Time Bomb (Part One)

No-one was more surprised than I to find out that Andy's time machine actually worked. Indeed, there was very little scientific explanation for its continuing function as a car, let alone a vehicle that would transport one back into the past. But nevertheless, it sat outside his flat in all its ham-stuffed glory, the old wigs glued to the bodywork soaking up the sun.

"See what it's like inside," Andy suggested. Foolishly, I acquiesced. Climbing into the driver's seat, I noted that it was actually reasonably spacious, though the passenger seat had been removed to make way for the "time-rudder" (a cardboard box with a broomhandle poking out of it). Beside it nestled the gearstick (a cucumber), and above that, mounted on the dashboard, some kind of lever constructed from ice-cream cones.

"What does this do?" I asked, giving the cone-lever an experimental tug.
"No!" Andy cried through the open window, a moment too late. There was a roar from the engine - which Andy had thoughtfully souped up with the aid of several small rockets - and the car bombed away down the street, with me trapped inside. I scrambled for my seatbelt; perhaps a futile gesture, but given that I'd never been behind the wheel of a car before, let alone a time machine, it seemed like appropriate damage limitation.

I placed one hand on the time-rudder to steady myself while grappling with the belt, which was when things began to go seriously awry. A bright ball of light appeared in the middle of the windscreen, at first just the size of a marble, but swelling quickly to become a tennis ball, a football, a beachball, until finally it engulfed the whole windscreen, and the driver's seat, and me.

And that was when the car disintegrated.

I was thrown outwards, out from the light, into a sooty, grime-smeared street, where I landed in a rough heap on the cobblestones. And as a peculiar-looking car bore down on me at tremendous speed, I found myself thinking: I should have gone to the pub today...