What Hath God Wrought?

A time travel story

Andrea Levy never expected her time machine to work. The twelfth-grader, desperate for something—anything—to stave off an F on her science project, cobbled together a hodgepodge of wires, old-style vacuum tubes, car batteries, rotary phone parts, metal and glass screw-in fuses, bits from an old Apple computer, a Seiko wall clock, and other assorted electronics. Her partners in F-avoidance were Mark Perez, Adam Wu, and Jen Banaszynski. 

They called their project “The Time Telegraph” because the on-switch was an old telegraph key. Their diorama read, A systematic aggregation of analog and digital components through which a precise voltage disrupts the flow of space-time, enabling time travel.

The telegraph key was her science project’s exclamation point. 

Mr. Bingham smiled as he affixed a gold ribbon to the device to the left of Andrea’s, a demonstration of negative air pressure created by fast-moving fluids and how that cools a room. He traipsed over to Andrea and her friends’ exhibit with the enthusiasm of a dog on its way to the vet. “Well, well, well, what have we here? A time machine?” He flashed a smirk at Andrea. “Let's see it work.”

Bingham folded his arms across his chest. “Wait! On second thought, a science project as monumental as yours should be shared with the entire grade.” He clapped twice. “Gather round everyone. Your classmates, Ms. Levy, Ms. Banaszynski, Mr. Perez, and Mr. Wu, will demonstrate a time machine.” He rubbed his hands together. “The floor is yours.”

“Shi—” Andrea said. “Sure.” Andrea turned toward her friends. 

Mark’s lips quivered, 

Adam’s hands shook.

Jen turned pale. 

Andrea hovered her fingers over the antique telegraph key through which she had wired the Rube Goldberg apparatus with its uber-vintage vibe. 

The only part of the machine that did anything practical was the Edison bulb she purchased online, which would illuminate when she tapped the key. Probably. 

“I’m waiting.”

“Take your positions,” she told her project partners. 

Mark, Adam, and Jen each placed a hand on a six-inch copper dinner plate through which a chaos of blue, yellow, green, orange, and white wires ran. 

Andrea rested her left hand on the fourth plate and slowly, like she was testing the temperature of a pot of water, depressed the key. 

They held their breath, ready for the jolt. Their skin would tingle, and their hair would take flight when the electricity turned on. 

Unfortunately, they were thinking of static electricity, but were using current electricity, so instead of electrons gathering on the surface of their skin as it does with static electricity, just making their hair funky, energy surged through them like they’d been bitten by an electric eel. 

“Ouch! Frigging A. That hurts!” Mark screamed. “What did you do, Andrea?”

“Yeow!” Jen added. “My body feels like it's on fire.”

“Ouch, me, too,” Adam said. “I haven’t hurt this much since Abbott launched one at my nuts in dodgeball.”

Jen sniffed, then sniffed again and sneezed.

“Allergies?” Mark asked before he inhaled a deep whiff of air, causing him to sneeze out a storm, too. 

Jen swiveled her head and spun three-hundred-sixty degrees, her sneakers squeaking on the wooden floor.

“Guys,” Jen said. “Where are we? And who’s that?” Jen pointed toward the handsome, square-jawed man with autumn brown eyes and wavy, brown hair seated at a wooden table, his fingers poised above a telegraph key that looked exactly like the one in their science project. A black, high-buttoned jacket bracketed his gold ascot. 

The man’s baritone resonated off the walls. “Who in tarnation are you? Where did you come from? And what is that thing?”

“We asked first,” Mark said. 

“That we did,” Adam added. “This doesn’t look like John Glenn High.” 

“You’re in the United States Senate Commerce Committee room, where you’re interrupting my demonstration.” 

Two dozen men grumbled in unison. 

Andrea’s jaw dropped. The late afternoon sun caught the dust and pollen that floated in the cavernous room, casting a red glow on a portrait of a gangly President John Tyler. 

The man examined the strangers. He eyed Mark’s bright red Nike’s, Adam’s purple-streaked, jet-black hair, Jen’s black lipstick, and Mark’s earring and asked, “What hath God wrought?”

A woman in an intricately-patterned black and red, corseted bodice and wide, full skirt said, “Dad, you’re supposed to save that for the message!” 

“I still can. Longstreet didn’t hear me all the way in Baltimore. If he could, there’d be no need for a telegraph.” He cracked his knuckles and returned his fore and index fingers to the telegraph key. “Let’s proceed.”

“Hold on!” Andrea shouted. She strode forward and gently hoisted his hand off the key. “Wait a second. I need to confer with my friends.” 

The four John Glenn High School seniors huddled. 

“Do you know who that is?” Andrea asked? When the others shook their heads, she said, “That’s Samuel F.B. Morse, and today is May 24, 1844, the day the first telegraph message was sent. Or will be sent.” 

“How do you know that?” Jen asked. “You’re barely passing science. You rigged a fake science experiment.” 

"It doesn't seem fake anymore,” Andrea snapped. 

“I think it’s a given now that we will get an A," Peter added. 

“Just because I don’t know much about science doesn’t mean I’m ignorant of history. I happen to have gotten a B+ in Mr. Hugo’s American history class last semester. Look at this room. The tables and chairs are wooden, not plastic or metal. In fact, there's no plastic anything because it doesn't exist yet. The air smells musty because there’s no air conditioning. Unless everyone is dressed for a costume party, we’re smack in the middle of the nineteenth century. Do you see any paintings of politicians from our era? There are books everywhere, but there’s not a single electronic device in the room.”

Adam whipped his iPhone out of his back pocket. “I have an electronic device.”

Andrea slapped his hand. “Put that back. Do you want us to be burned as witches?”

“I thought witch-burning went out in the seventeenth century.”

Andrea glared at Mark. “Do you want to find out? Listen up. My time machine worked. We have traveled 178 years into the past. Samuel Morse is about to send the first long-distance telegraph message from Washington, DC to Baltimore. He’ll transmit ‘What hath God wrought?’ in what we call Morse code.”

“It’s cool to have a language named after you,” Mark said.

“Shut up, Mark.” Jen kicked his foot. “So, Andrea, dear, how are you going to get us back to 2023?” She narrowed her eyes. “You will get us back, right?”

Resignation filled Andrea’s sigh. She extended her arm toward the smoldering electrical components and wires that had been their time machine. The four car batteries melted into misshapen lumps, like s’mores held over a fire for far too long. The Seiko clock in the time machine’s middle morphed into Dali’s The Persistence of Memory. Sharp, acrid air wafted from the wires’ melted insulation.

Andrea shook her head. “It’s broken beyond repair.”

“Are you kidding me?” Jen hissed. “Are you saying we’re stuck in 1844? That I’m never going to see my family and friends again? My parents said we were going to San Francisco this summer and—”

“The California gold rush won’t start for a few years, so you might want to postpone that,” Andrea said.

“Do they have toilets in 1844?” Mark asked.

“Um, some places. Not everywhere, but indoor plumbing is expanding rapidly during this decade, and in 1850, toilet paper will be invented.”

“Great, just great.”

“Guys, I have an idea,” Andrea said.

“An idea for getting us back home?” Peter asked.

“No. An idea to make us filthy rich in this time. If we’re stuck in the past, we might as well be millionaires. Let me just suggest something to Mr. Morse for his telegraph he hasn’t thought about. He’s going to oversee a network of point-to-point telegraph stations that will be deployed by the government and businesses, such as Western Union. But I have a much better idea."

Andrea strode over to Morse. “Excuse me, Mr. Morse. Can I talk with you for a moment?”

March 22, 2023

Judge Kay Green slammed her gavel on the wooden block. “The Court will come to order. Counsel, please rise.” She gestured to the defendant’s table. 

The lawyer cleared his throat.  "Mark Zuckerberg, representing the defense, your honor."

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I thought it would be fun to start the new year with a time travel story. Happy New Year, happy 2023!

If you enjoyed this story, I think you’ll also like my story, The Billboard.