Why we will Never Time-Travel Again

 

Why we will Never Time-Travel Again

When we returned to the present, from our recent excursion into the past, we were horrified.  The very purpose of our history project had been defeated—by us.  We had spent years completing a thorough biography of the famous American president, Abraham Lincoln.  There were just a few minor details remaining to explore.  We found them, and completed our journey into the years 1863 to 1865. 

But something went wrong.  Instead of returning to the present, to chronicle Lincoln’s triumphant reconciliation with the defeated Confederacy, we discovered to our horror that, instead of him accomplishing that, he had instead been assassinated in 1865.

We considered returning again to 1865 to correct our mistake, but were warned that we were far more likely to make matters even worse.  The time machine is not precise.  It can be off by a year or two.

We decided to avoid further disaster. As much as we would like to have avoided the racial animosity that Lincoln would have prevented, we could not risk the greater danger of finding ourselves in the year 1863, and causing the North to lose the Civil War, thus perpetuating slavery.

So, we destroyed the time machine, and threw away our research paper.

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