey awright. He asks, since I’ve stopped policin’ book-borrowers, what have I been doin’ with my life? He suggests that I should come to Dumbarton to help him with his shippin’ business. He operates out o’ the Port o’ Glasgow. He says he has plenty o’ men with strong backs and strong minds, but he needs a man with a strong conscience to be sure that profits don’t exceed ethics. They’re shippin’ Scottish gudes all over the world in days, when it used to take weeks.”
Richard smiled and shook his head. “Goods, people and information are moving faster and faster, but never fast enough to satisfy us. We expect to travel hundreds of miles in minutes.”
“Aye. We want everythin’, includin’ ourselves, to arrive yesterday. We’ve lost the ability to appreciate the wait between wantin’ somethin’ and gettin’ it. Why, when Thomas Jefferson became president in 1801, Americans couldn’t move gudes and information much faster than the ancient Romans. And probably most people expected it to remain that way. In Jefferson’s day, it took aboot six weeks for information to go from the Mississippi River to Washington, D.C. When Abraham
