Larry & Mick Borrow a Time Machine and Take a Trip to the Old Wild West

'Raiders of the Lost Car Park by Robert Rankin, Falling Sideways by Tom Holt and a time machine.'
'Uhuh.'
'That will be £1.50 for a week's loan of the time machine.'
'What if I return it last Friday?'
'Erm...'
'Only joking! There you go' - Mick handed the librarian three shiny fifty pence pieces, gathered his stuff and left.
Ooh, Larry will be so excited, thought Mick, as he trundled off down the road. Imagine the fun we can have with a time machine!

'What, in the name of patinated punchbowls, is that?' 'It's a time machine.'
'What would I want with a time machine?'
'You can travel in time.'
'Why would I want to travel in time?'
'It will be fun! What could be more fun than almost getting eaten by tigers in Ancient Rome, by raptors in Prehistoric Malvern or by rampaging aliens in twenty third century Brighton?'
'You have a point there. Okay, how does it work?'
It wasn't what you would expect a time machine to be. There were no flashing lights, whooshing pistons or brains suspended in jars hanging from the ceiling. And it wasn't bigger on the inside than on the outside. Or even if it was, there was no way you could prove it, because it was about the size of a stapler. Unless you were an insect. Or a staple. Or a very small person indeed. Such as the man in The Incredible Shrinking Man, when he had shrunk to the size of a staple. Or thereabouts.
'I'm not sure,' said Mick, in response to Larry's query re how the time machine worked. 'Maybe if I just squeeze it...'
Not only was the time machine about the size of a stapler - it did, in fact, look like a stapler. One may indeed be forgiven for thinking it was a stapler, especially given that when Mick squeezed it, it clicked in a distinctly stapler-like fashion and what looked like a staple popped out of it.
The 'staple' dropped to the floor. Seemingly in slow motion. Larry & Mick were convinced they could see the air go wobbly around it, like bullets in The Matrix.
'I hate to urinate on your conflagration,' said Larry, 'but that time machine,' he continued, 'is a stapler.'
'If that's a stapler,' said Mick, 'then why is the item falling from it taking so long to reach the floor?'
'That's for dramatic effect.'
'Our lives aren't directed by the Wachowski brothers.'
'Good point.'
And then the air did go wobbly. But not just around the staple (or whatever it was). The air went wobbly around Larry & Mick and in the room in general.
'Ooh,' went Larry, and 'aah,' went Mick, as all and sundry became less and less distinct. And the 'staple' still hadn't hit the floor. But now they were convinced it wasn't a staple, but something of an entirely different nature altogether. And the 'stapler' wasn't a stapler, but a...
'Time machine,' said Larry.
'Told you,' said Mick.
And with a !POP! and a !CRUNCH! and a !ZIPPEDY-DOO!, they found themselves sitting in a big pile of horse poo.

'Yikes!' said Larry.
'Six-shooters and Syphilis!' said Mick, as they legged it for the nearest saloon, bullets flying all around them.
'We're in trouble now,' said Larry.
'Shut yer hole'n'scoot,' said Mick, getting into the spirit of things.
'Less of your cowboy talk,' said Larry. 'More of your getting-us-the-goddamn-Hell-outta-here!'
'Now you're taking like a cowboy,' said Mick.
'Hot diggety-dawg!' said Larry, for no particular reason, but finding that he couldn't help himself.
They dived through the swinging saloon doors and sprawled to the dusty floor. The honky-tonk piano music stopped and all the be-hatted, stubbly chinned, gun-totin', whisky-guzzlin' patrons stopped their yackin' and turned to bore their steely gazes into the new and distinctly unwelcome Varmints-From-Outta-Town.
'Oh sheee-it,' said Larry, as he lifted his head and witnessed the aforementioned eyes of steely regard and grizzled, baccy-chewin' owners thereof.
'I don't think,' said Mick, as he did the same, 'we're welcome in this here town.'
'God. Damn. Right,' said one of the rough-looking buggers, who then spat the contents of his gob into a spittoon (which ting-ed appropriately), adjusted the rim of his hat and put his hands on his holsters and the weaponry therein.
Then the chaps who had been chasing Larry & Mick, and shooting and whatnot, entered the saloon and set about demonstrating to them their depth of feeling regarding their unwelcomeness, in a manner that resulted in bruises, upturned tables and such.
'Fish-sticks and Formaldehyde,' said Mick, as the demonstration drew to a close.
But Larry just groaned.

'No more time travelling for me,' said Larry, as he lay recovering in a bath full of cushions.
'And it's back to the library for you,' said Mick to the time machine, as he held a frozen Linda McCartney's Deep Filled Country Pie to his left eye. He then looked at the calendar - it was last Friday. 'And the varmints'd better not charge me,' he said pointlessly.
Larry & Mick vowed never to go time travelling again.

[ FIN ]