Dr. Damean Dobsely was looking grimly out of his four story mansion. His blue sport coat hung loosely from the back of his chair and his gray hair was combed neatly and parted at the side. 'Who would ever know?' Dobsely asked himself,' they should all be proud, those bastards! This is a giant leap for mankind.' He chuckled to himself at the thought, and suddenly grew very solemn. 'What if,' he thought, 'I come back a second later, no one would ever know!' With this thought, he grabbed his coat, flung it over his shoulders, and rushed out of the room.

Tripping down the stairs, Dobsely rushed into the parlor where he went through a series of ill lit corridors that led him to a small room. On the right hand side stood a large metal door, it stood grim and foreboding in its thick blue metal constitution. The door groaned loudly and with one mighty push from Dobsely, it swung open. Dobsely pushed through and ran wildly down a flight of steps. In his mad dash, he could barely make out the soft reeling of metal door as it moved back into place.

At the bottom of the staircase, Dobsely went through a large hall and into a small room. The room was bare, with the exception of a small table, littered with papers, and an enormous hunk of metal with a slight resemblance to a hoodless-car. Dobsely smiled at the machine and went over to pet it on its side.

'There, there old girl, tonight's the night,' he smiled a secret smile and picked up a tape recorder from the table. 'I, Dr. Damean Dobsely, on the night of September 15, 1957, will become the first person to ever travel through time,' he paused briefly to beam a smile over to the gigantic beast. 'I have set the time of my destination to September 15, 2000. I will travel alone in my vessel with nothing other than my camera and tape recorder.'

At this he stopped and leaned his chin on his hand. Stroking his few, gray whiskers delicately, he looked over at the machine. 'This,' he thought, 'is for my brother. I will show them! I will show them all that we arent mad.' A picture of his older brother flashed into his head. That poor man, in a straightjacket, sitting in a wheelchair, staring absent mindedly out the window. His gray eyes, once full of light and life, now dull, watery, misty and showing no sign of comprehension. The doctors tried repeatedly to communicate with him but they told Dobsely that whenever his brother opened his mouth, he only managed to produce a few croaks and coughs. Dobsely shivered under his coat and shook the memory out of his head.

 Centering his attention back on his work, he gathered his equipment and settled himself into one of the two passenger seats. After a few long, hard, painful moments, Dobsely turned a little green knob and instantly, the device gave an immense roar and lurched forward. Startled, Dobsely knocked the camera and the tape recorder out of the passenger seat and they landed on the floor with a loud clank!

That was the last sound Dobsely heard before the time machine began to spin. It spun so fast that Dobsely, himself, nearly fell out of the seat. Forgetting completely about his spinning surroundings, Dobsely tired in vain to push himself out of the seat but the machine kept him inside as if not wanting to let him go. Gradually, the contraption slowed until the spinning stopped altogether. Poor Dobsely was so shook up from the vicious ride that he passed out in the seat.

When Dobsely awoke, he wasn't quite sure what had happened. He looked around dazed until the full picture came into focus. There he was. But where was he? All he knew for sure was that he was all alone sitting in his time machine. Dobsely sat there for a moment and then coming to himself, looked around for the first time. Brick red dirt made up a rough landscape. All around him were small hills and rocks made of this vile soil. There was a light wind carrying a cinnamon scent although he could see no trace of trees or shrubbery for miles around. Stepping out of the time machine and standing up on the hard ground for the first time, Dobsely felt a rush of excitement.

It worked! His invention actually worked! Sure, his brother was always known as the genius in the family, always inventing things and studying, always walking around carrying his little legal pad and his purple marble pen wherever he went. But look at them now! Just look at where life has brought them. Although Dobsely didn't exactly know quite where he was, he knew that he was far better off than his poor brother in that asylum. Shrugging off another painful memory, Dobsely raised his head high into the air and set off to explore.

The landscape was hard and barren, with the exception of a few sparse patches of dry brown grass. The sky was heavy and gray and seemed to hang only a few inches over Dobselys head.  The land seemed to live and breathe. It felt as if it were a living being, too large to do its own bidding but too clever to let its plans go to waste. It seemed to be pulling all of its resources together now, for Dobselys sake. The wind, the ground, they all seemed to want to influence Dobsely, to shut out his world and bring him fully into their own. 

The cinnamon breeze seemed to blow inside of him and heal his throbbing head, upset stomach, and aching heart. The ground echoed his steps and the noise seemed to drown out his tender memories and troublesome thoughts. He felt light. Exhilarated. Carefree. He stopped observing his surroundings and didn't notice how the sun had begun to set and his shadow trudged wearily behind him.

Trotting at a brisk pace, Dobsely came to a great valley. Dark, brown grass covered almost every inch of the landscape. A path that was cut through this deserted area wound its way in front of Dobsely and out of sight. Not really paying attention to where he was going, Dobsely tripped over something and fell down hard on his face. Getting to his feet, he looked behind him at what he had tripped over. At first he didn't notice anything, but then, something shiny caught his eye. Walking over slowly, Dobsely leaned down and saw a pen lying on the ground. Picking it up, Dobsely brushed the dirt off of it and took a closer look. It was long, and heavy. Dobsely rolled it over in his hand. The sun had almost set now, but even through the dying light, he could make out the faded, purple, marble designs.

 For the first time in a long time, Dobsely looked around and wondered if there were living, intelligent beings that had dug this path out. But no sooner had the idea entered his mind when a strong wind blew him on and his echoing steps once again became the only sound ringing in Dobsely's ears. Slowly, the wind stopped, the cinnamon breeze ceased to revive him. Dobsely felt a pang of exhaustion. Dropping carelessly on the spot, he fell fast asleep.

*                      *                      *                      *                      *                     

Dr. Damean Dobsely awoke the next morning in a soft bed. Afraid that it was all a dream, he kept his eyes closed and wished that the soft pillow under his head would melt away into the harsh, brown grass of the future. It couldn't all be a dream! He wouldn't let his remarkable journey fade away into one of his countless wishes. No, this had to be the real thing, it just had to be! Slowly, Dobsely opened his eyes and focused in on a room.  Dobsely's extreme disappointment slowly vanished and was replaced with a cold, sweaty panic as he noticed that this was not his room.

He was, indeed, lying on a bed but the walls looked to him like giants marshmallows glued together, and instead of the beautifully draped windows of his own master bedroom, the sun was shining through bare, barred plates of glass. A man sat by that window. A man Dobsely had once seen in a dream. A man wearing a tan straightjacket, sitting in a wheelchair, his gaze fixed out the tiny window. Dobsely noticed his eyes first. Those cold, gray, unblinking eyes.

'Ah you're awake!' sounded a cheerful voice from the doorway. 'I was beginning to worry about you Damean. How are you feeling today?' Dobsely opened his mouth but instead of words, all he could manage was a deep, low growl. Baffled at this strange inability to speak, Dobsely looked bewildered at the smiling woman who remained in the doorway. He recognized by her white outfit that she was a nurse. Young, short and slim, the woman approached the bed and unhooked something around Dobsely's ankles. 'You've been out for days now, the doctor has been worried sick! HrmmI'm afraid you'll need to see someone about that growling of yours.' She giggled, 'Come now, you don't have to play dumb with me, you can talk, I won't tell.' She smiled mischievously.

Dobsely tried again to force some sound out of himself but it was no use, it felt as though his vocal cords had dried up. 'Oh what rubbish!' the nurse frowned, 'well fine, be that way. I'll just put you here to sit by James while you wait for your breakfast.' And with that, the woman sat him up in his bed and managed him into a wheelchair. She wheeled him over to the window by the strange man, and as much as Dobsely tried to protest, she left him there and walked out of the room cheerfully.

Slowly, the man turned his head and looked at Dobsely with a knowing expression; the icy, gray eyes burned into Dobsely and made him shiver in the warm sunlight. Gradually, the man returned to his original position and once again, a thin watery lens formed around his eye. Terrified, Dobsely forced himself to scream again and again, he tried to stand up, to run away, but something held him in place. Exhausted, Dobsely slumped in his wheelchair and looked out the window. He didn't notice the nurse walk in with breakfast, or how she repeatedly shook him by the shoulder. Or how she unclenched his fist to reveal a purple, marbled pen. He could only look straight ahead, out the window and every once in a while, a warm gust of wind would blow on his face and he would catch a soft scent of cinnamon.