No Time For Dinosaurs

by John Benjamin Sciarra

  He turned to the two women and was about to wave them over when the music stopped abruptly. It was as if someone pulled the plug on a warm, soapy bath and filled the tub with ice water.

  The Allosaurs were affected immediately as well. They both roared with anger into the sky and then one of them noticed Kyle standing frozen by his feet. The monster lifted his foot into the air and brought it down with the full weight of his fifty tons of power.

  ***

  The professor madly banged away at the keyboard with the tips of his fingers as he watched the musical score scroll across the deep blue of the computer screen. The sound of the violins stopped. The green glow of the time capsule appeared frozen in place.

  Finally, after a few minutes, the professor hit the “enter” key and the screen went blank.

  “There. Now all I need is a kid and a dinosaur and all will be well again,” he said to no one aloud. “Only, how do I find them?”

  Just then, the door to the lab burst open and Kyle came crashing into the room stumbling over a chair falling at the professor’s feet.

  “Well. Now that’s what I call service!”

  “Professor! What’s going on? Has the world gone crazy? Are we in the paradox?”

  “Whoa. Hold on now. Everything’s going to be okay…”

  “Okay? How can you say that! I was almost stomped into the ground by a pair of Allosaurs!”

  “The important thing is—you weren’t, isn’t it?”

  Kyle looked up at the professor and then pulled himself back to a seated position on the floor at his feet. It was true he thought. I’m not squashed.

  “But…I was almost squashed like a bug. Like a…a…mosquito…like…a…a”

  “Yes, but you weren’t. Now. Can we get on with this?”

  “With what? What are you talking about?”

  “We need to get you and Priti back to your own time period. And we have only…let’s see…” The professor checked his watch. “Thirty minutes.”

  “What happens after thirty minutes?”

  “Paradox.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Teresa and Sonja watched in horror, as Kyle stood transfixed under the huge Allosaur’s humongous foot. They both screamed in unison when the foot came plunging down with a loud thump. The ground shook under them the force was so great.

  Sonja started to run toward the enormous creature to exact revenge when Teresa grabbed her and tackled her to the ground.

  “Let me go! He killed Kyle! Do you not care?”

  “He can’t be dead, Sonja. If he were, we wouldn’t even be here.”

  “What?” Sonja wiped away the tears. “What are you saying? We…just saw your brother killed and…what? He’s alive?”

  “He must be. The minute either Kyle or Priti dies, the paradox would be instantaneous. That much we do know.”

  Sonja got up, dusted her sari off, and watched as the Allosaurs wandered off across the street in confusion. Slaves to their own instincts, they began looking for freshly killed animals for their meal.

  Teresa ran over to the spot where the Allosaur had stomped the ground. There was an enormous hole, but no remains of anything, or anyone. She breathed a sigh of relief.

  Sonja came up next to her. “You really were not sure, were you?”

  “I was, but he is my brother. I couldn’t relax until I knew. He must have run into the building at the last minute…right behind Priti.”

  “Should we go in?” asked Sonja.

  Just then, the two Allosaurs appeared and focused their attention on the two women. The women turned and ran as fast as they could. Too late, they realized that ahead of them several T-rex stepped out from behind an adjacent building. Their escape was blocked on all sides.

  ***

  “Just who are you?”

  “That’s not important right now. We have to find Priti before it’s too late.”

  There was a scrapping sound at the door and Kyle went over and cracked it slightly. A feathered head popped through the door.

  “Priti!”

  The professor was equally surprised. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say this seemed just a little too pre-planned.”

  Priti leaned against Kyle like he was her long lost friend and made almost a purring sound.

  “So? What do we do now? Should we get in the capsule?”

  “We have to wait until the last possible moment if this is going to get you back to precisely the exact moment you left.”

  “Uh…left…where?”

  “Why, Priti’s time. You have to return her and then get back to your time period. Everything must be precisely timed or…”

  “Or…?”

  “Or time is history.”

  ***

  The Commissioner watched the scene unfolding before him in total awe. The brilliant column of colors moving in waves across the blackened sky was mesmerizing. The moon was bathed in a blood red cloud with a halo around it. Streaks of lightning splintered the blackness and his face seemed to phase in and out of existence with each deafening boom of thunder.

  He watched as the years of work and effort unfolded before his very eyes. He thought he was prepared for the arrival of his son, but he had miscalculated terribly. His vision of an elite army of men mounted on dinosaurs under his command was dissolving—literally. The material universe modulated between energy and matter in normal time to the tune of the harmonics of the universe. The “music” was a mystery to him. He didn’t understand the very things he created to control the forces around him. He had failed as a scientist. He failed as a leader. And, most of all, he failed as a father.

  Then he saw it. He hadn’t noticed it before, but there it was. Streaking across the night sky out of the northern hemisphere was a glowing ball of fire; white hot in the center and trailing a long white plume of stardust.

  ***

  “There are some things you need to know before you go back. That day you and your sister and Sonja went back in the capsule; back to the land of the dinosaurs, must never be repeated. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “I don’t think you have to tell me that twice…”

  “You’re wrong!” the professor scolded in a stern voice. “I know how you think more than you could understand. I know you’ll go back again.”

  “If I make it back at all.” Kyle was hurt that the professor was so upset with him. He shrugged it off thinking that maybe it was just the pressure of the pending paradox.

  “The lure of the past calling out to you will be very strong. There is no force in the universe that is as strong. No habit designed by man or demon. No need so great as that of the universe calling out to you to return.”

  “You’re really starting to scare me, professor. I’m not sure I want to go back.”

  “There isn’t any choice. It’s out of our hands now. Go look outside. Carefully. Look towards the northern sky and tell me what you see. Tell me if there is anything familiar about what is happening. I think you’ll understand.”

  Kyle went down the stairwell with Priti following close behind. He could hear the cacophony outside. It sounded like a war zone had erupted. Flashes of light were piecing the window and the thunderous claps so loud they shook his insides all the way to his stomach.

  Cautiously, Kyle peered outside and looked at the sky. Indeed, there was something far too familiar about the things he was seeing. The ribbons of color called the Aurora borealis or Northern Lights rippled like sheets of tinfoil with a beauty that belied its danger.

  He said to Priti, “It almost looks like the sky when the comet was about to strike. But you wouldn’t remember that.”

  Priti cocked her head as if trying hard to understand. Of course, she didn’t. A voice from behind him said, “It is the same comet. The past has caught up with the future and will collide in…” The professor again looked at his watch. “20 minutes. Let’s get you and Priti upstairs before something happens…”

  Just then, the door slammed open
and there stood the Commissioner with some sort of strange looking device in his hand.

  ***

  “Up the stairs. Both of you. You too, little dinosaur.”

  Priti hissed at him but ran behind Kyle. Kyle picked her up and proceeded up the stairs with the professor’s encouragement. Once in the lab, the Commissioner stopped just beyond the doorway.

  “I thought you’d try and pull something like this. You never did listen to a word I had to say,” the professor said with disgust.

  Both Kyle and the professor answered at the same time. “If you had paid more attention…”

  Kyle looked at the professor. “Who the heck are you?”

  Before anyone could say anything, the building shook violently. The professor grabbed the computer screen as it slid off the table but missed. It hit the floor with a thud and electricity popped and fizzled with the smell of ozone already thick in the air.

  “Hah!” said the Commissioner with a smile on his face. “”It’s too late. You have failed miserably again.”

  Calmly the professor picked himself up off the floor and dusted his formerly white lab coat. “I’m afraid you’re wrong. The information is already processed. The capsule is ready to go.”

  “Unless I press this button,” said the Commissioner pointing to the device. “You know what this is, don’t you?”

  “You can’t do that…again. Look what your meddling caused?”

  “How dare you chastise me?” The Commissioner was livid. His face was a brilliant red and he began to pace and rant at the same time. “I invented this machine! Not you! It was your mistake that cost everyone the future! I am the one that that will rule now!”

  “And what is it you’ll be ruling over?”

  “Exactly what do you mean by that, professor?”

  “I’m sure you noticed what was going on out there. The past has intersected with the future.”

  “Once we eliminate the boy and the creature that will stop.”

  “Will it? How sure are you? Look in the mirror.”

  The Commissioner glanced over at the mirror and his jaw dropped. Where he had once stood there was a shimmering image.

  ***

  Kyle had been standing there in total confusion. He knew the clock was ticking away and that there were only a few minutes left.

  “Next, the explosion. It will hit the earth with tremendous force. The force will spread out like a wall of fire and destroy all life. Is that what you want…father? I don’t know what is going on between you and the professor, but the longer you two debate this, we lose precious seconds. I think I know what’s going on. You really don’t exist in time at all. This is no more than an echo of the past and the potential for the future. Yet, if we don’t act right now, we will all be destroyed and all matter will come to an end.”

  The Commissioner looked at Kyle puzzled. “Where…did you get this information from? Why should I believe you?”

  “You never did pay much attention to me. I’m not surprised that you would ignore me now. But aren’t I a part of you? Don’t I have the same potential as you do since I am your son? Don’t I have the same DNA? Why are you so afraid I might know what I’m talking about?”

  The Commissioner was stunned. His shimmering stopped and he seemed to rematerialize, but he looked like a lost soul. Kyle continued.

  “All I ever wanted was for you to notice me, but you were always so wrapped up in your work. It’s how I wanted to be when I grow up, just like you. But…now that I look at you…well, I’m just not so sure I want to end up like you.”

  The earth shook again and everyone fell down. It only lasted a few seconds.

  The professor spoke. “We only have three minutes to decide. In three…make that less than two now, to get them in the capsule…or it’s over. Everything. What’s it going to be?”

  There were tears in the Commissioner’s eyes. When they fell from his face to the floor, they splashed and sparkled in all the colors of the rainbow. He looked at Kyle and spoke softly.

  “I’m so sorry. My god, what have I done.”

  “Coming up on a minute!” chimed in the professor with anxiety in his voice.

  Kyle looked at his father and then started to move toward the frozen green gel.

  “Stop!” said his father. Kyle froze in his tracks.

  The Commissioner reached down, pulled something off his shoe, and handed it to Kyle. “You’ll need this.”

  He handed Kyle a shoestring. A tear formed in his eye, but his father scolded, “Now go. There’s no time left for sentiment! And, Kyle? Don’t let this happen again. Please?”

  Kyle grabbed Priti and stood in front of the capsule. He turned and looked from his father and then to the professor before stepping through into the capsule. Immediately, the gel began to move. Slowly, at first. There was a low-pitched sound like a crying bass cello.

  He heard a sound like a thunderous explosion growing louder and louder over the sound of the cello. Kyle saw the professor standing right in front of the capsule as if reaching out to it.

  “Who are you!” yelled Kyle.

  “My name…is Kyle!” yelled the professor just as the wall of fire consumed the room in front of his very eyes.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  The tears flowed from Kyle’s eyes as he watched the spinning green gel begins to clear and then turn all of the colors of the rainbow pulsing up and down. The cello sound changed as well. It became higher in pitch until it sounded like the violins—hundreds of them in perfect harmony.

  Priti leaned against Kyle and chattered her teeth up and down as if frightened by the whole experience. Kyle reached down and stroked her rough feathers.

  “It’s okay, little one. We’re almost home.”

  But deep down Kyle knew they were going back to the past where Priti’s future was going to be short-lived. He knew there was nothing he could do, at least not yet, that would change anything.

  Suddenly, the spinning and the music came to a halt. Kyle listened and tried to look through the walls of the capsule. He wasn’t sure where they would wind up.

  The professor…I…that’s so weird! I said to me? Where will we wind up? This isn’t the same capsule. How could he…I…know.

  “Oh, for crying out loud!” he finally yelled out.

  Frustrated, he tried to see through the walls to get some idea of what was going on outside. It was dark. He could hear the sound of distant thunder. It wasn’t dinosaurs this time. At least not yet.

  “I think we should wait until morning.”

  Priti responded by having a bowel movement.

  “Whew! Or not! No way I’m staying in here with that all night. I think I’ll take my chances outside.”

  Kyle reached out and the walls parted allowing him to emerge from the capsule into the dark unknown. Fear immediately grabbed him when he thought about getting back in when Priti came out behind him and ran off into the woods screeching.

  “Great. That cannot be a good sign. ”Without any warning, a loud roar scared Kyle into a run as an enormous T-rex came out from behind the capsule.

  ***

  Dr. Donavan and Dr. Bashan watched with rapt attention as the capsule began to emerge from its journey into what they hoped was the past. They marveled at the beauty through the window outside the vault-like enclosure. They heard the faint sounds of the violins as the capsule spun back into existence.

  “The sounds are beautiful, Paul.”

  “Yes, it is the harmonics. They must be perfectly pitched or it would not work at all,” said Dr. Bashan in his Indian accent. “Let us see what the camera has captured.”

  Dr. Donavan placed his hand over the scanner and the door slowly opened.

  “It smells awful in here. As if something died.”

  Once the gel had stopped moving, Dr. Donavan stuck his head inside the capsule. His jaw dropped with shock and horror at the sight of a severed leg of a T-rex.

  ***

  Kyle looked around after he reali
zed the T-rex had fallen. Cautiously he approached the remains of the beast. Its eyes were wide open, but the dull glaze filling in gave no indication it was seeing anything. As he examined more closely, he also realized that the animal was scorched—severely burned. He noticed, too, that the smell of burned or burning fires permeated the air and, something else. It smelled like a barbeque.

  It was too dark to see much initially, but then, as his eyes adjusted, he began to see details of the surrounding terrain. As he scanned the valley below, he couldn’t believe his eyes. There wasn’t a tree standing anywhere. Several volcanoes spewed blackened smoke from cone-topped apexes. The sky was alive with electrical current sending out tendrils of blue light accompanied by rolling claps of thunder. At first, he thought he was still in the bizarre future, but then it dawned on him.

  The comet already struck the earth!

  Everywhere Kyle looked there were the dead remains of massive animals—dinosaurs. The Kyle of the future had not calculated accurately enough. He had not calculated accurately enough.

  Kyle walked over to the spot where the capsule had been only a few minutes earlier. He looked down at the surface of the ground and there was the string half in, half out. It had been the Commissioners—his father. When it all came down to the wire, his father had come through. But to what end, he wondered?

  What will the future be like when—if—I get back?

  He was disheartened. Even though he knew the dinosaurs had become extinct, the stark reality of seeing it touched him to his soul—his inner being—his very breath. Kyle felt terribly saddened.

  He heard an animal cry in the background. It sounded like Priti. At least one dinosaur survived, thought Kyle slightly encouraged. He followed the direction of the sound. Down a steep hill into the valley below he went. It was vaguely reminiscent of the previous trip. Only, there were no trees. No grass. Nothing but burnt earth. A few fires were burning here and there. Kyle guessed that the comet had struck sometime in the last week or so. The ground was still hot and the air stifling, although the humidity was gone.