Author: Michael Anthony Dioguardi
Leonard slid his finger too quickly across the creases of the library’s map, snagging a thread of the papyrus beneath his fingernail. He fiddled with his mistake, trying in vain to reattach the ancient fibers. Leonard was the world’s clumsiest time-traveler.
He pinched its ripped sides, tearing at the creases even more. “It’s no use! There’s no way to repair this!”
Amid his frustration, he caught a glimmer of the ring on his finger. The edges of its engraved Babylonian text glinted in the light of Leonard’s laboratory. Images of the hanging garden flashed in his mind: the faces of his assistants, the falling rocks, the dust. He shook his hand and wiped a tear from his eye. “So many mistakes, but not this time—this time, I’ll make it right!”
Leonard sat in his time machine and opened the interface. “272 AD, Alexandria. The Cheops Corridor.”
The dimensions of Leonard’s laboratory deteriorated, replaced by muted darkness. Dimensional wind skimmed his body, careening off the metallic supports of the time machine. From beyond its frame, the details of a ruined shelf emerged in and out of focus. Sizzling white haze floated about. He stretched out his legs, coughed, then tumbled head over heels down a pile of scrolls.
He rose to his feet and stared at the ancient structure beneath his time machine. Thousands of scrolls were tucked between each other, decorating the endless shelves of the library.
The sound of scuttling feet filled the corridor. A torch illuminated the passageway, held by a midnight library attendant. He squatted over the rubble of the destroyed shelf, caressing the interface of the time machine.
Attempting to conceal himself, Leonard tiptoed backward and tripped over his own feet. The attendant turned and shrieked, dropping the torch on the pile of scrolls.
The flames raced up the sides of the corridor. Leonard tucked a scroll underneath his arm and dove for the nearest window. As he poked his head out into the Egyptian night, his body nudged against the scroll, loosening the top of the papyrus enough to reveal its heading. He recognized the hieratic lettering. “The Diary of Merer? No, it can’t be! The secrets of the pyramids? All mine!”
Smoke crept into his nostrils. He could feel the heat press against his skin and taste the ash on his tongue. He pivoted atop the sill but couldn’t fit himself through the opening with the scroll between his arm and hip. The heat was too much to bear. He dropped the scroll into the flames and fell backward out the window.
The library of Alexandria burned all night. He skulked down a grassy slope with the fire burning behind him. Taking repose under a palm tree, he slid down its trunk and sighed at the inevitable sight.
He fiddled with the ring on his finger—the last remnant of his excursions. Leonard slipped the ring off his finger and held it in the palm of his hand, admiring it under the light of the Arabian Moon. Images of the hanging gardens, the library, the scroll, the fallen assistants, his time machine all collided beneath his tearing eyes. Leonard stood up, reared back, and threw the ring into the flames. He walked in the shadow of the moonlight while the Mediterranean Sea glistened on the horizon. Leonard glanced one last time at the burning library, now reduced to smoldering ash.