The Toynbee Convector

“Yes, time.” But the old man did not move. His voice was very tired, exhausted, sad. “I’ve been sitting here feeling defeated. I can’t find anything wrong. I can’t find the flaw. I can’t advise you, my God, it’s so stupid, I shouldn’t have come to upset you, worry you, disturb your life, when I have nothing to offer but vague suggestions, inane cryings of doom. I sat here a moment ago and thought: I’ll kill her now, get rid of her now, take the blame now, as an old man, so the young man there, you, can go on into the future and be free of her. Isn’t that silly? I wonder if it would work? It’s that old time-travel paradox, isn’t it? Would I foul up the time flow, the world, the universe, what? Don’t worry, no, no, don’t look that way. No murder now. It’s all been done up ahead, twenty years in your future. The old man having done nothing whatever, having been no help, will now open the door and run away to his madness.”

He arose and shut his eyes again.

“Let me see if I can find my way out of my own house, in the dark.”

He moved, the young man moved with him to find the closet by the front door and open it and take out the old man’s overcoat and slowly shrug him into it

. “You have helped,” said Jonathan Hughes. “You have told me to tell her I love her.”

“Yes, I did do that, didn’t I?”

They turned to the door.

“Is there hope for us?” the old man asked, suddenly, fiercely.

“Yes. I’ll make sure of it,” said Jonathan Hughes.

“Good, oh, good. I almost believe!”

The old man put one hand out and blindly opened the front door.

“I won’t say goodbye to her. I couldn’t stand looking at that lovely face. Tell her the old fool’s gone. Where? Up the road to wait for you. You’ll arrive someday.”

To become you? Not a chance,” said the young man.

“Keep saying that. And—my God—here—” The old man fumbled in his pocket and drew forth a small object wrapped in crumpled newspaper. “You’d better keep this. I can’t be trusted, even now. I might do something wild. Here. Here.”

He thrust the object into the young man’s hands. “Goodbye. Doesn’t that mean: God be with you? Yes. Goodbye.”

The old man hurried down the walk into the night. A wind shook the trees. A long way off a train moved in darkness, arriving or departing, no one could tell.

Jonathan Hughes stood in the doorway for a long while, trying to see if there really was someone out there vanishing in the dark.

“Darling,” his wife called.

He began to unwrap the small object.

She was in the parlor door behind him now, but her voice sounded as remote as the fading footsteps along the dark street “Don’t stand there letting the draft in,” she said.

He stiffened as he finished unwrapping the object. It lay in his hand, a small revolver. Far away the train sounded a final cry, which failed in the wind.

“Shut the door,” said his wife.

His face was cold. He closed his eyes.

Her voice. Wasn’t there just the tiniest touch of petulance there?

He turned slowly, off balance. His shoulder brushed the door. It drifted. Then:

The wind, all by itself, slammed the door with a bang.

Long Division

You’ve had the lock changed!”

He sounded stunned, standing in the door looking down at the knob that he fiddled with one hand while he clenched the old door key in the other.

She took her hand off the other side of the knob and walked away.