Mr. Rivera's Wondrous Machine

Mr Rivera’s Wondrous Machine



The massive audience hall wasn’t even half full, probably not even a quarter, but they had to use the large hall for its stage. The smaller audience halls in the complex had stages too, but those stages weren’t big enough for Mr. Rivera’s Wondrous Machine, or The Machine for short. From where I was sitting in the front row The Machine was monstrous, and not a single aspect of its design gave away its purpose, which was the question on everyone’s mind. All throughout the hall hissed furtive whispers of guesses at what the machine was for. From my position I heard a few half-hearted guesses; mind control device, telekinesis engine, and heavy duty hair dryer. It did kind of look like a big hairdryer, you know, the kind that looks like a bowl you put over your head.

The Machine was a massive metal cylinder without any features except a little hemispherical hole at the bottom, under which sat an uncomfortable looking chair with wires snaking up to the machine’s underside. Presumably one sat in the chair with their head in the hole, like with those hair dryers. For awhile I was sure it was a hair dryer. Then Mr. Rivera walked onto the stage.

Now when Mr. Rivera walked onto the stage I couldn’t help but chuckle, and I wasn’t the only one. Mr. Rivera wore the stereotypical scientist garb: lab coat, complete with pocket protector and glasses so thick that you might be able to consider them bullet-proof. He had grey straggly hair all over his head, and to top it all off he appeared to be wearing a tin-foil hat. This bizarre fashion choice seemed to be what was causing the laughter. Then Mr. Rivera activated a mike on his lab coat and said:

“Ladies and gentlemen of the NSA, this wonder before you is my Wondrous Time Erasing Machine!” and then stood there with a big smirk on his face - a kind of “Hey aren’t you just flippin’ amazed” smirk.

The whole crowd went silent –or sort of at least. A murmur could be heard here and there, all asking the same question; “A what machine?” and a hand went up in the crowd, which Mr. Rivera acknowledged.

“Yes madam?”

“Uh, excuse me sir, but what exactly does it do?” asked a woman in the row behind me.

“Well as its name implies, it erases time!”

“Yes… but what does that mean?” and a chuckle rippled through the crowd again.

“I guess a more… mundane… description would be that it allows its wearer to go backwards or forwards in time as some form of non-physical disembodied entity and physically remove an object or objects from the fabric of time and space, thus erasing it from history, the present, and the future to come.”

“And what precisely, is the tinfoil hat for” asked another derisively, much to the amusement of the hall.

“For your information, this is not a tinfoil hat, it is a lead hat and-“

“Isn’t that dangerous? Wearing a lead hat?” said a voice from the last occupied row in the hall.

“Well it is lined so I’m sure it’s all right” replied the scientist and continued “Ahem, as I was saying the lead hat is the only object that allows you to remember the erased object or objects. For all you know I have already erased half of the people in this room, erased all of the aliens that inhabit the earth disguised as rabbits, and caused the Chernobyl meltdown by erasing all of the switches in the control rooms. But of course I have not done any of that, and there are no aliens living on earth currently.”

Then from the center of the hall shouted a voice saying “I don’t believe you, you can’t erase time!” in challenge to the scientists spiel.

That smirked now imposed itself on the scientists face again. Indeed he seemed quite amused! He said to the heckler in riposte “Then I will show you”, and pulled another lead hat out of a trunk at his feet, and called the man onto the stage. The man (a beefy man with a stern face and an aura of anti-nonsense) reluctantly took the hat from the scientist and placed it on his own head. Mr. Rivera went off stage, and then returned with a folding card table which he placed in the middle of the stage, beside the man. The man was staring sceptically at a point on the table when the scientist sat in his machine and presumably activated it. The only proof of its activation was a loud hum, so loud in fact it made your teeth rattle.

All of a sudden the stern faced man jumped back three feet, covered his mouth with his hand and pointed at the table with the other. His eyes were wide with shock when he turned his face to the crowd and said “did you see that! It just disappeared completely!” Of course no one knew what he was talking about. The table was still there, and there had never been an object on the table so everyone just stared puzzled, until the humming stopped and the scientist disembarked from The Machine. The man said to the Mr. Rivera, “I can’t believe it, its true!” and to the crowd he said “one second the mug was there, the next it wasn’t!” and he was again met with blank stares and puzzled glances. He said to the scientist “They don’t believe me?”

“Of course not!” replied the scientist, “They don’t even remember me putting the mug on the table, let alone the existence of the mug.”

To which another man in the audience said “It’s a hoax! They’re obviously both in on this joke!”

The scientist then called him up as well and he too looked at the table intently. The scientist restarted The Machine, re-sat in the seat, and the new man was re-amazed. This caused an uproar throughout the hall; Now everyone thought it was a hoax – me included. It seemed even more like a hoax because the second man had brought it up, like he was trying to rule it out so no one else would suggest it. So then Mr. Rivera called each and every person in the hall up on stage one at a time and fitted them with their very own lead hat. And each time they were amazed and flabbergasted and bamboozled. By the time three quarters of the audience was fitted with lead hats I had started to believe that it might really be working. When I was the last person left in the hall who didn’t have their own lead hat, I was anxious to see what was happening. Mr. Rivera called me up to witness the wonder of his Wondrous Time Erasing Machine.

I put my lead hat on my head and stood looking at a mug sitting in the middle of the table. I could hear the people in the crowd chatting vigorously amongst themselves, each person noisily recounting their own experience with The Machine. I kept my eyes on the mug as the Mr. Rivera sat in the uncomfortable chair and activated the machine. The humming came and went and the mug was still on the table. So it was an elaborate hoax after all was my first thought, and then I felt a draft about my knees and heard the tidal wave of the audience’s laughter. Apparently the joke was on me, my pants had been erased! I stood in front of about one hundred people, without pants, with my favourite boxers showing (they have Santa Claus on them), and yet I was only half as embarrassed as I was amazed. Mr. Rivera’s Wondrous Machine, was indeed a wonder. That same scientist handed me a pair of trousers from the trunk and asked me to take a seat.

The scientist removed the card table from the stage and asked the audience to quiet down, and they promptly did now that the scientist’s credibility was firmly accounted for. Then the scientist said enigmatically “who among you considers them self brave?”

I don’t consider myself very brave, but I was the last person to get to view The Machine. So I figured I should be the first for this. I put my hand up. Mr. Rivera’s magnified eyes wheeled over to me, and then he said to the crowd:

“It seems the pants-less man would like a second round, come on up!” he said in the exact tones of a game show host. So I went up with a big embarrassed grin plastered over my face. There was some clapping, and a couple whistles, and I have to say I was proud of myself for getting up there. Mr. Rivera though, was not smiling. He sat me in a folding chair and addressed the crowd.

“Ladies and gentlemen, what this man is about to experience is terrifying. He is about to experience the full potential of this machine. When one sits in The Machine there is only the option to erase things from time, but when The Machine is left to its own devices it endlessly cycles through history and the future, making sure that nothing is ever created or used to harm it. When this machine is activated, it will not only erase pieces of time, but add, tweak, and skew, ensuring that it is always in existence. The images one sees though, when the machine is activated on its own, are quite spectacular. If I could ask you all to remove your hats please, I want you to observe this mans reaction.” And when the entire audience was hat free, he went to the machine and flipped a toggle switch.

Instantly the world before began to change. At first it was slow, but it quickly accelerated until each image only appeared before me for a split second. First everyone in the room seemed to age, then to un-age then everyone’s seats changed, then everyone’s skin colour, the colour of the walls, the number of people in the room, the room itself. Soon the room melted away and I saw the world as it once was and what it was going to be, in a million different scenarios. I saw armies of men in gas masks, children flying fighter jets, nukes exploding over cities, oceans advancing over shores. I saw people killing each other, saving each other, and being apathetic towards each other. Through all of this though, I saw The Machine.

Guns would be shot at it, only to have the bullets disappear. Nukes would disappear in mid-flight, tanks evaporate, ships be transported nowhere, if they attempted to harm the machine. I saw the world made bare by war, and I saw it reborn again by nature.

The last thing I saw was the machine alone, in a vast clearing in the middle of a jungle. It sat on a ring of rock surrounded by trees, but there were no sounds, only the shudder of leaves . there were no animals, no people, and for the machine, no way it could be harmed. Mr. Rivera turned off the machine.

“So sir, what did you see?” he asked me.

“I… I don’t quite know…. I think it was the future?”

“It was not the future, but only the possibilities of the future. Still it is quite daunting isn’t it!” and to the crowd he said “I couldn’t let you all witness it… in many cases the experience was too much for the viewers, and I was more willing to let one person experience it than a whole crowd of people who might react adversely to it.”

I was a little offended by that, but I had a question for the scientist; “exactly why doesn’t the machine just erase all living things from the face of the earth as soon as you put it in safe mode? It seems that’s what its goal is!”

“Well I programmed not to!” he replied.

“Couldn’t it just erase your programming?” asked a woman.

“No. I encased its internal workings in lead. I assure you all it’s quite safe!”

“Dr. Rivera” said the Director of Affairs, “We will be renewing your grant to work on the facilities, but we can not allow your machine to be put into use; it is clearly dangerous to the State, and the people.”

I saw two guards come on stage and begin the process of removing the monstrous machine from the building. The Director of Affairs himself came up and spoke to the Scientist. As I went back to my seat I noticed the scientist’s expression, which had been quite disappointed at hearing his wondrous machine was to be destroyed, suddenly brighten. The Director clapped him on the back. I got to my seat, picked up my coat, and left with the rest of the crowd, all of whom were a little shaken. Even then I think I was feeling the onset of paranoia.



I still have the lead hat that Dr. Rivera gave me. I wear it every day. You never know when they might turn the machine on.



The end