WHO IS THIS MAN?

     

The Temporal Displacement Machine

    “I know he’s a genius and all that, but did you understand anything he said in that lecture?” Two students descended the steps of the auditorium together towards the platform at the front, arms laden with books,.

    “Well, Jennings, what did you expect? Physics at this level was never going to be easy”.

    “I expect a teacher who can actually teach! Not a genius whose knowledge is locked away behind those tiny oval spectacles he wears. What’s more, I now have an hour's worth of tutorial with him, alone. Wish me luck, Bamford!”

    “Then do, try to stay awake, for heaven’s sake. I must admit it was rather dull; I almost dropped off myself. They say he can become quite animated when you get him alone and on a subject that he’s really passionate about. Some people are just not good in front of a large audience, too introverted, I expect”.

    “He didn’t look up from his notes once during the whole lecture”. The clock chimed the quarter hour. Bamford glanced at his watch and said,

    “You had better be off, Jennings; everyone knows he’s a stickler for timekeeping”.

    “Yes, I know, he was very insistent that I come exactly on time. ‘Do not be late, Jennings, even by one minute, do you hear?’ Softly spoken though he is, he almost barked at me. Very unlike him, I thought, a bit alarming actually. Oh well, I had better go; perhaps I can salvage something on temporal displacement theory from him after all, if I can keep awake. Where are his rooms?”

    “He lives alone in college, south-east staircase. Did you know he was the youngest don in the history of Trinity, so I read somewhere. Spends all his spare time playing with pointless inventions that don’t work!”

    At exactly five and twenty past eleven, Jennings knocked on the heavy door; a small brass label read, Professor Nicholas Butterworth BSc PhD.

    “Enter”. Came the reply in a clipped, precise English accent from somewhere deep within. As he pushed open the door, a blaze of morning sunlight caught his eyes. The aroma of old books, polished oak panelling and an assortment of dusty old leather chairs filled his nostrils. A familiar smell, which gave him a sense of foreboding. And, like the pipe tobacco which hung in a cloud, it made him feel slightly befuddled. A blackboard was covered in drawings and calculations, scribbled and crossed out as if in a frenzy of thought.

    “Ah, Jennings, please come in,” said Professor Butterworth from behind a large desk. There on the desk sat a whirring, quietly humming machine about the size of a large clock with all the mechanism exposed. The thing emitted a pale violet light and pulsated with what felt like barely contained electrical energy. The professor did not look up as he adjusted small brass dials, making meticulous notes in a thick leather-bound book. He wrote with an old fountain pen in a small, neat script without unnecessary flourish. The notes covered the whole page in precise lines of even lettering. Once he had finished, he sprang to his feet with surprising agility and said,

    “Sit yourself down, Jennings.” But the student was staring, open-mouthed at the fascinating machine.

    Butterworth surveyed his pupil, and slowly sat on the corner of the desk, removed his spectacles, placing one arm into his mouth absent-mindedly. A suppressed smile played across his face, as if he could barely contain a secret. The student sank into an armchair, mesmerised by the fascinating object. Wheels and cogs were spinning like a tiny model of the solar system.

    “Yes, it’s quite a marvellous thing to behold, if I say so myself”. As he spoke, his face lit up with boyish enthusiasm, very unlike the rather expressionless, dry and dusty delivery he gave in his lectures. “Have you guessed what it is yet, Jennings?”

    “No sir, I, I don’t think I...”

    “Come now, Jennings, you have attended my Lectures.” Pointing, he said, “That part is a Faraday Cage. It’s the containment field into which any object may be transmitted”. The young professor took out a half-hunter watch from his waistcoat pocket and began counting down. The clock in the Great Court outside began to chime. Pointing a long finger at the wire container at the base of the machine, he said, “Look.” A blaze of bright light, a small pop and a silver cigarette case appeared inside.

    “Why, that’s mine!” Jennings exclaimed, getting to his feet, “I lost it a month ago. It was a gift from my father for gaining a place at Trinity. I was rather reluctant to tell him I had lost it”.

    “Oh, you didn’t lose it, Jennings, I stole it!”

    “You, you stole it. But why, sir?”

    “Congratulate me, Jennings, I have finally succeeded in creating a Temporal Displacement Machine. After years of failure, I have at last refined the targeting mechanism to a precise instance in time.

    “Was it you then, behind all those thefts in college last month?”
    “Yes, yes!” he said dismissively. “It was all part of the experiment I have been conducting”. He then strode around his desk, picked up his book, scanned through his notes and said,

    “Here it is. I stole your cigarette case on the fifth of May nineteen hundred and twelve, placed it into this device and sent it to today at exactly half past eleven. As you can see, it has just reappeared. For a whole month it has existed, but outside of time.

    “Err, I, I don’t quite follow, err, existed where, sir. How can a thing be in space but not in time?”

    “Come now, Jennings, don’t you see, I have created what is commonly known as a time machine. The possibilities are endless. This, of course, is only a prototype. I am having a full-size working machine constructed in the basement of the physics laboratory, and soon it will be finished”.

    Several months later, a crowd of students waited outside the lecture hall, but Professor Butterworth did not show up. Rumours were rampant: had he drowned in the River Cam, had he run off to America with the Dean’s daughter. This was the favourite theory among students, but this seemed very unlikely for a timid man like Butterworth. Or perhaps he had been murdered. He was known to be conducting secret experiments for years; had one of these gone horribly wrong, was he lying dead somewhere in college?

    Only Jennings suspected the truth. Time travel takes its toll on the body; just ask Prof. Stephen Hawkins of Cambridge.

Copyright Christopher Mathews – October 2026