A Nice Donation
by John B. Rosenman
The
sign on
Thrift World’s front door read Donations
Accepted
Around Back, so that was where Marcelline went.
She backed her pickup toward
the Donation
Center sign
in the rear, then hopped out and
opened the tailgate.
“Hallo!”
she
greeted the slender woman who appeared in the doorway.
“I have a donation
for you, but it’s rather heavy.”
“I’ll
get
some help,” the woman said, turning back inside.
Soon
two
brawny men came out and carried her offering inside. It
looked like a rosewood
cabinet, four feet long by a foot and a half wide, and
the men struggled with
it.
“Lady,”
the
red-haired one puffed, “this thing is heavy.”
“I
know,”
Marcelline said. She swished her long granny dress and
fingered the beads on
her necklace.
The
other
man, who was black and bespectacled, grunted. “Darn
thing weighs a ton,” he
said. “What do you have in here, a pile of rocks?”
“Not
even
warm,” she laughed.
Inside,
they
lowered her donation to the floor and gazed at it. The
woman Marcelline
had spoken to came over.
“That’s
a
nice cabinet,” she said. “Thank you for donating it.”
“You’re
welcome,”
Marcelline said. She hesitated. “Oh dear, I have a
confession to make.”
“Confession?”
“Yes.
I
want you to sell it as a cabinet. In fact, it will work
perfectly fine that
way. But it’s really not.”
The
black man
bent down and opened one of the drawers, then the other.
“Could have fooled
me,” he said.
“If
it’s
not a cabinet,” said the red-haired one, “what is it?”
Marcelline
fidgeted.
For the first time, she realized the sound system was
playing
something sweet and sad, a song filled with longing.
What was it? Oh, yes… Somewhere
In Time. It was a place she’d
often been.
“What
is
it?” the man repeated.
Marcelline
sighed.
“It’s a Temporal Displacer.”
They
all stared
at her. “A what?”
the woman said.
“It
relocates
you in the space-time continuum,” Marcelline said. She
moved forward
and tapped the top. “The problem is, this model’s old
and unreliable, and I
have to return home. So I felt Thrift World might be
able to use it as a… cabinet.”
They
all
stared at her as if she’d grown a second head. The
red-haired man rubbed his
mouth. “You’re not from around here?” he asked.
She
giggled
and twirled her dress. “Not even close.”
“A
Temporal
Displacer,” the black man said, rising and adjusting his
glasses. Marcelline
sensed he was the most intelligent of the three. “What
does this device do?” he
asked, touching a dial on top.
“Don’t
touch
that!” she screamed. “I forgot to remove it.”
Too
late, she
saw him slide the dial to the left. Though he moved it
only a little, she feared
it was far too much.
The thrift store vanished. In place of women thumbing through
racks of
second-hand clothes, they found themselves in a noisy, happy,
excited crowd. People wearing sandals and dressed in
tunics and togas moved past and through them.
To Marcelline it meant she had screwed up again. If she hadn’t
mentioned the Temporal Displacer, the black man wouldn’t
have messed with it.
The last thing she wanted was to have her Time Travel
license suspended once
more and have to work at a desk job.
The
two men
gasped and whirled around. “What happened? What is
this?” they asked. The woman
stood stunned, staring at the passing crowd.
The
red-haired
fellow swore in disgust. “Aw, shit. They stink of
perfume and body odor.” He
yelped. “And they pass right though us!”
The
black
man tried to leave, only to be repelled by an invisible
barrier a dozen feet
off. He followed it with his hands for several steps in
both directions, reaching
as high as he could. Then he returned.
“It’s
some
kind of wall,” he said. He glared at Marcelline. “What
the hell have you done? Are
we trapped?”
“There’s
no
use running,” she told them. “The ‘wall’ forms an
impenetrable circle all around
us.” She waved at their surroundings. “We’re in Rome, AD
210 or thereabouts,
and the languages you hear these folks speaking are
Latin and Greek.”
The
black man
snapped his fingers. “That damned Displacer!” He moved
toward the machine. “How
does it work?”
“Too
complicated
to explain,” Marcelline said. She watched them, mentally
chastising
herself. Damn it, she loved traveling through time and
seeing different
cultures and periods. When would she learn she was
supposed to be a mere
witness and not interfere at all, not even make a
donation?
The
black
man raised his hand and pointed at a colossal stone
structure in the distance.
“That building,” he said. “It’s the Colosseum!”
“Excellent
powers
of observation,” she confirmed. She smiled at the other
fellow. “And the
reason the Romans pass right through us as they go there
is that we’re both
here and not here. That’s hard to explain, too.”
The
woman
looked as if she were about to faint. “My God, what the
hell are you?”
Marcelline
curtsied,
as she’d seen women do in Queen Victoria’s court.
“Merely a time-traveler
who’s far from home,” she said.
“Can
we get
back?” the red-haired man asked.
“Ah,
I
thought you’d never ask.” Marcelline went to the machine
and paused, rubbing her
chin. “I wanted to donate this ‘cabinet’ because it’s
become so unreliable.
Perhaps I could try, though.”
She
reached
down and carefully moved the dial.
Rome
and
its people vanished, as did the mighty Colosseum. In its
place was a hot, dry,
yet fertile landscape. And standing fifty feet away was
an inhabitant nearly
twenty feet tall.
Uh-oh,
Marcelline
thought. Talk about polluting the integrity of the
timelines! If CenCom
finds out about this, my license will be cancelled for
twenty years.
The
employees
screamed at the monster before them. “I was afraid of
this,” Marcelline said,
trying to stay calm. “With this model, I just can’t
depend on the settings
anymore; there’s too much temporal shift.” She stepped
forward and adopted her
tour-guide voice. “Folks, we’re now in the Cretaceous
Period about seventy
million years ago. Our friend Mr. T-Rex is the biggest
meat-eating dinosaur ever,
and had — or has — the most powerful bite of any land
animal. Just look at
those sharp, nine-inch teeth. Imagine what they could
do.”
The
T-Rex opened
its cavernous jaws and roared, shattering the world with
thunder. They all
clasped their ears.
When
it was
over, the woman found her voice. “Dear Jesus, look at
those eyes. Can he see
us?”
“Yes,
how
about it?” the black man asked. “You said we’re here and
yet not here. Well, can
this monster see and hurt us? Are we in danger?”
“That’s
an
excellent question,” Marcelline said. “The Temporal
Displacer—”
“Don’t
tell
me, I know. It’s unreliable.”
They’d
all
backed up as far as the device would permit. “I’ll tell
you one thing,” the red-haired
man said. “From now on, I’m staying the hell out of
thrift stores.”
“Makes
two
of us, brother,” his colleague said. “You never know
what some fool is
going to donate.”
Towering
over
them, the T-Rex stalked closer and closer. Yes,
Marcelline thought,
I do believe we’re all about to get killed and eaten
here. Eaten raw.
Before
that
could happen, though, she darted to the machine and
moved the dial.
She
pushed
it too far, and the result was a seismic jolt. Mr. T-Rex
exploded into a
million pieces and the grassland turned inside out. When
things steadied, they
found themselves in outer space, surrounded by stars.
“Uh-oh,
we’re
offworld now, far away from Earth.”
“Away from Earth?” The woman’s eyes rolled in fear.
“How
far
away?” the red-haired man said. He marched through space
toward Marcelline, his
fist raised. “Tell me!”
The
black
man grabbed his arm. “Stop, we have enough problems!”
“I
don’t
see the Milky Way anywhere.” Marcelline clenched her
hands. “Could be five
billion light-years or more.” And that’s how long
they’ll cancel my license
if they find out.
Moments
passed,
and they hugged themselves. “It’s c-c-cold!” the woman
said. “We could
freeze to death.”
“What’s
that?”
the red-haired man said.
Marcelline
turned
and saw a bright ball with a fiery tail. “Looks like a
comet,” she said.
“And
it’s coming
right at us!” the black man said.
Marcelline
moved
to the Temporal Displacer again. Yes, it was, and if she
didn’t do
something quickly, they would be blasted to pieces. She
leaned over the dial.
How to correct the situation, though, without making
matters worse? Let’s see,
if she moved it here…
“Do
something,”
the woman wailed, “before it hits us!”
Marcelline
glanced
up. They were all cowering before the imminent impact.
Turning back,
she whispered a prayer and slid the dial one, two, three
spaces to the right,
then focused its hidden beam on the three of them,
erasing their recent memories.
***
The
outer space
scene vanished, and to her relief, she was back outside
the Donation Center,
watching the two men lug her donation into the store.
“Darn
thing
weighs a ton,” the black man said. “What do you have in
here, a pile of rocks?”
“Not
even
warm,” she laughed.
Inside,
she
watched them lower her donation to the floor and gaze at
it. The woman
Marcelline had spoken to came over.
“That’s
a
nice cabinet,” she said. “Thank you for donating it.”
“You’re
welcome,”
Marcelline said, and this time she felt no need to
confess. Instead, she
removed the Temporal Displacer and headed toward the
back door. “I hope you
find just the right customer for it,” she said.
When
she
got outside, her fingers suddenly slipped on the
Displacer, and she heard an
ominous sound behind her. Uh-oh. It sounded like a
temporal breach. She looked
at the dial and tried to reset it before something bad
happened.
No
luck. The
damned dial wouldn’t budge. Desperate, she turned toward
the store and tried to
move the dial in several different ways. All of them
failed. Her heart sank as the
truth sank in.
The
device
was broken.
More
sounds
came from Thrift World, and she had no trouble
interpreting them. The mighty creature
they’d visited in the Cretaceous Period was breaking
through to this time period,
and some of its curious friends would follow. Human
screams now signaled the arrival
of this most unexpected guest whose dining habits left
much to be desired.
Stunned,
Marcelline
could only watch as the T-Rex crashed through the back
of the store, shattering
the wall to pieces. It looks like my Time Travel
license is about to be cancelled
for good, she thought. She managed to smile as
the dinosaur came toward her,
its jaws opened wide in hunger.
End
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