Chapter 17 – Elbow, Grease and Margarine

The images carried on streaming across the screen, whilst the professor sat comfortable on the sofa, tweaking at the tiny dials and buttons on his remote, trying to enter the right time and speed configuration for the next jump (for all I know he might of just be sending another text message). He then pointed the remote at the time recreation and visualisation machine (TV screen for short) and placed his finger over the rewind button, but before he had chance to press it, Alan the Assistant popped his head out from inside the machines, inner workings and said “Almost done boss. I couldn’t find any motor oil or engine grease so I improvised a little, and used some butter instead”.
“What you put butter on my precious…”, said an appalled Professor choking on every word.
“Well, not exactly”, said a now worried Assistant, “I was going to use butter only we’ve completely ran out, so I had to use ‘I can’t believe it isn’t butter’, instead”.
The Professor looked down his own nose and for a split second his entire face creased up from painful thoughts. The expression on his face went blank as he shrugged his shoulders and he said “Oh well, it could have been worse, you might have used my chunky peanut butter, I love that stuff”. The Professor just stared into thin air at that point (possibly, trying to remember why he was in a dark

room staring a giant TV with a funny remote), when he’d gotten his thoughts back on track he quietly raised his hand and pressed the small button under his finger.
As the machine jerked sharply into action it cried out loudly with a long screech again, only this time it made a slightly different noise compared to earlier, this time it sounded almost as if it was in pain. As the machine screamed its blood curdling screeching noises that filled the whole lab, which would make the small hairs on the back of your neck stand up in fear (it almost sounded as if the machine was becoming more human like). The screaming death rattle coming from the machine stopped with a ‘THWACK’ and a springy ‘BONG’, as Alan the Assistant was thrown from the machines innards, like a giant bogey being sneezed out. After sailing through the air a good ten feet, he landed with a bounce and a roll at the Professor’s feet looking a little dazed and confused but still half conscious. Just before he passed out from the injuries the Professor nudge at the crumpled mess that was formally his Assistant with his toe. This wasn’t a are you alright nudge him to wake him, but one to move him slightly so that he could use his poor battered Assistants body as a foot stool.
While the Chroniton machine zipped back through time, its images flickered and spun across the screen, resembling the view out from a very fast train’s window. Because his Assistant had been dragged through the machines inner workings, the Professor choose to increased the speed for a brief moment. The machine sucked at its power and attempted to wind up its spinning cogs faster and faster. When he slowed the machine down again to view the footage, he’d noticed it’s time readout just as the video began to play again.