The legend
of the world Terra Geopal-Wells
by Sandra Petojevic
based on the dvd with the 1960's film "The Time Machine"
and its extras, which in turn is based on the novel by H.G. Wells.
Herbert
George Wells was back in his house in London's residential area on New Year's
Day 1900. He went into his livingroom, picked up three books and went out to
his time machine. He put the books in its red armchair. Then he pulled the time
machine from the bushes in the snowy garden and into his laboratory. He sat
down in it, pushed the lever forward as he heard someone banging on the door.
He did not care about it, he longed very much to see Weena the Eloi again, that
he had been falled in love with. When George's friend David Filby opened the
door and stepped into the laboratory, George was already gone.
George traveled forward in time to the year 802 701, and was again materialized outside the steel door of the sphinx belonging to the man-eating morlocks. His heart ached when he saw how Weena desperately hammered on the door with her slender fists, in the belief that he had been killed by the Morlocks inside the sphinx. He shouted at her and all Eloi turned surprisingly. Weena ran with full speed and threw herself into George's arms, before he even had time to get out of the armchair of the time machine. George decided that he never would leave her again.
The Eloi who had never seen George arrive in his time machine before, was awe inspired and began worshipping him as a divine king, because the time machine looked like a royal throne-sled with its beautifully decorated copper dish resembling a spinning morning sun. The Eloi had with their own eyes seen how George was trapped in the burning Sphinx, and they couldn't figure out how in the Earth he got out of there, along with the machine.
George decided to make the best of it, and had therefore brought the three books with him, that would teach the Eloi compassion, kindness and justice, and also how they would build a new, own society, because now they no longer had any fruit or clothes from the Morlocks. Time passed and Weena was conceived. Since George was born during the Victorian era, he hoped that it would be a son, and moreover, he wanted his son to be born in the best circumstances, in a safe hospital at home in London 1900. George waited with suspense until the first contractions started coming, because he knew that there was no point to go to the hospital too soon. When Weena said she would soon give birth, George immediately sat in the time machine with her in his lap.
George pulled the lever as hard as he could, and went back in time with such a reckless speed that he hit the wrong time and ended up in the year 1943, in the midst of the Blitz. He screamed and tried to push the lever forward, but it went no better than the time machine crashed. George and Weena were thrown out. Weena got up and ran screaming in panic out into the street. George ran after her and threw himself over her, trying to protect her with his own body. A bomb exploded in the immediate vicinity and George and Weena was hit by shrapnel. George died instantly, but Weena managed to crawl away into some bushes next to a collapsed house where she bled to death. The German enemy planes flew away and left behind a long silence.
Suddenly a sound came from the bushes, a crying baby. Next to the overturned time machine was an another time machine that was similar to the old one, but looked brand new; it was from the year 1977. A young man stepped out and he had the same facial features as George and Weena. He had just witnessed his parents' death and also his own birth. With tears in his eyes, he decided that he would search for his parents in the future and warn them to travel back in time. But he also realized that if he warned them, he risked his own existence in the same time, but his love of his parents he never met and grew up with, was so strong that he decided to sacrifice himself for them.
After a long search through different times, the young man finally found Weena who was in the ninth month, and George who now was Herbert George I, King of Eloi. The young man realized that still not had ceased to exist, but that he in instead would be born again and brought up by loving parents, if he just managed to persuade them to remain in the year 802,703. Herbert George I became convinced when he saw his son's time machine from 1977, and he swore solemnly with his palm on the three books, that his son would not be born in any other time than 802,703. The young man nodded with a happy smile, then he and his time machine dissolved into thin air. Only one thing remained: Resting in the short grass on the ground was the 1977 time machine lever's top crystal, a facetted rock crystal from the remote highlands of Tibet.
A few weeks later, the son of Herbert George I was born, and he was named David, after George's best friend in the Victorian times, David Filby. Six years later, another son was born and named James, after his friend David Filby's son with the same name. The third son, who was born in 802718, was named Herbert and his daughter, who was born eight years later, was named after Queen Victoria who reigned in England during the time when Herbert George had built his time machine.
In 802,736, when Victoria was ten years old, Herbert George I who always hated war, decided to make a journey through time to the year 1915, to prevent that his friend David Filby would join the army and get killed. David, the son of George, who was aware of the story about what would had happened if he had been born in 1943, tried of course to prevent his father from travelling, but he alas couldn't.
Herbert George I went to 1915 but failed to persuade David Filby to follow him to the year 802736, and he also failed to prevent him from stepping into the fatal aircraft that would come to be shot down. Sadly he went home to his family in the year 802 736 and told them what had happened, and that he at least had the time to tell about them for David just before his deadly flight. Herbert George I now understood why his son David had warned him; it was to spare him from the disappointment at being unable to save his friend, but he mused in the same time about how the son of 1977 could have saved both him and Weena from being killed. Herbert George I decided to never use the time machine again.
David who had married an another Eloi, had a son who he named George after his father, and a daughter who was named Weena from her mother. King Herbert George I died in the year 802,747 and was deeply mourned by Weena who was more than twenty years younger, and his three sons and daughter. The eldest son of Herbert George I was crowned David I, the new King of the Eloi and he ruled with great wisdom, love and justice. But he did not get into the time machine; he hated it because he knew that it would have caused his parents' death. He also made sure that no one else was allowed to use the time machine, and the first thing he commanded as newly crowned king was that his father was buried in it, and it was placed into the sphinx, which now was completely deserted and used as a sacred tomb. Prince George learned by King David I that the time machine was dangerous and that the Sphinx where it was buried would never be visited. The Eloi respected the taboo, and at every sunrise, they went up to the Sphinx and bowed with awe and respect before its closed steel gate, because they knew that their first king and deliverer was resting behind it.
When King David I became old and white-haired, he was visited by an old peddler who offered goods that would significantly improve the life of the Eloi, and all that he demanded in return for payment was the time machine in the Sphinx and the Tibetan crystal from the 1977 time machine. With relief King David I swapped away both the crystal and the time machine, which for him was an horrible abomination for his beloved father to rest in. Now it was certainly that no more was able to travel in time and King David I was pleased, because he lived in peace and prosperity with the Eloi. When the peddler went away King David I finally died with a contented and happy smile on his lips and George, the crown prince who now was forty six years old, became King George I of the House Wells. But the newly crowned king did not stop thinking about where the old peddler had gone with the time machine.
Under the reign of King George I the Eloi Kingdom became invaded by Morlocks who came from the neighboring lands, and his firstborn son, Herbert David, was killed and eaten. King George I remembered the old peddler who had bought the time machine from him and he tried to summon him, but without result. George I built up an army and with the full fury he struck back against the cruel Morlocks. Then he started a crusade and he and his growing army freed one group Eloi after another from the tyranny of the Morlocks. He realized that a time machine would not have done any good in this case, and it was just as well that he and especially the Eloi had freed themselves and defeated the man-eating Morlocks.
After six years the entire island kingdom, which according to the previous King Herbert George I was called England in ancient times, was now virtually free from Morlocks and was then named Eloi-England. Weena, the daughter of George I who was named after her grandmother, was the only one that had survived of his children, and by him she was crowned Weena I, Queen of the Eloi. Her first command was that always the first born child would become the ruler, no matter if it was a son or daughter, because she had seen that the Eloi women had fought as well as the Eloi men, when everyone had understood that the future had been at stake. She married with Barran, an Eloi who became a lord. The story about the time machine and the mysterious peddler who bought it, became fairy tales and legends told round camp fires; a story about King George Herbert the Deliverer who came in his heavenly throne-sled from his divine realm of the Rising Sun, while the old peddler continued to travel from world to world, through the infinite multiverse. He never visited Eloi-England again, in a world he called Terra Geopal-Wells.
Back to Part II: The synopsis of Time Machine III
Artist
and writer: Sandra Petojevic
December 14, 2013