Aaron sat down in the time machine and breathed hard for the hardest challenge of them all. He said a quick prayer and crossed himself like an obedient little Catholic boy. Except that he didn’t believe in God and he certainly didn’t believe in the bishop of Rome. But he figured now was as good a time as any to buy some insurance on the gamble he was about to take.
He didn’t care. He had to see. So he turned the machine on and it huffed and puffed like it usually did. Like a ’58 Edsel, Aaron supposed (memo to self: travel back to the Eisenhower era and find out if it really was like Wally and the Beaver). But it started up after thirty seconds and then he turned the dial to the right. All the way to the right. And he applied pressure. The usual fog spurted out the sides of the machine and enveloped him in the usual mist.
But then the machine started to sputter and jump up and down and careen side to side, as if a Tyrannosaurus Rex held it in the palm of its hand before crushing it to a million pieces in its jaws. And Aaron held on for life and for death – thank goodness he’d put on his seatbelt this time – the California Highway Patrol would’ve got him, if he hadn’t. And then boom! The machine came to a hard stop.
The smoke cleared and Aaron saw flying bubbles with two-dimensional looking people in them wearing primary colors. And the houses all stood up on stilts and had sharp angles like they always showed on ‘60s TV.
“Good God, they were right and there they are, Elroy and Astro,” Aaron said. “Hanna-Barbera got it right.”
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