(it is probably not good but I’m chosting it because it’s the first writing I’ve done in over a decade in this vein and because I heard sometimes the criticism is good on the internet confirm/deny)
The time traveler, squinting in the light of a new day, looked at the wreckage of their vessel with bemusement. The time machine, once tall and proud with the sheen of a steel slug, now took on the stunted, crumpled appearance of an empty tin can, courtesy of the pressures of time travel.
Well, there was nothing to do about it. The time traveler wasn’t a scientist or an engineer, and they doubted anyone within a thousand kilometers had the knowledge or wherewithal to repair the heap of trash that brought them here.
They were lucky, though. Their equipment was undamaged. Their food and water was intact. They themselves were healthy and whole, a little nauseated from the trip but uninjured. It was an ideal landing, status of the machine notwithstanding.
Besides, the Council had stressed that this was a one-way journey.
Time to take stock of their surroundings. Their friend Ananda, a technician on the mission, had told them they would be arriving roughly in the year 2022, well over a hundred and fifty years ago. Unfortunately, we don’t know where you’ll end up, Ananda had said. The best we can do is make sure you don’t rematerialize at the bottom of the ocean. He’d done a bang-up job in that regard, the time traveler thought, looking out at the desert expanse engulfing them. They could handle a desert; they didn’t know how to swim.
The time traveler closed their eyes and drank deeply from the clean desert air, breathing in through their nose, holding the cool, crisp scents in as long as possible, letting them linger on their olfactory receptors like a sommelier imbibing a particularly fine wine, slowly exhaling as though they were just learning to breathe. They had never breathed such beautiful air before. When they opened their eyes the world seemed brighter. It was still the same hardscrabble brushland as far as the eye could see but the time traveler somehow _felt_the life teeming all around them. They laughed, a loud, almost-involuntary sound that startled some nearby birds.
“Not even here three minutes and I get sentimental over a cool breeze,” the time traveler said to nobody. “I must be getting soft.” They squatted down and began placing their equipment – including a conspicuous series of sleek glass tablets – into their backpack, followed by their boxes of food, water purification powders, and disposable gas masks. Wait – on second thought…
The time traveler dug back through the pack, pulled one of the tablets out and turned it on. The tablet’s display flashed to life. The time traveler tapped out some commands, and a map of the world appeared. A small notice informed them that the tablet was “CONNECTING TO GPS SATELLITES.” As they were waiting for the device to establish a link so they could figure out where they were, the time traveler took another look around, this time to see what they could glean from their observations.
It’s about eight o’clock in the morning.
The breeze is blowing south-to-north… is that a faint hint of saltwater I smell?
The temperature is rising with the sun. Very low humidity, though. That will make walking easier.
A chime from the tablet. It had a connection. Not only could the time traveler find out where they were, but they could get a better idea of when.
The map spun around, slowing down as it zoomed in on what was presumably the patch of desert they now occupied. A pin dropped, and the report read as follows:
LATITUDE: 35.43088° N LONGITUDE: 116.80348° W GPS POSITIONING PLACES OBSERVER IN MOJAVE DESERT NEAR NELSON LAKE. NEAREST POPULATION CENTER: BARSTOW, CALIFORNIA. APPROX. 78 KILOMETERS TO THE SOUTH-SOUTHEAST. CURRENT TEMPERATURE: 25 DEGREES CELSIUS AND CLIMBING. HUMIDITY IS HOLDING AT LESS THAN 10 PERCENT. CAUTION: A NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE EXTREME HEAT WARNING IS IN EFFECT FOR: SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY THROUGH JUNE 8 2022 AT 10:00 PM PDT. TEMPERATURES ARE EXPECTED TO REACH 40 DEGREES CELSIUS BY 12:00 PM PDT. PLEASE SEEK A COOL, DRY, INDOOR PLACE FOR SHELTER AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
The time traveler grinned at the warning. Forty degrees, a heat wave? How quaint. Some more fiddling on the tablet, and a route was planned. The time traveler shouldered their pack, took a sip from their canteen, and began walking south.