By Vish S. Watkins
Thorne desperately wanted to taste a real cheeseburger, but it was June 2346, and though the cheeseburgers were flavorful, they were synthetic. In his last trip to 1964 in the late model time capsule, he had run out of time to eat one at Ruby Dee’s Burgers that everyone in Detroit had raved about. As a historian who specialized in culinary evolution, he had funds for travel-time. And now he had researched and decided to savor the original one, so he set his dial to 1934 in rural Kentucky, on the outskirts of Louisville. Punching the cloaking button to render the machine invisible to anyone stumbling by, he landed in an abandoned barn.
A little later, he found a Kentucky farmer nearby and asked him if he could help him get to Louisville. “It’s seven miles from here. But I was planning on going later this morning, so I can take you with me then,” the farmer said. “Till then, Amanda’ll show you round.”
Thorne scanned the milking barn that Amanda, the farmer’s 12-year-old daughter, had taken him to. He had never seen a cow before, so he approached it with wonder. Amanda, lanky with blonde hair, said, “Betsy’s a Holstein. She doesn’t get too close to strangers…”
But Betsy turned, looked with her big eyes at Thorne, drew close, and nuzzled his belly. So much affection and trust from an animal considered essentially brainless in that time. He rubbed her back. Amanda, eyes turning as wide as that Kentucky barn, said, “Mister, I ain’t ever seen her take a liking to anyone but me!”
They went back outside, where an older boy, lean, with a straw hat partially covering his blonde hair, a masculine version of Amanda, was repairing a wagon wheel.
“Tommy, this is Mister Thorne. Betsy nuzzled him.”
The boy nodded and stared at Thorne.
Thorne asked, “Betsy a favorite of yours too?”
The boy spat out the straw in his mouth and said, “Oh yeah. Yumm.”
“Oh, Tommy!” Amanda chided.
“Ain’t six months left till she’s burger meat,” Tommy said.
She knocked the straw hat off his head.
*
On the drive to Louisville, in the farmer’s new 1934 Ford Model B pickup, Thorne was struck by the prettiness of the landscape. Within a hundred years, the world would be set on fire by thermonuclear war and all of this would be gone when the nuclear winter came in its wake. Thorne knew this history only too well. A white-tail deer ran across the road. On the fields were cows and horses, black and brown and dappled. So much beauty! Few animal species had survived the war. No cows, no horses survived. By the time Thorne was born, the small remaining population of humans had evolved into an almost different species—far advanced in compassionate intelligence, though unaltered in physical appearance.
*
That afternoon, Thorne eagerly entered Kaelin’s, his destination, the Louisville restaurant that would later claim to have invented the cheeseburger a few months before, when Carl Kaelin had added cheese to a hamburger soon after opening his business. Thorne knew that this claim would be disputed, the original cheeseburger alleged to have emerged a decade before, when a 16-year-old lad cooking burgers in Rite Spot, a Pasadena, CA restaurant, had burnt one and slapped a slice of cheese to hide the charring flavor. A trip to Pasadena in 1924 was next on his itinerary. More than enough antique money from the Costume and Accessories Section of the time capsule station lay in his pocket to buy this burger.
On the smoke-stained wall above the counter, a round white clock rimmed in black announced the time—12:25 PM. A red oblong storage chest with the logo “Coca Cola” painted in white on the side stood under the end of the counter. The smell of frying fats and oils oozed in and permeated the dining area. A waitress stopped by and asked him what he’d like.
The cheeseburger cost five cents according to the menu. But he couldn’t bring himself to order one. Betsy’s face kept appearing, making him cringe with memories of her tenderly nudging him with her head. He remembered that the people of this time were less empathetic with animals. He couldn’t stop envisioning Betsy in a slaughter house, those sad eyes fearfully sensing imminent death. He asked for a grilled cheese sandwich and Coca-Cola.
*
He walked the seven miles back to the abandoned shack. Looking around, reminded that this was a pre-nuclear-war landscape, he savored the enchanting sights of lithe horses, the smell of fresh-cut grass, and sweet sounds of cheeping cicadas. All this beauty destined for devastation. So many billions gone, so many species become extinct long before his birth. But now, the memories of Amanda with Betsy and the Holstein’s snuggling him wouldn’t let go. He started the engines. He recalled the smell of Betsy’s stable—fresh milk and hay and straw and wood shavings. He wiped the tears that trickled down his cheeks. Who would have ever thought that he would be mourning a cow from four hundred years in his past?
* * *
Vish Watkins is a retired physician. He holds a diploma in Classical Guitar Performance from The Royal Conservatory of Music, Toronto. His work has appeared in Moss Piglet, The Write Launch, Stirring:A Literary Collection, and The Green Silk Journal.