The Time Traveler's Almanac Read Free Page A

that is unique and ineffably strange. How did you get to be one of these select, chosen few? What makes you so special?
    8. Here is what makes you so special: you remember. You always had a gift, a knack, a predisposition to this. You look ahead. You knew there was more to it. That there had to be, if not a way out, a way up, and around, and back in. That there was something fishy about the whole infrastructure. Why build roads if no one can go anywhere? Why do we have all of this temporal equipment inside of us, if we can never use it? You were right. You didn’t know how right you were. Everyone thought it was poetic. A grand metaphor. A way of thinking about our psychology. You knew it was more, waited for the moment, waited for this moment. You were right, and you had no idea how right you were.
    9. Here is what you need to ask yourself: how did you come to be a time traveler? Did you choose this, or did it choose you? Are you on some kind of mission? Do you feel like you might be stuck in a stable time loop? Is there anyone in your life who you need to go see in the past? Have you ever had dreams about the future that might not be dreams but premonitions? Are you lost and adrift outside of time and if so do you want to get back in? Who is asking you these rhetorical questions? Why are you looking for tips, and especially from someone or something that you don’t know anything about? How do you know you’re not asking yourself these questions, that this isn’t your own diary you are reading, from the past or the future or the present and that you haven’t read this eleven million seven hundred ninety three thousand four hundred sixty one times? And will read it an infinite number of times more? That these tips are all that you have, all that there ever will be, or ever was, which is the same thing, because nothing has ever existed that has not always existed, that you live in an eternal block universe, timeless and frozen, and that time, as you knew it when you started this, that time is in the past, but it’s still there, and you can go back, and then you can come back here, and you have, and you will.
    You wanted some tips. You have some tips. Probably not quite what you were expecting. But what were you expecting? Time travel is a lonely activity. Time travel means you can never go home again. But maybe it also means always being able to see home from here. Don’t you remember? These tips are what got you into trouble in the first place.
    10. Now that you know this information, go back to tip number 2 above. Go back to the time when you first read that, and read it again. There are no rules. Okay? None. Now: what a concept. Now. Now: you’ve got your whole life, what came before and what will come after, gathered up here in this little area here, the whole thing. What are you going to do with your life? What was it, what is it, what will it be?

EXPERIMENTS

DEATH SHIP
    Richard Matheson
    Richard Matheson was an American author and screenwriter most known for his work in fantasy, horror, and science fiction. Some of his best-known works are The Shrinking Man, Hell House, and I Am Legend (the latter having been made into full-length films three times). In addition to the many feature films adapted from his work, he also wrote several episodes of The Twilight Zone original series in the 1960s. “Death Ship” was first published in Fantastic Story Magazine in 1953 and then later adapted for television as Episode 6, Season 4, of The Twilight Zone in 1963.
    Mason saw it first.
    He was sitting in front of the lateral viewer taking notes as the ship cruised over the new planet. His pen moved quickly over the graph-spaced chart he held before him. In a little while they’d land and take specimens. Mineral, vegetable, animal – if there were any. Put them in the storage lockers and take them back to Earth. There the technicians would evaluate, appraise, judge. And, if everything was acceptable, stamp the big,