Who, on April 20th 2023, created the very first device (a jetpack/backpack combination) capable of timetravel. After successfully transporting himself 10 minutes into the future he then spent the following day entertaining himself by jumping forward in time by 5 minute increments and then jumping back in increments of 10 (seeing himself only once at 12.35pm and feeling no ill-effects whatsoever). After pondering the nature of his creation over a cup of Earl Grey he then decided use his device to travel back in time and perform the honourable task of killing Adolf Hitler as he was being born.

That the idea should have first been discussed with someone, anyone, before being undertaken never once crossed his mind.

Leaping back to April 20th in the year 1889 with a small hand-held TechTite Vapouriser (created four years earlier and sold strictly as a device for controlling household waste), Phineaus entered Braunau Inn with a casual ease and deleted the infant Adolf 3 minutes after his birth.

Immediately travelling back to his present day of 2023 Phineaus was shocked to find his period in history exactly as he had left it - as if his monumentous act had had no effect whatsoever. At least superficially for upon closer inspection, Phineaus discovered two very important differences to the new 2023.

Firstly, obviously, that no one in this time had any knowledge of Adolf Hitler and as a result there was not a single soul available to thank or congratulate him for the brave and history changing act he had just committed.
In an additional and most cruel twist of fate there was now no one in existence who even knew of Phineaus Dawdle. Having deleted the reason for WW2 he had also removed the event in which Phineaus’ Great-grandmother had lost her first husband. History now having no reason for her to meet her second husband, Phineaus’ Grandfather, it had simply cut off the entire branch of the family tree that had sprouted Phinea’s family. Yet Phineaus, miraculously, was permitted by Time and Space to continue to exist.

Confused by the paradox of his existence, disappointed with the lack of a Hero’s reception, saddened by the inadvertent erasure of his family and plagued by faint ghosts of guilt over his act of infanticide, Phineas left 2023 to an undisclosed time. The only trace of his existence being a note scribbled on a napkin left in a diner just before he left that simply read “Bugger this, I may as well see some dinosaurs”

(Originally published in ‘Beef Knuckles’ Issue 3)