About Time

He had reached by 1840. But his team was already late by a long time. They were supposed to join him a long time ago in this house, at 1845 in fact. He looked surreptitiously at the dial concealed under his carefully constructed jacket. The luminous numbers read 1850. But on second thoughts a slight delay like this was hardly a wave in the ever flowing tide of history. But what they were about to do now would definitely cause a few ripples. The mere thought brought a smile to his face. Time to right some wrongs. And anyways, the delay had given him enough time to put a lot of things into place.

After what looked like eons, he looked again at the dial. 1855. Time was definitely running out now. Alone he could at most get things started – but that would happen whether or not he was physically present at this point. It needed his team to give him the strategic numbers to win. 1856. He smelt something burning, like burnt optic transmitters. They were here! About time. But instead of his entire team, all he saw was his deputy staggering towards him. If that wasn’t enough cause for worry, he was wearing a uniform which wasn’t just horribly dated but was that of the imperialists! “Someone got it horribly wrong” His deputy told him. “We reached in 1755, looking for you. But they told us not to worry if we didn’t find you and changed the side we were to fight on. We won. Nothing’s changed. I’m here to take you back. Nothing’s going to change. We could try again. Live to plan again and come back.” The words barely registered. The implications. 25 years of his life, and all the careful planning to change history, wasted. His team sent back a 100 years further back than was planned to help the other side win. Why? Why? But who? And now that he was being taken back to his time, nothing was going to change. The other side would rule for another 2 centuries, leaving his land and his ancestors in shambles and as slaves forever. “Hey, let’s go” his deputy said, “About time.”