HOW NOT TO DRIVE A CAR THROUGH TIME

This is an event that happened right after I discovered time travel. Yeah, I was young and stoopid.

It happened because I thought it was a good idea at the time. My dear wife was way too late for work, and she needed to be at school. I thought why not take the car to Barstow, but also take it through time to a point in time where she would not be late. Not hard, right?

It was 6 AM. We got in the car and left for her work. She drove. I played with my collector. Sitting there, I set the portal to her school at the time she should have been there (6 AM).

I turned it on, facing forward. A portal formed at the front of the car.

Events after this, can only be accessed in our memory. Vaugely.

The sun grew very dim. The road seemed to change somehow.

We were traveling the road, as always, but there was no sound, and there were no dips and potholes, as before. It was as if we were floating across the road.

There were strange forces playing upon our bodies, strapped into our seats by seatbelts. Those forces seemed harsh, but they were over and done almost before we felt them. Curves were the worst.

The car made strange noises. There was the screeching of metal, but it sounded far away. It almost seemed that the car was bending and buckling in some fashion we could not detect.

When we arrived, seconds, it seemed, after we left. The car was off, and a strange smoke appeared at the front of the car.

We tried to get out, but the doors seemed buckled and we could not open them.

Suddenly, we found we were outside the car, standing at a good distance away. My wife’s eyes were nearly bulging. She was looking at the car. I was looking at her, trying to figure out if she was alright, and at the same time, trying to understand how it was we had gotten out of the car.

When I looked at the car, the front was burning, as if a large blowtorch was melting the front of it. This appeared to be in slow-motion, but that was probably in our minds, trying to comprehend what was happening.

The glass of the windshield began to melt, sliding forward in a puddle onto the burning hood. Strange creases began to form lengthwise across our 2003 Focus wagon. The tires were gone, and the rims were shredded, glowing red hot.

Soon, the whole vehicle became a steaming pile of slag. There was nothing left that resembled a car at all. Then what was left began to blow down the street, until nothing at all was left.

After a long pause, putting on my best poker face, I told my dear wife to go on to class. I would take care of the car, and have it restored in time to pick her up this afternoon.

Incredulous, and probably somewhat in shock, she nodded her head and went to class.

I remained in shock myself. How could I fix this? I would have to go back and undo this trip, but how? I was now stuck in Barstow, 25 miles from my driveway. Obviously, I could not drive home.

So I called a friend and asked for a ride.

It was nearly noon when I got home. There was no car in the driveway. I felt sore all over, like I had exercised too hard and too long (something I never do).

Going inside, I set the portal to form on the garage wall, and walked through it to just before 6 AM.

I looked, and the car was there in the drive, as it should be.

Making sure, I checked to see if Roger and my wife were still in the house. Strange. They were not. I texted my wife, and she was at school. She groused to me that I should not text her while she was teaching class.

Where was Roger, then? Oh, here I am. My car is in the driveway, and is not dust, blowing in the wind of the desert hereabouts. I looked at the odometer. It showed about 50 miles more than last night. (When you have to gas up in Barstow with a small gas tank, you always check your miles.)

I sat down and thought about this. My car made that trip to Barstow this morning, obviously. In hindsight, it would have been better to drive there normally, being late and all, and then at the other end, create a portal my wife could enter, to be on time like she needed to be.

In hindsight.

Somehow, someone had saved our bacon from that wreck. We would most certainly perished if we remained in the car as it deconstructed violently around us. Someone pulled us out. Then they somehow had us make the trip there in normal time. I (somehow) created a portal for her there at her school. Then (somehow) I drove home normally.

Then, when my ride dropped me off in front of my house, there was my car in the driveway, all in one piece.

Yeah, I don’t understand all of it, either.

These many years, I still don’t understand it. Most of all, I still do not know who to thank. (Nor, I suspect, is it the first or last time I need to thank them.)

But I do understand one thing. Never, ever try to drive a car through time. Imagine taking a vehicle from one point on the planet to another, instantaneously. What kind of forces will impinge themselves on that vehicle? Wind velocity? Inertia? The heating of metal and plastic suddenly trust through the distance faster than can be calculated? (How fast were we going, anyway?)

It is always best to form a portal standing still. Do not add the equation of speed to your time travel. (And no, I have never tried to form a portal on a moving vehicle, plane, train, or any other moving object.)

If portals are that sensitive, what about the speed of the planet? What about going from one elevation to another? Various points on the planet are already moving at different speeds (the surface of the earth revolves at 1000 miles an hour at the equator, and somewhat less at other latitudes). I have felt no sensation of speed, or catastrophic burning effects in going to one place or another on earth. Probably, it is the same gravity well, so there is no effect to be felt.

OK, Lesson is over. Now you know. When you learn to build your own portal, you will not be stoopid.

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