The Inventor

When the wife of the future inventor of the time machine leaves him, he never has invented the time machine. He is a regular inventor, inventing regular things. He designs and builds iron window locks and door hinges; he has invented the and built the world’s most perfect front door automatic locking system to keep the right people in, and the wrong people out.

But he cannot build the time machine; it has been twenty distant years since their marriage. Regular inventions, regular things. He sleeps with his wife the same way every night, and has for the last twenty years. Their love is an invented thing, something forced through platinum bands and contrived, iron resolve. It has been so for the last twenty years. But I’m building a time machine! Give me a week and I can travel back twenty years! We can be younger and love each other, the inventor pleads to his always-leaving wife.

When the wife of the future inventor of the time machine leaves him, she stares at him, takes off her platinum bond. She won’t ever have any of it.