Short Stories on Tall And True

  12+   The door slid open with a whoosh, and I stepped through the time portal onto the landing field. A light rain was falling, and floating in the grey skies, the Hindenburg manoeuvred towards its mooring tower. I groaned. The world is full of history. Why can't I witness cheerier moments?

The sales pitch for time portals hooked me: "Leave your worries behind and experience history firsthand." I needed a break from my twenty-first-century worries. And I wanted to see the Beatles at the Cavern, hear Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial, and watch the fall of the Berlin Wall. So I signed up.

But I'd forgotten the maxim that bad news outweighs good news. And it's the same for history. More bad stuff has happened than good stuff. I also hadn't allowed for the imprecise nature of time travel.

Portals guarantee to return travellers to their original point in time and space. But they don't promise travel to a specific destination and time. Einstein may have said, "God does not play dice" when he claimed the universe was predictable. But time travel can be a lottery.

I wanted to hear Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech today. However, the Lakehurst Naval Air Station, where the Hindenburg will soon ignite into a fireball, is a short hop from Washington's Lincoln Memorial. And only twenty-six years separate this overcast day in 1937 from King's 1963 speech. A blink of an eye in human history.

There was an explosion overhead. I looked the other way. But I couldn't bear the screams as flames engulfed the Hindenburg, so I stepped back through the time portal. The door slid shut with a whoosh, silencing the pitiful cries of the victims as the giant airship fell from the sky.

I've lost count of the number of disasters I've witnessed. Natural, human-induced, or just bad luck. Each one left me more drained of hope for humanity. And to think I signed up for time travel to "leave my worries behind".

What have I learned from experiencing history firsthand? That we never learn from history.

Nazi Germany salvaged the twisted framework from the Hindenburg and recycled it to build Luftwaffe planes. The death toll from the six years of World War II was somewhere between 60 million and 85 million people. It was the deadliest conflict in human history.

That's something else I've learned from my travels through history. More bad stuff has happened than good stuff. And records are made to be broken.

Back in my apartment, I poured a strong bourbon, streamed a bootleg recording of the Beatles at the Cavern on low background volume, and collapsed onto my sofa to watch a reenactment of King's "I Have a Dream" speech on TV.

I squeezed my souvenir piece of the Berlin Wall from a cheerier time portal trip like a stress ball and sipped my bourbon. History often needs a stiff drink to help leave our worries behind.

© 2026 Robert Fairhead

Thanks to Matthias Wewering from Pixabay for sharing the Hindenburg image.

I wrote Leave Your Worries Behind for the September 2026 Furious Fiction writing challenge, run by the Australian Writers' Centre. The prompts for June were:

• Your story must begin with a door or doors opening.
• It must include a character who looks the other way.
• And contain the following words: BLINK, COUNT, PITCH

The time portal door opening occurred to me almost immediately. I like reading speculative fiction that explores time travel and time-shifts. And I've written and shared several stories on this theme, including The Dismissal Paradox, The Lost Hour, and Once Upon A Time.

However, I had time constraints for September's Furious Fiction. The Writers' Centre emails the brief at 5 pm (AEST) on the first Friday of the month, and writers have until midnight Sunday to write and submit their 500-word stories.

My son and his girlfriend had just returned home after an eighteen-month working holiday in Japan, and I naturally wanted to catch up with them. My footy team played in a qualifying final on Saturday, and I wanted to watch the game. And it was Father's Day on Sunday.

I had my beginning, and I knew roughly how I wanted the story to progress. But it was hard finding the time on a busy weekend to write and edit it. Which is why I rewrote the ending after submitting the story, placing more emphasis on the stiff drink. And why I wasn't surprised to miss out on the Furious Fiction showcase and longlist for September.

I hope you enjoy reading my reworked time travel story, and that it helps leave your worries behind … with or without a stiff drink.