#flathal #timetravel #marktwain
There are lots of really famous ones, but one of our favorites is A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. It mixes the fun of time travel with the “magic” of Camelot.
There are some fun movies inspired by Mark Twain’s book, like A Knight in Camelot with Whoopi Goldberg, or A Kid In King Arthur’s Court. If you had a chance to talk to one of the knights of the round table, what would you say? Would you ask a question?
The Flat Friends took a different approach, with Time Travel on the brain, they imagined Flat Hal going back in time and getting to talk to Mark Twain!
The Flat Yankee and the Author
I am a person of practical education and no small amount of laminate; I do not believe in enchantments, humbug, nor the suspension of natural laws unless they are suspended by a sturdy piece of double-sided tape. Yet, I found myself transported—not by the usual mechanism of the United States Postal Service, but by some strange atmospheric disturbance—onto the promenade deck of a steamship that smelled violently of coal smoke and fish.
Standing at the rail was a man whose appearance was as familiar to me as the back of my own cardstock. He was clad in white linen that defied the soot of the smokestacks, and his hair was a halo of electric shocks. It was Him. The Boss. Mr. Clemens. (Mark Twain to those who aren’t in the know.)
Now, I had prepared for this moment. I had calculated the trajectory of my approach with the precision of a football quarterback throwing a game-winning touchdown. I had a question—a single, burning interrogative of such intellectual magnitude that it would surely arrest his attention and prove that we, the two-dimensional travelers of the future, were a race of superior intellect. I had rehearsed it in the dark of the carry-on bag; I had polished it until it shone like a new dime.
He turned. He looked down at me through eyebrows that resembled two angry caterpillars seeking a higher altitude.
“Well,” he drawled, in a voice like a slow saw cutting through dry pine. “You are a peculiar little scrap, aren’t you? You look like you’ve been pressed between the pages of a history book and forgotten there.”
It was then that the great calamity struck. The sheer voltage of his presence froze my tongue. The grand question, the query that was to bridge the centuries, evaporated from my mind like steam from a whistle. I stood there, trembling in the breeze, flat as a flounder and twice as dumb.
“I… I am laminated, sir,” I squeaked. “To preserve against moisture.”
He puffed on a cigar that looked like a burning tree limb. “Laminated. A fine invention. If I could laminate my conscience, I might sleep better. Is that all you came to say?”
The Question was there, hovering just behind my eyes, but I could no more reach it than I could reach the moon with a spoon. I stared. He stared.
“Well,” he said, flicking ash into the Atlantic. “Keep your laminate dry, son. It’s a wet world.”
And with that, he ambled away. I remained fixed to the deck, a monument to the inefficiency of the human memory. I had stood in the shadow of the mountain, and all I had done was comment on the weather. I reckon there is no fool like a flat fool.
Would you be nervous if you traveled through time and had the opportunity to speak to someone you admire and respect? Who would you want to meet? What would you like to talk to them about?
Flat Hal’s Time-Traveling Story Glossary
Laminate: A clear, tough plastic coating that keeps paper safe and dry. It’s like armor that makes Flat Hal feel like a superhero!
Enchantments: Magic spells or magical tricks.
Humbug: Nonsense, foolishness, or something that is fake. (You might have heard Ebenezer Scrooge say “Bah, humbug!”)
Trajectory: The curved path something takes when it flies through the air —like a football zooming toward the endzone, or Flat Hal trying to get Mark Twain’s attention.
Interrogative: A very fancy, five-dollar word for a “question”.
Magnitude: Huge size or great importance. A question of “intellectual magnitude” is a really, really smart and important question.
Drawled: Speaking slowly, stretching out the sounds of the words.
Calamity: A giant disaster or a really bad event. In this case, the calamity was Flat Hal freezing up and forgetting what to say!
Conscience: The little voice inside your head that tells you the difference between right and wrong.
Ambled: Walked at a slow, relaxed, and easy pace.
Inefficiency: Wasting time or not working the way something is supposed to work. Flat Hal’s memory was being “inefficient” when his big question completely evaporated!
