Disclaimer: (The following story is pure fiction. All names, places and events are coincidental and are only used to embellish the story.)Bagdad Time Machine
by Mark Ryan © 2009
The Romeo gang met again for lunch at the Portagalia Restaurant in Cambridge, MA. We are all retired science teachers who still enjoy each other’s company and camaraderie. The menu listed all kinds of dishes with a Portuguese flavor. We laughed about the good old days and toasted our good fortune. The meals were so plentiful that we all took home some left-over’s in a doggy bag. I had the “Bacalau A Braz”, which was shredded salt cod scrambled with eggs, straw potatoes, onions and tons of spicy garlic seasonings. It was just delicious but I know I would pay the price later on.
After leaving the restaurant we said our good-byes to most, as some of the group took the bus to Harvard Square and other connecting destinations. Being retired senior citizens, we used our Charlie Cards to get on the bus which happily gave us half price fares. After getting on the bus, most of the passengers began to move away from our group and held their nose. Unfortunately, the garlic odor of Bacalau in my doggy bag followed us everywhere. Along the way, we saw Harvard University and Jimmy said that our mutual friend John Cox worked at the University Museum of Archeology. Since it was still early in the day, we decided to stop and see the new exhibit on the great Pyramid of Khufu (also called Cheops), which had opened this week.
We entered the museum and asked if John Cox, the curator was available. The guard asked who was asking and Jimmy said just tell him his friend “Skinny Jimmy” is here. In a few minutes, John Cox came out and greeted us all, as he held his nose. We explained that it was the Bacalau and we all laughed. However, he was very disturbed about another matter and told us that some Egyptian artifacts had been stolen during a robbery this morning. I said that explains all the crime tape around one of the display rooms.
Since we were all close friends and had attended college classes together at Harvard, he took us into his confidence and showed us the crime scene and pictures of the missing items. We were all buddies in college and did everything together. John Cox was the Mayflower Puritan from Cambridge and we three were the Dead End Kids from the North End; (Jimmy Terlucci, Joe Loduccio, and Marco Grieco). John went into the field of archeology and the rest of us became high school science teachers.
John further explained that one of the stolen items was the mysterious “Bagdad Battery” which was dated 248 BC, an artifact on loan from the Iraqi National Museum in Bagdad. This museum contained thousands of priceless items from early Middle Eastern civilizations dating to 2500 BC. Unfortunately, the museum was looted by vandals during the American Invasion of Iraq in 2003, with most items still missing.
John told us that the Bagdad Battery was a small pottery vase containing an internal copper cylinder with an iron rod down the center and sealed on top with bitumen tar. Although now empty of any fluid, the interior of the vase had a residue of an acidic salt solution like vinegar or wine. From initial speculation, it was assumed to be a crude battery able to produce a few volts of electricity and probably used in early electroplating activities. In fact, figurines made of copper and plated with gold were found with the artifacts. John also said that modern uses for batteries and electricity had not been discovered until after the experiments of Alexander Volta and Benjamin Franklin in the late 1700s. The Egyptians were certainly ahead of their time in many ways.
However, the vase also had a double bottom that rotated at the base with a notched scale of numbers and symbols. When John experimented with the vase and rotated its base in a high electric field, it attracted lightning from storm clouds and caused a temporary time warp. This certainly brought a surprised look to all our faces. Did John say that the Bagdad Battery was also a crude Time Machine?
John emphasized this “Time Machine” revelation and said that since we were all scientists, we understood the significance of the device and what it might do in the wrong hands. He then asked us to help him follow the thief and recover the Bagdad Time Battery. We said we would be glad to help our old friend and asked where the thief might have gone. With great excitement, he said the thief had gone back in time to the Egyptian Pyramids in the year 2500 BC. We all said what?
John said that the Time Batteries first appeared in the Pyramid of Cheops from 2500 BC. This is also the time when all the other great pyramids started to appear and each took over 20 years to construct. They were built with such precision because of the great mathematical skills possessed by the Egyptian scientists. The angle of all the pyramid sides sloped up at exactly 52 degrees and the sides were exactly aligned with celestial north, south, east and west. Contrary to popular belief, the pyramids were not constructed by slaves but skilled Egyptian laborers who were well fed and paid for their efforts. Normally working the farm land, the laborers were available to build the pyramids for three months a year, during the rain and flood season.
John knew where the thief was headed since he left clues near a wall map of Egypt in the museum and circled his destination. After showing us the map, John showed us another Time Battery device and said that this would help us track the thief and follow him through time. He turned some dials on the bottom of the vase and said ready? We all looked surprised and said, now? A few minutes later, we gather in a circle and held hands as a blast of lightning opened a time tunnel or worm hole to the year 2500 BC.
When the dust cleared and we could see again after the flashes of brilliant light disappeared, we found ourselves next the Cheops Pyramid. We quickly hid in a side building and put on robes and hoods to disguise our appearance. Afterwards, we entered a secret tunnel that led to the under ground burial chamber at the base of the pyramid. Here we saw the head priest arranging all the materials that the pharaoh would take with him on his journey into the after life. There were jewels and gold piled into a long boat with silver oars. The pharaoh would use this boat to travel the celestial rivers commonly seen during meteor showers. Among the items there were also newly constructed Time Batteries to help the pharaoh navigate through time worm holes when needed.
Some Egyptian guards stood at the end of the tunnel holding their staffs as the high priest held his scepter. At that very moment, the thief burst into the chamber and knocked a guard to the ground, grabbing his staff. He quickly turned and aimed the staff at the other guards shooting bolts of lighting which temporarily paralyzed them. The staff was just like a modern stun gun but more powerful.
Evidently, Egyptian scientists had become very knowledgeable about the secrets of electricity and were able to produce lightning bolts at will. In our studies at Harvard University we saw Egyptian hieroglyphics and wall paintings of royalty using scepters that fired off lightning but thought the paintings might just be an exaggeration to scare off the general population. However, here in this hidden burial chamber we actually saw the staffs used to their full potential.
Before the high priest could react, the thief took his scepter and pushed the priest away from the pharaoh’s royal boat and stunned him with a lightning bolt. He then grabbed the other Time Batteries and put them in a sac with some jewels and gold. He now had in his possession the power of the universe. He could travel through time, appearing and disappearing at will. Gathering riches as he desired and living for ever, so he thought.
However, he was unaware of the “Grandfather Time Paradox”. Einstein and others showed that if you were to travel in time and change any of the events of the past, then all related events of the future would never exist. If you change the events where your grandfather did not meet your grandmother, then your father and you would never have been born.
Since he now had all the Time Batteries, they will be removed from ever existing in the past and consequently they will not exist in the future. If he time traveled with them back to the future, they would not exist and time travel would not be possible. Thus is the paradox.
As he packed items into his sac, his back was turned away from the tunnel entrance where we were hiding. In one quick motion, I jumped from the tunnel into the chamber and grabbed another Lightning Staff which lay next to the guards still unconscious on the ground and shot the thief with a bolt of energy.
After tying up the thief we returned all the stolen items to the Pharaoh’s Celestial Boat and took back the original stolen Time Battery. We had to leave everything the way we found it so as not to change the delicate fabric of time and keep future events unchanged.
Without delay, John quickly set the Time Battery back to our original time and place in the moving universe and told us to all gather in a circle. When we were ready John pressed the last setting on the Battery and we all fell through the Worm Hole of Time back to the present.
After we recovered and were back at the Harvard Museum, the thief was arrested and taken away. John thanked us for the help and asked us to never speak of our journey through time. For now, it must be kept a secret so that it will never again be used for evil. Maybe someday scientists will think of new ways to overcome the Grandfather Paradox and only use Time Travel for purposes of good.
As I looked around to gather my belongings, I realized that I had dropped my doggy bag during the scuffle at the pyramid. Hopefully the high priest found the smelly bag of Bacalau and used it as a secret ingredient to embalm mummies. Maybe after all these years we finally know what preserved the mummies so well.
Comments: (always welcome). Email to markryan82@comcast.net
Acknowledgements:
I would like to thank my Romeo friends for their colorful backgrounds and giving me the inspiration for my stories.
References:
Boston Globe – Iraq Museum
http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2009/11/25/google_documents_iraqi_museum_treasures/
Bagdad Battery – Forgotten Ages – Pharaoh’s scepter
http://www.forgottenagesresearch.com/out-of-place-artifacts-series/The-Baghdad-Batteries-and-BeyondEvidence-of-Ancien.htm
Portagalia Restaurant
http://www.portugaliaincambridge.com/
Pyramid of Cheops
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pyramid_of_Giza
Google Map – Pyramid of Cheops
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&gl=us&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=108225010408651456817.00045e5602149dcd83943&ll=28.921631,4.21875&spn=120.432631,259.453125&t=p&z=2
Time Travel
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1T4GGLJ_enUS228US228&q=time+travel&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g10
Space-Time Theory
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/space/exploration/timetravel/index.shtml
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