Timeline is a 2003 film based on a book by Michael Crichton. A group of archeologists travel in a time machine to medieval, war-torn France, where one of the group meets a noblewoman and decides to stay in the past with her. I decided to write about what their life would be like after the movie ends.
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The year was 1357. The place: Castle La Roque. The man whom I would call lover, husband, and a few other names not suited for polite company had been faxed from the twentieth century and inserted precariously into the heart of the Hundred Years’ War. After saving my life four or five times in one day, he decided that the only way to keep me safe was to stay in my time and—I think this was his scheme all along—in my bedchamber.
That first night, Andre drew a toothbrush from his rucksack; then, he commenced a lengthy search for an indoor loo, and, failing to find that, a wash basin with a ewer of potable water. “Claire,” he called to me, “Have you any Crest with tartar protection, then?”
I had to remind him, first, that I was still not particularly fluent in English, and second, that I had no Crest with or without tartar protection, whatever that was, presumably some intrepid means of staving off the English army.
“Never mind,” he said testily and muttered something offensive about the desultory toilette habits and consequent bad breath of the French. Lucky for him my English was still at an inchoate phase.
His next request was the location of an electric outlet, because, he explained, he wanted to plug in his white noise machine to drown out the racket of the on-going battle outside.
“It’s not my fight,” he reasoned. “At least I should be allowed a good night’s sleep.”
I myself had not slept since a brief nap during my abortive hanging, but I suggested that he and I might attempt some sort of intimate activity before we settled down for our well deserved rest. And so, that very night, we launched a career of love-making that was marked over the years not so much by its ingenuity as by its parallel to the industrious maneuverings of a pair of rabid minks.
The by-products of our amorous conjunctions were, of course, Catherine, Christophe, and Francois, dear Francois. Luckily for Andre and me, the plague year of 1368 spared the two of us, killing only all three offspring, rather gruesomely, I might add, but as Archbishop Burgoyne pointed out to us, man is born to die, so who are we to quibble about the Almighty’s master plan, as long as we ourselves do not suffer.
As our married life progressed, Andre began to fret more and more about the logistics of time travel, something he’d never understood in the first place.
“I just can’t seem to wrap my mind around it, Claire,” he mused one evening after I had licked him thoroughly up one side and down the other. “When I was in the twentieth century, I uncovered a sarcophagus with the image of a one-eared knight. Now I’m wondering who that poor b*gger was in the tomb.”
“It was you, dear,” I said patiently. We’d covered this territory before.
“Now, how can that be, as I’m clearly alive and well?” he posed.
“You’ll certainly be dead and buried six hundred years from now,” I explained.
“Well, of course,” he snapped. “That still doesn’t tell me the name of the b*gger in the tomb.”
“It will be you in the sarcophagus, unless you know any other one-eared knights named Andre Marek,” I sighed.
“How could I be digging up a grave with me in it, I’d like to know?”
“Don’t ask me,” I rejoined. “I still haven’t sorted out the moon landing in 1969 that you described to our guests the night you ate the bad clams.”
“You think the clams and the moon landing are somehow connected, don’t you, Claire?” he asked, eyeing me suspiciously.
“Well,” I admitted, “It makes about as much sense as anything else you’ve told me about the future. Three fierce Highlanders hurtling through space, crashing into the moon, and announcing, ‘One wee step for man, one bonny leap for Scotland’ is definitely a stretch for my Gallic imagination.”
“You do believe that I was king of Scotland?”
“Yes, yes, and, as you said, Emperor of the World. Why not?” I shrugged. Suddenly I was glad I lived in the war-torn, pestilence-ridden Middle Ages, which were, at least, sensible.
I had to confess that Andre was the most attractive man of the scores who’d been compelled to rescue me after I’d been placed, multiple times, in my brother’s precarious safe-keeping. I gazed lovingly at the bulging appendage so essential to our love-making: his remaining ear, and I realized, with a start, that its hairs needed plucking. I usually performed this job with my teeth, and by the end of each sortie, he would lie spent and gasping in my arms.
Now, as I set quill to parchment, in the year of Our Lord 1382, I thank God for His miracle of time travel and the gallant, if somewhat peevish, knight He sent to me. May we sleep in each other’s arms for the rest of our lives and through eternity, two ardent hearts that beat in harmony, two striving souls united across the reach of centuries. Furthermore, may future movie critics devise a revisionist approach to Timeline, press “fast forward” on their remote controls through all but the scenes with Andre and me, and laud our story as a definitive tale of true love, worm holes notwithstanding.
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The year was 1357. The place: Castle La Roque. The man whom I would call lover, husband, and a few other names not suited for polite company had been faxed from the twentieth century and inserted precariously into the heart of the Hundred Years’ War. After saving my life four or five times in one day, he decided that the only way to keep me safe was to stay in my time and—I think this was his scheme all along—in my bedchamber.
That first night, Andre drew a toothbrush from his rucksack; then, he commenced a lengthy search for an indoor loo, and, failing to find that, a wash basin with a ewer of potable water. “Claire,” he called to me, “Have you any Crest with tartar protection, then?”
I had to remind him, first, that I was still not particularly fluent in English, and second, that I had no Crest with or without tartar protection, whatever that was, presumably some intrepid means of staving off the English army.
“Never mind,” he said testily and muttered something offensive about the desultory toilette habits and consequent bad breath of the French. Lucky for him my English was still at an inchoate phase.
His next request was the location of an electric outlet, because, he explained, he wanted to plug in his white noise machine to drown out the racket of the on-going battle outside.
“It’s not my fight,” he reasoned. “At least I should be allowed a good night’s sleep.”
I myself had not slept since a brief nap during my abortive hanging, but I suggested that he and I might attempt some sort of intimate activity before we settled down for our well deserved rest. And so, that very night, we launched a career of love-making that was marked over the years not so much by its ingenuity as by its parallel to the industrious maneuverings of a pair of rabid minks.
The by-products of our amorous conjunctions were, of course, Catherine, Christophe, and Francois, dear Francois. Luckily for Andre and me, the plague year of 1368 spared the two of us, killing only all three offspring, rather gruesomely, I might add, but as Archbishop Burgoyne pointed out to us, man is born to die, so who are we to quibble about the Almighty’s master plan, as long as we ourselves do not suffer.
As our married life progressed, Andre began to fret more and more about the logistics of time travel, something he’d never understood in the first place.
“I just can’t seem to wrap my mind around it, Claire,” he mused one evening after I had licked him thoroughly up one side and down the other. “When I was in the twentieth century, I uncovered a sarcophagus with the image of a one-eared knight. Now I’m wondering who that poor b*gger was in the tomb.”
“It was you, dear,” I said patiently. We’d covered this territory before.
“Now, how can that be, as I’m clearly alive and well?” he posed.
“You’ll certainly be dead and buried six hundred years from now,” I explained.
“Well, of course,” he snapped. “That still doesn’t tell me the name of the b*gger in the tomb.”
“It will be you in the sarcophagus, unless you know any other one-eared knights named Andre Marek,” I sighed.
“How could I be digging up a grave with me in it, I’d like to know?”
“Don’t ask me,” I rejoined. “I still haven’t sorted out the moon landing in 1969 that you described to our guests the night you ate the bad clams.”
“You think the clams and the moon landing are somehow connected, don’t you, Claire?” he asked, eyeing me suspiciously.
“Well,” I admitted, “It makes about as much sense as anything else you’ve told me about the future. Three fierce Highlanders hurtling through space, crashing into the moon, and announcing, ‘One wee step for man, one bonny leap for Scotland’ is definitely a stretch for my Gallic imagination.”
“You do believe that I was king of Scotland?”
“Yes, yes, and, as you said, Emperor of the World. Why not?” I shrugged. Suddenly I was glad I lived in the war-torn, pestilence-ridden Middle Ages, which were, at least, sensible.
I had to confess that Andre was the most attractive man of the scores who’d been compelled to rescue me after I’d been placed, multiple times, in my brother’s precarious safe-keeping. I gazed lovingly at the bulging appendage so essential to our love-making: his remaining ear, and I realized, with a start, that its hairs needed plucking. I usually performed this job with my teeth, and by the end of each sortie, he would lie spent and gasping in my arms.
Now, as I set quill to parchment, in the year of Our Lord 1382, I thank God for His miracle of time travel and the gallant, if somewhat peevish, knight He sent to me. May we sleep in each other’s arms for the rest of our lives and through eternity, two ardent hearts that beat in harmony, two striving souls united across the reach of centuries. Furthermore, may future movie critics devise a revisionist approach to Timeline, press “fast forward” on their remote controls through all but the scenes with Andre and me, and laud our story as a definitive tale of true love, worm holes notwithstanding.