The Time Machine Did It

by John Swartzwelder

They kept me in a cell for a couple hours, during which time I learned from another inmate how to kill a man with a walnut. No time spent with a man who knows his craft is wasted.

I hadn't realized that I never actually had a clue as to how any of the inventions of my era worked. Why hadn’t somebody told me I was ignorant?

“In the future,” I informed my slack-jawed audience, “there will be gas pumps that talk.” “What will they talk about?” hushed voices would ask. “Gas.”

Mandible seemed like about the least sentimental guy I’d ever met, and I’ve met some people who have been dead for a week.