Read Willie's Redneck Time Machine for Free Online

small walls around you. You’re seated at a table, your arms trapped in an immense synthetic-wood block that renders them immobile.
    Soon the door opens and a woman comes in. She’s wearing a military outfit of some kind.
    “State your name, your vital link, and the quadrant you’ve come from.”
    Vital link? Quadrant?
    “My name’s Willie Robertson,” you start to say, not sure what to do next.

    Do you tell them the whole truth? Go here .
    Do you try to make up a story? Go here .
    Do you decide to make a joke? Go here .

A LONG, LONG TIME AGO

    YOU’RE NOT SURE why you’d need a life jacket in the middle of a desert like this, but why not? Maybe there’s water involved in whatever challenge you’ll be facing. When you exit the time machine, rain has started to fall. You put the life jacket under your arm and start walking down the track-covered road.
    After a few miles you arrive in a village unlike anything you’ve ever seen.
    To call it an ancient civilization wouldn’t be right. Because there’s no civilization here. You see only archaic huts and people in strange, rustic clothing. You try to talk to them, but nobody will respond to you. They all look at you with fear and trepidation.
    The rain continues to beat down, so you go underneath a small covering suspended between two trees.
    You feel like you’re on the show Survivor .
    The rain continues all night. You’d like to say that someone lets you come into their hut, but no.
    The next day it’s worse. You’re shivering and wondering when the downpour is going to stop.
    This is the day you hear someone talk about Noah.
    “No . . . ,” you begin, and then you say, “ah.”
    You begin to understand a little about the choices you were given.
    “Where is this Noah?” you ask a big man with more hair than you.

    He only mumbles and shoves you down. The woman you ask next reluctantly tells you Noah is on the boat in the hills.
    “The boat in the hills. Where are the hills?”
    She points in the opposite direction from where you came. “It’s too dark to see them now, but you’ll find them if you head that way.”
    You wonder if your father is on that boat in the hills. Otherwise known as the ark.
    You peer through the rain. Then you put on your life jacket and begin the trek toward the vessel.
    You do make it to the massive boat in the hills, and it’s more spectacular and incredible than you ever could have imagined.
    You’re not the only one who journeyed to the ark. As each day passes and as the voices around you cry out, only to go unheard, you feel a bit of hopelessness coming on.
    As it turns out, the life jacket would be okay if you fell off a boat into the lake. But when it comes to gushing skies and turbulent, swaying floodwaters, a life preserver is like a flyswatter against Godzilla.
    You end up lasting longer than you would without the jacket, but not much.
    And oops . . . there you go again.
    You’re in the familiar warehouse, standing again, breathing again. Wondering what just happened.
    Wondering why in the world you’re soaking wet.
    THE END
    Start over.
    Read “The Morning Fog: A Note from John Luke Robertson.”

1990

    YEAH, PROBABLY A GOOD THING not to pick a fight with guys half your age. It could get ugly.
    You walk off toward the gym. You’re getting lots of looks. But it’s okay   —you’re not doing anything abnormal. It’s just that here, people are wondering who in the world you are. Most places, people already know who you are, and they look anyway. At least nobody’s gonna come up and make you pose for a selfie with them.
    Back in 1990, there was no such thing as a selfie.
    And the world was a better place because of it.
    As you enter the gym, you notice a DJ near the back of the room. He’s actually playing records. That’s so vintage and cool.
    You scan the crowd but can’t see John Luke.
    What about Korie? What about me?
    The two of you, age eighteen, are somewhere in this building. Maybe dancing.