A sparrow shot across the darkening sky as the icy threat of winter drew nearer. The air was thick with the scent of ozone and burnt wire, a byproduct of the machine that sat humming in the centre of the old barn. It was an oddity, a contraption of tubes and dials that looked more like a prop from a late sixties sci-fi film than the miracle of science it was. But to Jack Hendal, it was salvation.

Jack was a writer, or at least, he used to be before the block set in. His typewriter, once a source of endless stories, now gathered dust in the corner of his study. That was until he found the machine, or rather, it found him, hidden beneath the rotting floorboards of the barn on the property he'd recently purchased.

The previous owner of Chisel Barn was a reclusive physicist who dabbled in the theories of time, had vanished without a trace. The townsfolk whispered he'd gone mad, lost in his mind. They said that the barn was cursed, ridden with the disease of paranoia. They said that you saw things in there. Things that would haunt you for the rest of your life if you didn't disappear shortly after you entered. Jack didn't care for the rumours; he saw opportunity.

The ideas would be limitless. If he did just see one thing in there, one imaginary monster or machine, if he could go back, just once, to that night. When his words and stories flowed like a river, he could break the dam that stifled his creativity, and write once again.

If he wasn't simply going mad already, this thing was a time machine, or so the journal said. He'd found the bulky mechanism lurking under the floorboards, a faint blue glow emanating from it every five minutes. The old owner’s notebook lay sprawled open on the desk beside the contraption. It was messy and almost illegible, but Jack could just about discern the basic rundown of the controls. He could do better than writing the greatest novel of all time, Jack could make the world a place of peace and happiness. He wasn't usually big on that sort of stuff, but just imagine how he would be rewarded after he went back and prevented many major conflicts before they had begun. People would love him. His books had given him a minor sense of fame in the past, with random weirdos waddling up to him on the street and saying how they loved his most recent masterpiece, but nothing would compare to saving the world by dealing  with the clumsy “leaders” that mess up the planet. He fiddled round with the dials, the numbers displayed, decreasing in value as he stepped backwards. Jack pulled the lever. The machine groaned, a sound like the infernal gates of the underworld were being forced apart. The once faint blue light burst through his tired eyes, and then darkness.

When Jack opened his eyes, he was no longer in the barn. He was in his old study, the one he had in college, the typewriter fresh and waiting. His fingers flew across the keys, words pouring out, a torrent of pent-up creativity. He wrote about the future, about a machine that could traverse the relentless river of time, about a writer who stole moments from the past to fuel his future.

Days passed, or was it hours? Time was a concept that held no meaning here. He wrote until his fingers ached, until the story was complete. It was his masterpiece, a work that would surely bring him back to the spotlight, if the saving-the-world thing didn't work out.

But as he typed the last word, a chill ran down his spine. The room shifted, the light dimmed, he turned to see the machine, its dials spinning wildly. It was there. How was it there? This was his old study; he'd never been in possession of such a thing. How was the old, bashed up device here? He pushed the thought out of his mind. The machine looked about ready to blow. It couldn't have been designed for this, to exist in two places at once. The air crackled with energy, a warning of the storm to come.

Jack had to make a choice. Stay in the past with his stories or return to a future where he might never write again.

Too late.

The explosion filled the back of his eyes. He was thrown into oblivion, his body splitting and burning up.

It stopped. He was back. Lying under the floorboards of the barn. "Vision." Said a voice from the shadows. Jack jumped and swivelled round, "Who's there?" He called, aware of the violent tremor in his voice. A tall, slender man emerged from the gloom. "Hello Jack." He spoke. He was dressed in a well-tailored suit with a wide brimmed fedora resting, with a very slight tilt, upon his striking blond head of hair. He looked like one of those old-fashioned private eyes ."Who are you?" Jack barked, enraged that this man would just waltz in here and remove his beautiful, intricate manuscript from him. "My name," said the man coolly, "is Detective Inspector Me."

He was Irish. He must have travelled a lot because the accent was muddied, but it was still there. "That's not a name."

"Then you'll be confused about Her’s as well" Me replied, enjoying himself. A long pause filled the air.

Another voice, "are you going to say anything, or just stare into Me's mad eyes." Jack was startled again by a late-teenage girl with long, brown hair, jumping from above and landing gracefully on the stone floor. Her accent on the other hand was unmistakably Irish and though the difference of age between them couldn't have been much, their body language suggested that the gap between the mid-twenties aged detective and the adolescent girl seemed more like 60 years rather than seven.

The man spoke again, "In case you were wondering, this is my assistant-" the girl interrupted him, "Companion!" The man ignored her, "Assistant inspector Her." The girl was adamant, "Companion inspector Her." "Is that a thing?" Jack said, "and how can you both of your names be pronouns? Doesn't it get a bit confusing?"  He continued, calculating the time it would take to get back up to ground level, and run out the door. Was it worth it? He was doubtful. The girl, Her, looked at Jack aggressively, "yes Jacob, it is a thing, so shut it or I'll put you back in that vision, but only the exploding bit, and I'll repeat it over and over. And yes, it gets very confusing." Jack pushed the thought of his name mistaken away and focused on the more important matter, "That was a vision?" "Indeed," said Me, nodding his large head slightly, "but it'll be more than that if you use the device now."

"What?"

“If you use that machine, Jacob-” “JACK!” Jack interrupted, annoyed. Me continued, disregarding his correction “-the events will pan out exactly as you saw before, only this time, you're not coming back. The time machine is in use. Aamodt Veil, The previous owner is still in there. The machine can't manage two anomalies at once. You know the rest. If you do this, you will destroy everything and everyone you've ever known."

This was all quite a lot for old Jack, but he needed to do it. He needed to get his book. Just one book. Jack got up and stumbled for the controls, fiddling with them, trying to remember how he'd done it in the vision. He heard them sigh, and Me's deep voice saying something about a sparrow flying in winter. He couldn't care less th-…

Pain.

Darkness.

Jack awoke the next morning, sprawled out on the floor again. He looked up. There were the sad remains of Aamodt's time machine. Those vandals. With a heavy heart, he left the barn, and stepped out into the winter breeze. A group of small birds flew over his head. It was at that moment that the laugh kicked in. The sparrow flies south for winter. That's what Me had said. Well, maybe no-one told him that sparrows aren’t actually a migratory species. But there they were, a small flock of sparrows, flying (not very far) south for the chilly winter ahead.

Jack's study was empty when he returned, the manuscript gone. He searched his old mind frantically for the hidden masterpiece, but it was futile. The story existed only in the past, not even that, a ghost of what could have been.

He never wrote again, the block settling in like the winter frost. But sometimes, on quiet nights, he could hear the hum of the machine, a tantalizing reminder of the time he'd been robbed of his glory, and the price he would have paid.

But that phrase. It still haunted him. What had the skinny detective meant?

Jack Hendal was reported missing on the 15th of November 1971.