My Dog Built a Time Machine!
I always thought Max, my golden retriever, was clever. Fetch? Check. Sit? Check. The way he tilts his head when I say “treat” could melt glaciers. But nothing—nothing—prepared me for the day Max built a time machine.
It started innocently one afternoon when I found Max in the garage, circling blueprints spread out on the workbench. My old engineering sketches for a personal time-travel device. I figured he was chewing on the paper—but no, he’d rearranged screws, nuts, wires, everything. Half a battery pack here, a coil of copper wire there. The contraption looked absurd: exposed gears, blinking lights, and—yes—a big red button in the middle, labeled “DON’T PUSH.”
Naturally, Max pushed it.
With a hum, crackle, and that sci-fi shimmer you only see in movies, the gadget activated. The world warped: the garage ceiling rippled, the tools glowed, and for a split second, I saw dunes under twin moons, then knights on horseback, then hover-cars streaking past neon towers. Max… just wagged his tail. Calmest dog in the multiverse.
Next thing I knew, we were standing in the backyard—except everything was ancient. Trees were younger, the fence was fresh wood, birds I’d never seen. Max sniffed around, sniffed a space above our roses, then darted off into a wormhole of sound and light. I followed, holding my phone, convinced I was delirious.
We landed in 1940s movie theater lobby. Max was nonplussed as I gasped at cars from another era, hats everywhere, black-and-white ads. He nudged a popcorn bucket, stole a kernel, then looked back at me as though saying: See? It works.
Back in our time, everything returned as if no time had passed. The garage door still had my fingerprints. The blueprints, however, were glittered with singed edges and glowing circuits. Max dropped a small, metallic cog at my feet—his token from the past.
Since then, Max has been strangely quiet in the garage. Sometimes at midnight I catch the soft whirr of that machine, lights flickering. I check—and he stares back, as if waiting for me to ask: Ready for the next trip?
Because yes, Max built a time machine. And he knows more about it than I ever will. I think he’s planning another voyage. I just hope we bring back something cool. Maybe vintage dog treats or dinosaur bones? Whatever it is, it’ll be Max-approved.
