A Harvest In Time

​Hamish looked through his bedroom window in the light of the dawning sun. Acres upon acres of farmland stretched away from the farmhouse in each direction, undulating with the landscape and patterned with a chequerboard of drystone walls. A firm believer in tradition, he'd gone out and personally removed any trace of cement or mortar from the existing walls when he'd bought this farm in his youth, wasting weeks of valuable harvest time. The family had argued with him about it every time he dragged his weary body outside with a chisel and a stubborn look in his eyes, complaining that there was always cement dust in the bread these days, but he held firm. Seeing this end result made it all worth it. At least, it used to.
                In years gone by everything outside the window filled him with joy and a sense of purpose; tall stalks of wheat had swayed in the morning breeze or shone gold in the sunlight, promising hard but honest work and a way to provide for the community. Not anymore though. His ploughed fields were practically barren compared to times past. Pathetic assemblies of scrawny stalks hung limp, looking almost burned in the unseasonably hot weather. His drystone walls were drier than ever, but that was little consolation when they held such meagre crops apart from one another. There was no way he could feed himself, let alone sell anything, with what nature had provided that year.
Dejectedly he leaned against the window, his face pressing into the pane. He'd always been so convinced that rumours of weather patterns being on the cusp of violent and calamitous changes were unfounded. The mercury thermometer he kept next to his bed had never boiled over. There hadn't been hurricanes or tidal waves striking his landlocked little portion of the countryside. Barely a handful of rains of brimstone and fire had fallen anywhere near the farm, and even those few had turned out to be an ill-fated coal-plane shedding its load.
                Resolutely he'd ignored the scare-mongers and nay-sayers, persisting in taking his nightly drive around the village for something to do, keeping his kettle boiling all day every day just in case there was a tea-emergency, and burning whatever he gosh-well pleased in his incinerator out back. Looking over the scorched fields outside his window, though, he did begin to wonder if there was perhaps a sliver of truth that his world was overheating.
Scrunching fabric sounds coming from the bed indicated to Hamish that his wife was waking up, and he hurriedly left the window. It was all very well and good being pensive by a pane of glass each morning, but allowing other people to know about it might have been taken as a tacit admission of guilt or emotional depth. Hamish couldn't be dealing with that sort of nonsense; not with a farm to somehow work.
"Good morning sweetheart." He forced himself to say brightly. This was the time for ignoring problems. Someone else would surely solve them sooner or later.
 

                After a productive morning of struggling not to wash away his crumbling soil whilst watering the crops, and fighting with a series of crows who just refused to be scared of anything, Hamish wandered towards the grain silo for lunch. He normally enjoyed taking his lunch out on the tractor in the sunshine, but lately it had been so scorching that his cheese melted into the bread unless he ate in the shade. It also gave him another outlet for the strange, melancholic feelings of uncertainty towards the future, since he was able to stare broodily at the empty silo as if that would solve anything. A watched pot never boils, he'd been told as a child, but perhaps a watched silo never stayed empty. It was worth a shot.
                Grasping the wide handle of the silo’s shutter door, Hamish heaved upwards with both hands and felt the metal slats rattling upwards in their rails. With bated breath he allowed the bottom of the door to pass his eye-line and unveil whatever surprise treasure the silo held. A disappointingly familiar treasure of ‘plentiful storage space’ stared back at him; the silo was just as empty as it had been yesterday. Hamish allowed a small sigh to escape his body, then picked up his lunchbox and stepped into the shade. Perhaps that lunchtime’s vigil would do the trick.
 
                Several miles away another vigil was being held in a shaded and mostly empty metal structure. Far from another farmer attempting the same observation-based crop production methods, it was the watchful eye of Dr Bernard Avi being cast over an empty jam jar. Ticking away behind the jar was the most accurate clock that Dr Avi’s funding would allow him to purchase; a TimeTech ‘Jolly Jimmy the Clown Clock’. The clock’s hands passed cyclically across rosy cheeks, heavily made-up eyes, and the limp flower atop Jimmy’s hat, without any numbers to use for reference, but they weren’t the main attraction. It was the digital repeater display that glowed from Jimmy’s enormous teeth and kept remarkable time that sold Jimmy as a scientifically viable timepiece.
                It had been a risky venture for TimeTech to base a series of children’s novelty timepieces on caesium gas based atomic clocks. Several parental action groups had complained about the high-powered lasers contained within each unit, as well as the explosive properties of the gas when it made contact with the atmosphere. Their propensity for faulty wiring and subsequent electrical fires was also something of a sticking point during initial sales. It was an immutable fact, however, that children just couldn’t get enough of highly stable timepieces, so the demand was there regardless. Coupled to the fact that it made parents and children alike giggle with joy on account of Jimmy’s cheeky grin, it eventually managed to overcome the other minor concerns such as major conflagrations to find its way onto shelves, and Bernard’s lab, for good.
                Flashes of light from the red status LED of Dr Avi’s webcam pestered the periphery of his vision, but they failed to distract him. It was vital that he monitored the results of this test with minute accuracy. Not only would it determine the course of the next few months, or possibly even years, of his career, it would also have an enormous bearing on whether or not he could go home after lunch. ‘I need a quiet place to contemplate the design of the next experiment’ was a workhorse excuse for him, but only if the previous experiment could be shown to have failed.
                Jimmy’s tooth display showed that the moment of truth was nearly at hand, seconds counting steadily upward towards midday on his upper left canine. Turquoise light from the display shone through the jar and gave it an eerie glow around the edges. Rhythmic taps of Bernard’s pen on the blank pages of his lab book were the only sound in the room.
                Twenty seconds to go and the tapping sped up.
                “Today might be the day I finally have to write something down.” Dr Avi idly muttered to himself, feebly attempting to build up a feeling of professional tension and anticipation in himself. Although experience and statistics dictated otherwise, there was a chance that this would be the day that his experiments bore fruit. It was terribly difficult to know when success would fall at the best of times, but in his field it was exponentially worse because he’d done absolutely no work to date.
                Jimmy’s mouth ticked along, and then there were ten seconds to go.
                A few test clicks showed that the pen was capable of extending its nib still. There was no risk of the ink having run out, on account of how few notes he’d taken, but maybe the tip would have dried out after years of inactivity. It was a risk that Dr Avi was willing to take. He was sure that if anything needed to be written down that desperately then he’d be able to find another pen.
                Five seconds.
                “And here we have it. The future of science in three… two… one…” Bernard said to himself theatrically.
                The final second passed.
                “Ta da…” he muttered.
                The turquoise glow of Jimmy’s teeth disappeared suddenly. It had been thoroughly obscured by a full jar’s-worth of jam, which had spontaneously popped into existence inside the glass container.
                Dr Avi fell promptly off his chair, and the chances of an afternoon off fell with him.
 
                With only a handful of plants growing in the fields, Hamish’s days working the land that year were significantly shorter than they had been in the past. He had only been working for a couple of hours since lunch and already the jobs were finished. Not only that, but he’d had time to rearrange the traditional rusted machinery that was always found scattered around any genuine farmland. Arcane devices with struts, spoked wheels, articulated teeth and much else besides sat decaying in arable land up and down the country. No-one knew what they were called, let alone what they were intended to achieve or how they worked, but in their hundreds they lingered without ever being scrapped or repaired. Hamish had assumed they were a trade secret into which he’d be included once he took over the farm, but when that time came nobody was able to give him any more information. They were simply a constant of the farming landscape, and no-one was willing to take the risk of getting rid of them in case it spoiled the harvest.
                Hands covered in powdery rust, most of it acquired when hitching his tractor up to something that resembled a trailer mashed into a broken hairbrush, Hamish took a grip on the silo door for the second time that day. Returning to the farmhouse so early would only cause his wife to ask awkward questions like ‘Do we need to stock up for the winter?’ and ‘Are you convinced we’re not going to run out of money, what with the total lack of produce to sell?’, so he had decided that a second round of melancholic ruminations was a better option.
                An upward heave caused the door to judder slightly, but it lifted by barely half an inch. Hamish looked at it with suspicion, wondering if it had been taking notes from the abandoned machinery and decided to try rusting up. He gave it another tug and it slid upwards by even less than the time before.
                In all his years Hamish had never accepted defeat at the hands of a door, and he wasn’t about to start. Barren his farm may have been, but that didn’t mean his buildings and equipment could stop respecting him; he owned this door, and by the grace of whatever deity modern farmers should have been praying to it was going to listen to him. Using both hands, all of his back, and as much of his leg as he dared, Hamish hauled upwards at the metal handle. With a screech of metal-on-metal the shutter door slid upwards by a full inch before sticking fast. A searing pain in Hamish’s back informed him that he would not be doing that again in a hurry, but a rushing sound in his ears demanded more urgent attention. Through the crack between the door and the ground flowed a minor landslide of grain, forming a neat slope until the aperture was completely blocked again.
                A few double-takes confirmed to Hamish that he wasn’t simply experiencing a back-pain hallucination; there really was grain coming out of the silo. Confused emotions swirled in his head, forming a cocktail of feelings to repress later, and excitement eventually won out over everything else. Running as best he could with a furiously painful sensation in the muscles of his back, Hamish scuttled up the metal staircase running in a helix up the exterior of the silo, feeling the heat-soaked handrail attempting to burn his palm, until he reached the door at the top.
                Red-painted double-doors greeted Hamish in their own way, which is to say they hung silently on their hinges. Anxious hands fumbled with a set of keys, quivering around the keyhole and threatening to scratch everything in a small radius, but eventually they solved the complex problem of unlocking the doors. Without hesitating for even a moment Hamish threw the doors open, allowing bright sunshine to spill into the silo and illuminate a bounty of grain that filled the cylindrical building almost to complete capacity.
                “Maybe a periodically checked silo never stays empty…” he wondered to himself. It didn’t sound like a particularly good adage so he wasn’t entirely convinced. “I’d better let the wife know though. She’ll be interested to know that it’s not poverty for us this winter.”
 
                Dr Avi scribbled furiously in his lab book for the first time in nearly five years. His pen had been slow to remember the old ways of ink deposition, having spent countless days as a percussive tool, and so Bernard’s first page had a vast array of spirals carved into the paper. Once the stiff ball point had again begun to roll, however, there’d been no stopping the flow of notes.
                In increasingly scruffy lines beneath the day’s date and exact time stamp, as taken from Jimmy’s inscrutable mouth, Dr Avi listed as much detail about the result as he could. It was a deep red jam, seemingly without any pips or other bits, which had appeared in such a way as to imply that it was already used to being inside a jar. Volume was easy to estimate because he already knew the dimensions of his jar, but he made a note to grab a set of scales and measure the difference in the jar’s mass since the spontaneous jam arrival.
                Once the immediate observations were accurately recorded Bernard changed approach and began to write a set of instructions for himself. The experiment must be set up and executed exactly one year from the date and time at the top of the page, measured using the TimeTech ‘Jolly Jimmy the Clown Clock’, as standard for all laboratory activities. Jam of the type to be determined by the classic toast-test must be procured in time for the aforementioned experiment. The exact position of the jar could be read from the experimental setup notes for that day.
                All other details could be worked out as time went on. That was the beauty of experimenting with sending things backwards through time; all he’d had to do for the last five years was wait around for a positive result. From that point onwards he knew that whatever he tried to do would definitely work, and it was just a case of going through the tedious formalities of actually conducting the work. His funding model followed the same logic. He only needed a basic salary until he produced some kind of result, after which time whatever amount of money he was given would always be enough because, by definition, it would lead to the experimental success previously observed. It had taken the committee members several hours and even more headaches to work out what he’d meant at the funding pitch, and eventually they’d agreed to his terms just to make him stop talking about it.
                “Where did I write down the terms of agreement in full…” Bernard muttered to himself, flicking through notebooks and stacks of papers around his fairly barren lab. Making use of the fact that he would be performing all of his own experiments, Dr Avi had made a set of agreements with himself on how any experiments would be set up and performed. Some of these agreements, such as sending something back in time by exactly one year and using the exact 12.00.00 time as measured by Jimmy, stuck easily in his mind. Others were more like technical caveats of which he needed to remind himself. The difficulty, of course, was whether or not he would change his mind on the best approach, and therefore add further terms to the agreement, during the year between receiving the results and performing the experiment.
                Underneath a stack of paperwork, including the instruction manual for Jimmy, Bernard found his full set of self-agreements listed in careful handwriting on the back of an envelope. It read:
                1. Experiments must send something back in time by exactly one year, at exactly 13.00.00 as measured by Jimmy.
                2. The something to be sent back must be jam in the first instance. Type and quantity are to be determined in the year between receipt and dispatch.
                3. I’m not willing to work on weekends and neither are you (me), so the jam must be sent back strictly on weekdays. Do not be fooled by a leap year.
                4. Try not to stress about getting things ready in time. If the jam has been received then it was sent successfully. If it was sent successfully then you know that you got everything finished. If you know that everything will be finished in time then there’s no use in worrying.
                Once he’d finished the list, which was definitely shorter and less detailed than he’d thought he’d made it, Bernard felt a lot calmer. As he pointed out to himself, there was nothing to stress about. Everything had already worked out just fine and all he had to do was drift along with whatever he felt was best at the time. Although it would be even better if he just sent back a set of instructions with the key points, he decided.
                Grabbing his pen again, he added another point to the list.
                5. Send a list back to the middle drawer of the desk on the date of the first jam receipt, outlining the key instructions.
                Bernard immediately checked the middle drawer and found, just as he’d instructed himself to, a single page of instructions. It read:
                ‘All you have to do is watch the news for the farmer’s grain situation, then have a chat with the government about funding to actually build the machine. Everything is pretty trivial from what I recall. I forgot to write this down at the time, so I’m trying to think back seven years. You know how it is. Regards, Bernard.’
                Not entirely thrilled with the level of detail, Bernard went back to the agreements.
                6. The key instructions shall be thorough, not lazy.
                He found another note underneath the set of instructions.
                ‘Ref: proposed agreement 6. I decline. Bernard.’
                Bernard screwed the second note up and threw it in the bin. Agreements were all well and good in principle, but he’d forgotten just how disagreeable he could be. Accepting that he was going to have to mostly work things out for himself, Dr Avi ambled out of the lab and into the common room to watch the news.
 
                Hamish adjusted the cuffs on his shirt. It was a white and green chequered shirt, classic farming apparel, with the bottom tucked into a pair of heavy corduroy trousers. It had been incredibly dry for several weeks, a fact of which Hamish was all too aware, but he had been asked to put on a pair of wellingtons for his televised interview regardless. Despite being the exact opposite of what was required in the situation, the camera crew had told him that wearing wellingtons would make him seem more authentic. Hamish didn’t really understand why that was the case, but he did it regardless. His wife had been adamant that he went along with what the news crew asked of him.
                Assembled outside the grain silo, with its sliding door still stuck open where Hamish had left it, was a small team from the local news crew. One large camera on a tripod was set up to face towards the silo, where the interview would take place, and another smaller one had already been carried up and down the stairs to record the angle from the top level entrance.
                “Are you really sure we can’t get one of your rusty trailer things moved into shot?” One of the camera operators asked. “It’d really establish that you’re a serious farmer.”
                “It’d take a while to get it hitched up and dragged back.” Hamish explained again. The time didn’t really bother him in truth, but he didn’t want to admit that he was scared to move any of the rusty equipment from where it rested. There was still an outside chance that he’d appeased the farming gods with a favourable arrangement of derelict machinery, hence the appearance of the grain. If he moved it all away and the grain disappeared then it’d be a real headache for him, and too much of an emotional rollercoaster for the rest of the family.
                “Well, fine then. I’m sure we can add something in post; maybe get a CGI combine harvester in the back of the frame or an animated pig running up and down the walls.” The camera operator accepted. Hamish didn’t follow her train of thought but nodded anyway just in case. “It’s a no on the equipment. We’re ready when you are Miss Javloc.” She called out to her colleagues around their van.
                A woman in a grey skirt-suit stepped out of the van’s side door clutching a wireless microphone in one hand. Everything about her was well-groomed and immaculately presented; a vision of professional dressing. Everything except her legs below the knee, that was. Underneath her skirt it seemed that she was wearing a pair of bright green skinny jeans and some battered-looking trainers. Striding confidently across the dusty ground she approached Hamish with a smile, and immediately saw his eyes on her choice of trousers.
                “Good afternoon Mr Green. I’m Geraldine Javloc, you might know me from the channel three news team.” She said with a smile as genuine as Hamish’s need to wear wellingtons. “Don’t worry about the trousers. Nothing below the mid-thigh will be in shot.”
                “Oh. OK. Hello.” Hamish replied. “I’m Hamish Green. Do I really need to wear these wellingtons if nothing below the thigh is in shot?”
                “Naturally. They make you look more authentic!”
                “But-”
                “And we might want to take some establishing shots of you looking surprised at all the grain or something.”
                “Right. Do you need me to show off some tractor driving, maybe?” Hamish asked, masking the excitement of a potential ‘yes’.
                “No, we’ve got stock footage for that.” Geraldine said, crushing those dreams before they could get too far off the ground.
                “Back a few feet please, both of you.” The camera woman directed. Geraldine did so immediately, tugging gently on Hamish’s sleeve to prompt him to do the same. “Geraldine can you take half a step away from Hamish, and Hamish can you take another step towards the silo please?”
                “Um, yes alright.” Hamish said, doing as he was told.
                “Perfect.” The camera woman said. Geraldine stood up straight and faced herself to one side, so that she was looking directly at where Hamish would have been standing if the camera woman hadn’t moved him.
                “I’m back here now.” He said helpfully.
                “Yes, you are. Well done.” Geraldine congratulated.
                “I need you further back so that you both look the same height.” The camera woman explained, seeing Hamish’s persisting confusion. “Could you please face sideways like Geraldine is, instead of looking at her please? It’s all about getting the perspective right. It’ll look just like you’re facing one another in the broadcast.”
                “Is it a problem if I look taller than her?” Hamish asked, turning diligently to one side anyway.
                “Makes things look weird.” Geraldine said, apparently addressing the fence several metres away based on her eye contact.
                “Yeah, of course. This looks much more natural.” Hamish said to the tree by the outhouse.
                “OK, Mr Green. I’m going to ask you to explain what happened when you opened the silo door to find all the grain, and why you were so surprised. All you’ve got to do is repeat what you told us earlier over the phone and we’ll be able to wrap this up in a few minutes.” Geraldine said, still not making eye contact.
                “Yes, alright. I think I can manage that.” He said, not entirely convinced of it.
                “We’re ready, then.” Geraldine told the camera crew. Hamish shuffled nervously and looked over at the camera woman, who pointed hurriedly for him to face to one side again.
                “And we’re rolling. Off you go, Geraldine.”
                "Wheat farming. The backbone of the grain production and the skull of the bird that is primary industry. Where would we be without it except lying dead in a ditch as a desiccated, malnourished cadaver for the crows? To save us all from this malodorous fate the grain farming community slaves day and night over piping hot soil and spiteful stalks to deliver you at home your ciabattas, your bagels, and of course your plain flour suitable for home baking or papier mache crafts. The graft is often hard an unrewarding, especially in drought years like these when the crops fail to grow and the farmers themselves are made to look like unskilled, lazy layabouts who couldn't find cress in a sandwich shop. But sometimes in these situations, it seems, fate takes pity on these pathetic, wretched souls. One such soul is here with me now. Hamish Green, hello. Tell us what happened here." Geraldine said in her even news reporter's tone.
                "Uh hello. Well. It's been a bad year here on the farm, for crop growing I mean. It's been a good year for drywall, but drywall doesn't get sold it just sort of sits there. Um, so there's not been a lot of wheat growing as you can see." Hamish said, stiffly opening out one arm in the direction of the barren fields. The camera made no effort to turn and show what he was pointing towards. "Without there being anything coming out of the dirt, as we sometimes say, things were looking bad for the harvest, because things need to grow before we can cut them down." He swallowed as he stared at the tree in the distance, trying his hardest not to glance over at Geraldine in case his eye contact made it look like he wasn't looking at her. "So, I was feeling pretty worried that we'd have no grain to sell and I came to the silo to see if some would have magically appeared during the day, just on the off-chance like. And what do you know, the silo that had been empty this morning was just suddenly full of grain! Full right to the top, as if I'd filled it myself. Which I didn't, of course."
                "Very interesting and concise." Geraldine sneered. "And how can the people at home be sure that you didn't just fill it up yourself and call us in for a shot at glory?"
                "What? This wasn't... you can just look at the fields if you don't believe me. Harvested fields have stalks and stumps and tyre tracks. These just have furrows, a few weak saplings and tyre tracks."
                "And if you're a grain farmer, then why did I find THIS" Geraldine accused aggressively, holding a tin of supermarket sweetcorn up to the point where Hamish's face would have been if he had been standing opposite her "hidden away behind your very own tractor?"
                "What is it?" Hamish asked, still focused intently on the tree for the sake of the illusion.
                "Don't play coy with me, Mr Green. It's sweetcorn, grown and tinned at your very own farm."
                "I don't have a cannery..."
                "Well there you have it ladies and gentlemen at home. Is this an act of agricultural subterfuge or a divine intervention for grain? And what of the tinned sweetcorn mystery? I have a feeling that this story is only just getting started. This has been Geraldine Javloc reporting for the six O'clock news."
                "And cut. Perfect. Good job everyone." The camerawoman announced. Without so much as a glance in Hamish's direction Geraldine started marching back towards the van, dropping the tin of sweetcorn casually onto the ground as she did so.
                "What was all that about?!" Hamish protested. "You never accused me of that before. And that's not my sweetcorn."
                "It's all in the name of entertainment Mr Green. We have what we need from you so thank you very much for your time. We'll be in contact again if anything else unfolds."
                "I don't want a bunch of people turning up at my farm and asking about tinned sweetcorn!"
                "Neither would I in your position." The camerawoman said, loading her equipment into the van. Everything the crew had spent an hour setting up seemed to be torn down and stashed away in mere seconds. "Goodbye then Mr Green." She said, climbing into the passenger seat.
                "Wait, but you said the story was just unfolding." Hamish called out, but the van growled into life and pulled away down his drive.
                Hamish stood in the dust cloud for a minute or so, trying to take stock of reality and get an idea of what had just happened. When his attempts failed, he merely shrugged and went indoors for his tea, swiping up the discarded tin of corn as he went. Duplicitously sourced or not, food was food.
 
                Dr Avi stared at the television screen in wonder. There was no mistaking the sudden appearance of a precise volume of grain inside a container of known size for anything but his own work. Whatever happened over the course of the next year would apparently lead to him trying to resolve a single farmer's harvest problems, whether he found it an interesting task or not. It felt like something of an underwhelming way to exploit time travel, but it had already happened now, so there was nothing he could do but go through the motions. If he could try to eke out some level of enjoyment from the challenge of scaling up whatever experimental technique he would stumble across in the months to come, then so much the better. There was some consolation, of course; the prospect of visiting a secret sweetcorn cannery was an enticing one.
                The next academic morning, which is to say around midday, Bernard pulled onto the long, sheer-edged road that served as a driveway for Hamish Green's farm. He had never been able to account of why farms, which were serviced exclusively by incredibly wide and slow moving machinery, could only be accessed via roads which were narrower than the majority of bicycles, but all of the observational data he’d gathered was unified on the matter.
                Creeping along in his rattling hatchback Dr Avi felt distinctly vulnerable to any other traffic, until he reminded himself that he was in no danger at all for at least seven years, if the note of poor instructions was to be believed. And it was definitely in his own crude handwriting so if it was a forgery, it was a damned good one. Finding new confidence in assurances of his temporary immortality, Bernard put faith in his research and slammed on the accelerator, bringing to bear every bit of power that his two-decade old, poorly serviced car could provide. He nearly hit twenty-five miles per hour.
                Much sooner than anticipated, thanks to the additional speed, Bernard swerved violently around one final bend and through a mercifully open gate, unveiling to him the broad expanse of Hamish Green's farm. Fields of almost perfect soil-brown extended away to either side like an underwhelming patchwork quilt, broken up here and there by the odd standing tree or large barn-like structure. Dead ahead was the farmhouse, and several hundred yards away from that was the instantly recognisable grain silo.
                Bernard slowed to a respectful twenty and cruised along the drive, finally slamming on his brakes to come to a halt in front of the farmhouse. The sounds of his engine, and of his subsequently slamming doors, were apparently suspicious enough to draw a woman out of the farmhouse’s front door, clutching a tea-towel and a hammer.
                “I swear to God if you’re going to ask about sweetcorn canning then I won’t be held responsible for my actions.” She warned. Dr Avi took another, more critical look at the hammer.
                “Oh, erm, no not all.” He said, letting go of any intention to ask about it later. “I’m actually here about the appearance of the grain. I think I know what happened and would like to discuss it with you and Mr Green.”
                “Really? You think you magic’d up some grain for us do you?”
                “No, not magic. Science. I would prefer to only have to explain it once though.”
                The woman looked at him judgementally, casting her eyes up and down to get the measure of him. Bernard didn’t cut a particularly intimidating figure at the best of times, but standing with stiff legs after a journey in his deeply uncomfortable car helped to temper it down even further.
                “Alright then. My name’s Paula Green. Come in.” She said, turning away from him and walking back into the house. Bernard followed before she could change her mind.
                "I'll give him a call for you, one minute." Paula said once Dr Avi had crossed the threshold.
                "Thank you."
                Bernard watched as Paula crossed into the living room towards the phone. He continued watching as she walked straight past it and leaned out of the open window.
                "BERNARD!" She bellowed, with the righteous fury of a thousand scorned spouses. "There's some pointdexter here to talk to you about the grain."
                She leaned back in with the same welcoming smile.
                "Cup of tea?"
 
                "Hello there. I'm Hamish, welcome to my farm. I expect you're curious about the mysterious appearance of the grain." Hamish said, raising his eyebrows and waggling his fingers mysteriously. He was still muddy and rusty from his morning in the fields, which made him look like a grubby magician at best.
                "I already told you that he was here for that. Stop trying to be all fancy." Paula snapped. "Besides," she continued, softening again "he's probably here to study it or examine it under a microscope or whatever else those eggheads do."
                "Well, you're both right as it goes." Bernard said, trying to placate them both. Hamish's chest puffed slightly and Paula rolled her eyes. "I'm an experimental physicist at the Montymond Institute for Unfeasible Science, and I'm going to be working on a successful time-travelling experiment at some point this year. Yesterday lunchtime marked my first successful result, in which I managed to receive a jar's quantity of jam which I will send back in time one year from now. When I saw the report about your grain on the news it seemed suspiciously similar to my own work, implying to me that once I get my experimental setup working, I will then transport the grain you grow next year back into your silo this year." Bernard explained.
                Paula crossed her arms and frowned at Dr Avi, not saying a word. Hamish tilted his head to one side.
                "What?" The farmer finally asked.
                "I work with sending things through time. I saw it work for the first time yesterday, so I know that I'll get the experiment running this year. I think I'm going to end up doing the same thing with your grain for some reason."
                "Why would you do that?" Hamish enquired suspiciously. “Is that why I have no plants this year? Did you steal the saplings?”
                "What? No. That’s climate change. And I don't know for sure about the grain in the silo, I guess you need me to. Probably because the harvest is poor this year." Bernard speculated.
                "I've got to admit that it's a bit of blessing not to be thrown into poverty." Hamish agreed. "Paula especially hates it when we're destitute and starving."
                "Aye, I do. I think that's true of most people though." She said with a sidelong glance at Hamish. It was impressively done, because she was facing him directly.
                "So we took from next year, which had a good harvest, to plug the gap in this year's bad harvest." Bernard mused.
                "Sounds a bit like stealing." Hamish said.
                "From ourselves." Paula added.
                "It does a bit. But realistically I guess it's more like paying a kindness backwards."
                "What if we're short next year though?" Paula asked, ever practical.
                "It doesn't matter, because you will decide to send the grain back either way.”
                “Why do you think I’ll do that?”
                “Because you’ve already done it. The grain’s there so you must have done it.” Bernard explained.
 
                “I’ll admit that the harvests have been getting worse. This year is particularly bad on account of there being almost nothing growing. It’s this hot, dry weather and the unreliable winters we’re having now. It never used to be like this in the old days.” Lamented Hamish.
                “Before we noticed how bad the climate change was getting, yes.”
                “I was going to say before everyone was staring at mobile phones all day.” The farmer grumbled.
                Bernard’s face crumpled into perplexed interested.
                “Alright. There’s probably a fantastic psychological study to be performed on you, Mr Green, but there’s no time for that right now. I think my motivation for sending the grain back will be the projected deficit in farmed resources due to global warming. That seems like exactly the sort of thing that stands a chance of getting me some funding money, so it’s probably what I need to do to build the experiment and work out how time travel gets done.” Dr Avi hypothesised, while Hamish nodded along whenever he thought he should be agreeing with something. Paula held her silence, and also the hammer again, suddenly. “Ah. It’s also probably why I need to speak to the government.”
                “Yes. I agree.” Hamish said, trying to act like he knew what was going on.
                “Of course you do, Hamish Green.” Paula said, derision flowing freely from her mouth. “You think you can just waltz up to the Prime Minister and demand some money do you, professor?”
                “Maybe not the Prime Minister but in principle with what you’re saying… I guess so. It’s what I plan to do and I know that I’ll get what I need in the end so it’s probably the way to go. There’ll have to be a conversation with the director of the Institute I suppose, but that’s only a formality. Again, I know that he’ll agree so it’s something of a moot point.”
                “Well then. Sounds like you should be getting on with it.” Paula assessed.
                “It would probably go better if I had Hamish with me, so that he can explain first-hand the difficulties he’s been having with crops.” Bernard suggested. “Plus, I think there’ll be more popular support for a farmer than an old man in a white coat.”
                “You could take the white coat off.” Paula pointed out.
                “I don’t think I could at this stage.”
                Paula shrugged.
                “Suit yourself. You can take him.”
                Hamish looked suddenly betrayed and shocked.
                “I don’t want to go to see the Prime Minster!”
                "Ignore him. It's not like he has anything else to do."
                "I've been tending the farm, like normal!"
                "He's been driving that tractor about, pulling bits of rust from here to there, running his hands through the soil when he thinks no-one's looking, and then sulking in the silo with his sandwiches. Honestly I think a trip into the city would do him some good." Paula said, continuing to address Dr Avi instead of her husband. “When do you need to go?”
                “I don’t know yet, Mrs Green. I would imagine a few days’ time.”
                “Right you are. Imagine all you need to. Just arrive and get him whenever. Lovely to meet you.” She said. Bernard didn’t really believe her.
                Without realising it, Paula had managed to shepherd Bernard towards the door while they’d been talking. She leaned past him and pulled it open.
                “Oh. Yes. Pleasure to meet you both. I shall see you in a few days.” He said, finding himself suddenly on the front porch.”
                “Goodbye then.” Paula said as she pushed the door closed.
                Bernard stared at the door for a few moments, and then accepted what had just happened at face value. It was the only way to get through the days sometimes.
 
                In the end it took nearly a week to get approval from the director of the institute. Although he was another man of science and didn't struggle to grasp what was being explained, he did fail to understand how it could be written down and budgeted. Despite assurances from Bernard that the project could not possibly slip out any further than one year by definition, the director still disliked the potential black hole of money that might have to be traversed to get there. It was only when Dr Avi explained that he could simply pluck a number out of his head and know that everything would work out in the end that things started to move again, especially when that figure could be both large and provided by someone else entirely. That was language that the director had liked, and the application was acknowledged, reviewed and declined all in the same day, leaving Bernard with a clear path to take his case, one which could solve a national crisis as well as earn him his own corner office, straight to Parliament.
                Daring himself to accelerate to twenty-six this time, Bernard left modest dust trails in his wake as he swung the car into Hamish Green's farm once again. With only a moderate loss of control, and barely a dozen feet of skidding across the verge, Dr Avi pulled up outside the farmhouse. He was barely out of the car by the time Paula opened the front door.
                “At last! You’ve got to get him out and about, Bernard. He’s driving me crazy with all his brooding over the barren fields. I don’t know why he thinks I can’t notice it when he stares out of the window between every sentence, and I don’t know why he needs to be maudlin when the food is already in the silo.”
                “Probably a hard habit to shake.” Dr Avi ventured, doing his best to process what she had just said.
                “Either way a break will do him good. Mostly because it’ll do me good and then he won’t have to get an earful when I lose my temper.”
                “Glad to be able to help.” Bernard said, but Paula had already disappeared back into the farmhouse. He walked tentatively up to the porch and heard Paula screaming for her husband out of the back window again.
                “Come in, boffin. He’ll need to get changed out of his dusty work clothes before you go. Tea?” she offered ‘kindly’.
                “No, thank you. I’d rather not fill up before a long drive.”
                “Each to their own. I trust you know how to identify and use a chair. I’ll be in the kitchen if you need something.”
                Bernard did as he was told.
                After roughly the length of time that Bernard estimated it would take to park a tractor in a shed or similar, he heard the front door open and a pair of wellington-clad boots step inside.
                “I’ll be with you shortly, Bernard.” Hamish called through.
                “OK. Thank you.” Dr Avi called back, as quietly as he thought he could get away with. Shouting wasn’t sufficiently passive, or passive-aggressive, to be a part of his normal repertoire and he felt deeply self-conscious when raising his voice even slightly.
                “How long are we going to be away for? Do I need to pack underwear?” Hamish shouted over the sound of his feet thundering up the staircase.
                “Er, no. Not unless you’re planning to have an accident. We should be back tonight.” Bernard replied.
                “You sure you don’t want to keep him out for a night or two?” Paula bellowed from the kitchen. Bernard felt himself cringe.
                “No. One meeting should be enough.” He said.
                “Speak up, pointdexter!”
                Bernard whimpered.
                “I said that one meeting will be enough and there’s no need to stay away.” He called back to Paula a little louder, feeling his stomach tense and tighten.
                “Fine. I suppose you’re feeding and funding us for a year. That’ll have to do this time.” Paula accepted, apparently not feeling the need for graciousness in that acceptance.
                “I’ll pack some underpants just in case.” Hamish shouted.
                “Yeah, best had. Don’t want to be caught without them when you need a pair.” Paula replied.
                Bernard began to regret not installing a rubber cover on his passenger seat. If spare underwear was such a critical risk mitigation activity then there was definitely collateral damage to be considered as well. With such dire possibilities on the horizon and such loud conversation going on through the length of the Green household, there was no recourse except for Dr Avi to retreat into his own head. He silently started working out the details of how he’d create a time machine capable of sending an enclosed volume of either jam or grain backwards by one year, whilst a bellowed exchange continued around him.
 
                “You can open it up now, Bernard. We’re on the main road; it’s national speed limit.” Hamish advised as they trundled away from the farm, the hulking man casting a deep shadow inside Dr Avi’s modestly sized vehicle. Bernard looked around the vehicle at the sheer drystone walls, topped with enormous hedges, which left a road that looked just about wide enough for one and a half cars. With an average forward visibility of a few tens of metres, he didn’t feel that accelerating to sixty would necessarily end well.
                “You seem to have a unique idea of what constitutes a main road.” He observed.
                “Nah, I floor it round here. You’re fine if you just pay attention.”
                “In your tractor? With a top speed of…?”
                “It can get up to fifteen on some of these straights.” Hamish defended.
                “Right. Well I’m going to keep going as I am. Whatever I choose to do will work out fine, we’ve discussed that already, I think. So we’re not going to be late, even if I don’t accelerate into that wall ahead of us.” Bernard explained.
                “But I will get bored, because the journey is taking a long time.”
                “As long as you don’t need to make use of the emergency underwear I’m willing to pay that price.”
 
                The journey into the city took two hours, which Bernard determined to be at least three hours too many to share with a bored Hamish. Criticisms of Bernard’s speed apparently stayed entertaining for a short while, but then they gave way to a discussion of exactly how well the drystone walls were doing as a bright side to potentially devastating climate change. Counterarguments regarding the permanent loss of income, as well as the permanent loss of life, seemed to do little to change the man’s mind. When drystone wall and climate change ran their course he moved onto detailed descriptions of the correct manner in which to sow wheat for a variety of soil types and field orientations, paying particular attention to the sounds that his tractor’s gearbox would make for a selection of those combinations.
                On the bright side, Dr Avi consoled himself, Hamish’s white-noise generation talents had provided the perfect background to which to daydream about how the experiment might be progressed. By the time they’d reached their destination Bernard had the next two months of work planned out in full.
                “I suppose I should have asked a bit earlier, but do you know where you’re going?” Hamish asked. Bernard paused his post-drive stretching to give the farmer a bemused look.
                “Yes. I didn’t just decide to stop here arbitrarily.”
                “I meant to walk to wherever it is we’re meeting the head honcho from here.” Hamish corrected himself, feeling pretty sure that Bernard would buy the ruse.
                “Also yes. It’s only a few minutes away.”
                “Good. Good. Who are we meeting, exactly?”
                “The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.” Bernard replied, leading the way out of the multi-storey carpark. “My boss tells me that the PM was far too busy for a meeting and that the money would have to come from the agriculture budget anyway.”
                “Your boss must know people in high places to get a meeting at such short notice.”
                “The minister had a cancellation, actually. They run the place sort of like a dentist’s office for some reason.” Dr Avi said.
                Hamish shrugged.
                “I’ll show them my teeth if they get funny then.”
                “Please don’t.” Dr Avi requested, feeling little hope of that request being honoured.
 
                Bernard had dealt with local councillors and members of parliament a few times in his career. The natural state of the academic, he had learned, was to be pursuing funds from wherever they might be found. Most often, that was in order to keep employment for just long enough to secure the next lump of funding. This tended to involve petitioning anyone who would listen and had any degree of control over a budget to throw money in his direction. Typically, however, they visited him in the institute to take a first-hand look at whatever experiment he was trying to perform, making various ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ sounds to show how impressed they were, but this time he was walking himself into the belly of the beast.
                Whenever he’d pictured governmental buildings and agencies he’d thought of drab grey-brown buildings with faux-oak, faux-pine, and possibly even faux-plywood. They always screamed functionality and boredom, possibly with some disgruntled civil servants milling about and trying not to work too much harder than they absolutely had to. Not so with the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs it seemed. Bernard and Hamish instead walked into a cavernous rectangular atrium, floored with vast, sharp-edged green tiles and walled with sky blue panels. In place of desks for the receptionists there were ride-on lawnmowers with broad sheets of steel across the top to form flat working surfaces. Hanging from the ceiling in a manner which didn’t seem conducive to their intended usage were a bright red hay baler and an up-ended fishing vessel. All of the pens were novelty plastic stems of straw. Bernard looked around himself in dismay at the possibility that they’d accidentally walked into a theme park, but Hamish had never looked more comfortable, even when he’d been in his own home.
                “This all seems a bit surreal.” Dr Avi muttered.
                “You’re telling me. I can’t believe that someone has finally worked out what perfect décor is!” Hamish beamed. “That’s a Balemaster Model 2B up there. Damned good bit of field-working kit let me tell you.”
                “I’d honestly rather you didn’t. I can only take so much excitement.” Bernard declined quickly. Hamish looked a little crestfallen. “By which I mean we can’t afford to make the minister wait for us any longer.”
                This weak attempt at placation worked, despite Bernard’s own doubts and lack of effort, and the pair of them walked briskly towards the main receptionist’s mower. The few members of staff who could be seen walking around the vast atrium were all clad in either dungarees or waders, and it made Bernard feel deeply concerned about what might end up spilled over him. Every second that passed made Hamish’s spare underwear decision more valid, and that was not something that Dr Avi appreciated.
                “Welcome to the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. How can I help you today?” Asked the receptionist brightly. She was obviously well-spoken, but was putting on a brave attempt at a heavy West-Country farmer’s accent for reasons that someone would hopefully be able to explain. If they could also take full accountability for the decision then so much the better.
                “Hello. I’m Dr Bernard Avi and this is Hamish Green. We have a meeting with the Right Honourable Dahlia Teak at…” Dr Avi glanced down at his watch “…about ten minutes ago.”
                “Let me check the diary. Er, the Di-arrr-y, sorry.” The receptionist said, with an expression that combined apologetic and embarrassed, before looking down at a huge leather-bound ledger. For a few moments she scanned down the lines of handwritten appointments with a finger, and then she tapped one of the entries confidently. “Yes, Dr Avi. As luck would have it the minister has also been running a little late today so you’re just about on time. Just follow the muddy tyre marks and you’ll get to her office.”
                “Erm…” Dr Avi stammered, looking down at the floor. Sure enough there was a set of quite deliberate muddy tyre tracks running away from the desk and towards one of the staircases.
                “Proper job. Thanks kindly.” Hamish said, following the trail with a beaming smile.
                “Thank you.” Bernard mumbled, hurrying after.
                “I told you we should’ve gone faster. Minister could have missed us!” Hamish chastised.
                “And I told you that everything would be absolutely fine because it has already worked out. You heard what the receptionist said.”
                “How’d you know that it’ll be this that works out though?”
                Bernard paused on the stair while Hamish took a few more steps upwards.
                “What do you mean? We end up with enough money to make the experiment work and this is us asking for that money.”
                “Yeah, I get that. But what I’m saying is how do you know that this is what gets the money? You might still foul this one up and get the cash from somewhere else. It’s just like when you accidentally crush a row of corn with your wheel because you’re trying to fix a rake while driving.”
                “I mean… that’d be ridiculous.” Dr Avi said, trying to think of a justification for his statement on the fly whilst pushing Hamish’s un-relatable analogy from his mind.
                “Oh. Oh yeah it would be. My mistake.” Hamish said with alarming sincerity. After a flash of inspiration it seemed that his grasp of logic had reverted back to its normal level. Bernard, on the other hand, thought hard about what Hamish had said and started to worry.
                "Yes. No. It’s definitely ridiculous..." Bernard muttered to himself as they continued to climb upwards. They knew full well that everything would work out because the grain had already arrived. And Occam's razor would dictate that the simplest answer for how that happened was for them to get everything they asked for whenever they asked for it. The chances of them being denied by the minister, and then being forced to work feverishly for a whole year trying to scare up money from somewhere else, whilst also constructing an honest-to-God time machine, were tiny. Weren't they?
                "Oh goodness. We really have to do this properly." Bernard squeaked to himself. He'd already been denied his relaxing afternoons off by the presence of positive results; having to face a year of hard work as well was almost unthinkable.
                "I reckon that if I needed to plough this staircase I'd keep the tractor in first gear the whole way. It'd be quite the slope once you levelled out the steps and with the added weight of a plough, plus the drag of it pulling through hard floorboards like these, you need all the torque it could give."
                "What are you talking about?" Bernard sighed, his train of panicked thought interrupted.
                "I'm talking about needing a really good revver to get right the way up here with a decent furrow." Hamish explained. He was beginning to lose patience with the supposedly genius level academic who couldn’t keep up with even basic field management discussions.
                "That's got nothing to do with anything! We're here to talk a minister into giving us a frankly terrifying sum of money, on the strength of a human interest news story from a local station and a begging request from a private institution, and you're fixating on how to make a building suitable for wheat production!"
                "That's the future of agriculture, though. Got to squeeze every bit of tillable land out of what we can find."
                Bernard shook his head and thought to himself about how he could possibly phrase the request to make it sound appealing.
                At the top of the stairs, without a single remaining breath to their names, Bernard and Hamish came face-to-face with the minister's doorway. In place of the traditional dark brown wooden door, or even the modern white metal and plastic door with a frosted window, the minister had once again gone all-in on the focus of her department. Hanging on heavy metal hinges which had been secured to the thin walls with sturdy steel rivets were a set of bright red barn doors. Stretching from floor to ceiling and spanning at least four times the width they strictly needed to, the doors were a masterwork of improvised carpentry and filled the landing with a sinister red glow of sunlight reflecting off their paintwork.
                "Now that, Bernard, is a nice barn door." Hamish appreciated, one hand on his hip and the other hanging down by his side.
                "Good, I suppose."
                “I really think this minister knows what she’s talking about, Bern. I mean, that was a fine mower dangling about downstairs, and these doors are clearly the work of a professional who wants no part, no part at all, in a cattle escape. No part.”
                “Please don’t call me Bern.” Dr Avi said simply. Hamish’s point seemed beyond refute, so there was nothing else to say.
                “You got it ‘Nard. Let’s meet this minister and see what she had to say.”
                While a deep and contemptuous frown started to form on Dr Avi’s face as a result of Hamish’s newfound taste for nicknames, the farmer grasped one half of the enormous gate latch that served as a door handle and unhooked it. With a whisper of well-oiled hinges the enormous barn doors swung open towards the pair of visitors. Bernard had to step back twice to avoid them crashing into him, until he was teetering over the edge of the top stair.
                “This really doesn’t seem safe!” He complained, lurching forwards onto the relative safety of flat flooring.
                “Namby pamby health and safety is it? Ha! You city types are all the same. There’s no such thing as health and safety when you’re working on a running diesel engine or unblocking your thresher on the fly, and it never does us any harm!” Mocked a cutting voice from the office.
                Dr Avi looked into the large square office, bristling at the insinuation that not wanting to fall down the stairs was somehow over-sensitive, and saw a woman leaning on a vast tractor bonnet that had been converted into a desk.
                “She’s got you there, ‘Nard.” Hamish agreed with a grin. “We’re grown-ups and we can look after ourselves.” He added, holding up a scarred hand as if it somehow supported his assertion.
                “Well come on in, both of you, before I get my collie to round you up. Ha!” The minister invited. Hamish led the way and Dr Avi followed with a frown.
                “You two must be Hamish Green and Bernard Avi, right?”
                “Aye, I’m Hamish and that’s Bernard.” Hamish said as Bernard tried to pull the doors closed behind them.
                "Leave those open, please! I can tell you weren’t raised in a barn! Ha!" Guffawed Dahlia, lifting wellington-bound feet onto her desk and leaning back in the large wicker chair she occupied. Feeling distinctly uncomfortable about doing so, Dr Avi ignored the doors and turned back into the room. Much like the rest of her department, Dahlia’s office had been modelled faithfully after the remit of her work. Like great banners and tapestries an array of fishing nets hung in swooping curves from the ceiling, some of them complete with wooden carved tuna or haddock. Each of the walls was panelled with thin wooden slats like the sides of a barn, pitchforks and rakes were hanging from hooks at regular intervals, and there were a series of small windows that revealed nothing more than the genuine wall of the office an inch or so behind. Two bales of straw were positioned on the floor and trying their best to form a semi-circle, but two straight lines could only do so much.
                Dahlia’s desk, very much the centrepiece of the office despite its position towards the back of the room, sat in front of a broad bay window that overlooked the rest of the distinctly non-rural city. Afternoon light coming from behind her gave the minister a slight glow as she watched them.
                “Please, lads. Take a seat and tell me what I can do for you.” She said. Hamish immediately placed himself onto one of the straw bales and, in the absence of any chairs from which to choose, Dr Avi did the same. Both of them found their eye level to be slightly below the top of the desk, so that they were left facing half a tractor and the soles of some rubber wellington boots.
                “Well, your highness, we’ve had a bit of an idea about solving the crop shortages. You must know that we’re struggling to get anything to grow this year, on account of the unseasonably hot, dry, and nutrient-poor weather.” Hamish explained.
                “Yes, yes. I’m all too aware of the nutrient-poor weather this year. Barely any calcium coming from the wind, not a jot of potassium sunshine, and no sign of water rain.” Dahlia agreed. Bernard scowled at the boots.
                “But you might have seen on the news, minister, that a huge quantity of grain appeared in Hamish’s silo last week.”
                “Is that so, Mr Green? Congratulations. You sure showed those eggheads what a little bit of old-fashioned sweat and graft can do. ‘Impossible to grow in these conditions’ indeed.” Congratulated the minister. Her boots waggled jovially as she spoke.
                “That’s what I thought, minister. Thank you very much.”
                “The thing is, minister,” Bernard continued, shooting Hamish a dark look “that Hamish hasn’t grown those grains yet. They’re next year’s crop, but they’ve all been sent back in time so that we don’t starve this year.”
                “Don’t be stupid, man. You plant, then grow, then harvest, and then store. Unless Mr Green’s found a way to skip the middle steps, which would really push the agricultural industry forwards by a long way, you need to go back to your fancy nerd books and read up on a little thing called farming, pointdexter.” Dahlia said as diplomatically as she could.
                “She’s got you there, Bernard.” Hamish said with a smile.
                “You know as well as I do that you’ve not grown those grains yet, Hamish. It’s next year’s crop that I’m going to send back to a week ago a year from now with the money that the minister is going to give us at some stage between now and then!” Dr Avi snapped, without having quite grasped how concise snapping needs to be.
                “Can you honestly tell me that you’ve not grown or harvested that grain yourself, Mr Green?” Dahlia asked, ignoring the bulk of what Bernard had said. “Because I don’t appreciate so-called experts in white coats with thick glasses and pockets full of fancy city jam, like gooseberry, coming in here and telling me to give them money for time-travelling silo nonsense. I’ve had enough of it.”
                “As far as I understand it, minister, I haven’t done anything yet. But I will do. I don’t like the jam-pockets any more than you do, but I think that we can use Bernard to find more tillable land.”
                Both wellington soles disappeared from the desk, and they were replaced shortly by Dahlia’s face looming over towards them. Sandy hair hung around her face like loose straw, which Bernard immediately concluded to be deliberate.
                “More tillable land, you say?”
                “Not really.” Dr Avi said.
                “I wasn’t asking you, I was asking the reliable source of information.” Clarified Dahlia. “Mr Green?”
                “Yes, more tillable land. You see, the ground I have now isn’t fertile, probably because of fancy city-folk doing silly city things or something.” Hamish said, fully leaning into the minister’s prejudices and enjoying every moment. Dahlia nodded in deep agreement. “But what this particular fancy-city-boy can let us do is farm next year’s land and get the crops this year. That’s double the land with no travel, think of the diesel savings alone!”
                “Not to mention the… not starving to death?” Bernard tried to remind them, but Dahlia waved her hand dismissively at him.
                “This could be huge. Delivering full yields with none of the work up front is the dream. If you get a good one then you know the work is worth it. If not, then you can just ignore the fields for a year and wait for next time.” She said, the point being missed in its entirety. “I love it.”
                “And all we need is the money to make it happen because this book-lover over here is going to do the hard work for us!”
                “Finally earning his keep, eh? Good. How much would you need then?”
                “Erm, I have a full cost breakdown here.” Dr Avi said, pulling a paper folder from his bag and handing up to the desk.
                “I don’t have time to read… what is this… three whole pages?!”
                “The final figure is on the back.” Dr Avi directed. Dahlia looked down at it.
                “Hm... that could buy me a lot of extra nets for the department, and they go down well with the voters.” She said, unfoundedly.
                “I think that voters will probably also like not starving to death.”
                “You stick with your bloody clock magic and leave the rural politics to me, alright?”
                Bernard rolled his eyes.
                “Mr Green, I like your proposal. I think the Department can help you. You’ll have your money in next year’s budget.”
                “Brilliant, tha-” Hamish started, but then he paused. Dr Avi watched the cogs turn inside Hamish’s head. “Next year? But we need the money this year to get the crops back.”
                “But they don’t get grown until next year so you don’t need the money until then.” Dahlia argued.
                “No, that’s… I think… that doesn’t work.”
                “It’ll be fine Hamish.” Bernard said softly.
                “Egghead seems to have wrapped his head around this one!” Dahlia jabbed. “I can’t just swing a chunk out of the budget, even for something as a great as double-tilled land, because it’s like taking seeds out of one furrow to put into another. You still only get one row of corn.”
                “So let’s get my row and someone else can wait until next year, then.” Hamish protested.
                “Hamish, it’s fine. It’s already going to have happened, remember?”
                “But we need the money!”
                “And you’ll have it next year in the next budget. You’ve sown the seed and it’ll be harvested next time around.” Reasserted minister Teak.
                “Do you promise?” Bernard asked her directly.
                “I’m a woman of my word, egghead. I promise that you’ll have the money in next year’s budget.”
                “Good enough, then.” Dr Avi said, standing up and gently pulling at Hamish’s sleeve to make him do the same. “Thank you, minister.”
                “I’ll let my secretary deal with the details and arranging payments. He’s used to keeping track of the numbers while I toil in the politics harvests.”
                “We won’t get the money in time though, will we?” Hamish persisted, standing up and looking conflicted.
                “Next year is plenty of time. Let’s go please, Hamish.”
                Dahlia frowned across at them, locked up between wanting to defend Mr Green as a farmer under her protective umbrella, and not wanting to agree with the city-boy. A wave of decisiveness passed over Hamish’s face.
                “The minister and I don’t have to do what you say, Bernard. I’ll leave when I’m good and ready but not a moment before, and I won’t be good and ready until we get the money we need in time.” He said haughtily, crossing his arms.
                “Good on you, Mr Green. Standing up for the farmers against these scientists.” Dahlia congratulated. Hamish glowed with pride while Dr Avi tried to mask his frustration. “And as you know, a farmer will never outstay their welcome. On an unrelated note, you’ve had all the time I can spare for you, so please be on your way.”
                Bernard spared half a second to look into Hamish’s face before exiting the office. He’d concluded that the cogs didn’t turn at all inside Mr Green’s mind. Instead, it was more like a coin being dropped into a penny-drop machine at the amusements; thoughts bounced downwards from peg to peg, never taking a predictable or repeatable path, and you just had to hope that they fell into a helpful place.
                It finally took around twenty seconds for Hamish to reach a decision, following Bernard out without argument despite his prior desire to stay, for reasons he immediately forgot about. In silence the pair of them walked back down the staircase, underneath the mower in the lobby, and out onto the street.
                “’Nard?” Hamish finally said. “Why is it alright that we don’t have the money?”
                “You remember what I said about everything already having happened, so there’s nothing to worry about?”
                “Yeah.”
                “And you remember how you haven’t grown that grain yet, but you already have it.”     “Yeah.”
                “We need to agree, right here and now, that as soon as the money becomes available to us in next year’s budget we’re going to draw it out and send it back to ourselves using the time machine that we’ll have by then.” Bernard said, looking Hamish straight in the eye.
                Another coin dropped into Hamish’s head.
                “That’ll mean we can go and find the money tonight in… I don’t know. Let’s agree to put it in a… milk urn in your kitchen.” Dr Avi suggested.
                The coin struck a peg and bounced to one side.
                “We get the money out of the urn and use it to make the time machine, once I’ve worked out how to do it, so that we’ll be able to send next year’s harvest into your grain silo.”
                Left, right, and left again it ricocheted. From its fairly central entry point the coin had travelled almost all of the way to one side.
                “Then we’ll have a time machine available so that we can send the money to ourselves here when it comes through. So it doesn’t matter that we didn’t get the money this year, because we’ll still have it tomorrow.”
                A chain of wooden impacts came to an end. Hamish’s thought had formed somewhere.
                “I think…” he started, with obvious effort “… that we should run it by Paula when we get back. She’ll have a better idea of what to do than me.”
                Bernard gave a resigned shrug. He couldn’t say that Mr Green was wrong.
 
                Paula had all too much of a grasp on how to spend the money. By the time Dr Avi and Hamish got back to the farmhouse she’d already come across the urn stuffed with cash and laid out several plans regarding how it could best be used to improve her and Hamish’s lives.
                Convincing the money away from her was surprisingly difficult. It wasn’t just a matter of greed and gratification either; she just presented a convincing argument that they knew everything would work out in the end, so it didn’t matter if she took this particular wad of cash. Something would necessarily come along to fill in the gap for them. It was only when Dr Avi placed a last minute bet that she couldn’t resist calling him names for the rest of the night, which she promptly accepted and lost, that got the money into the hands of science. Bernard took his leave before she could overpower him and snatch the cash away again for good.
 
                A year passed without a word exchanged between Hamish and Dr Avi. Farming conditions proved more favourable in that year and a distinctly familiar selection of grains had grown from the revitalised soil of Mr Green’s farm, keeping him busy once again. Similarly, Bernard finally had a reason to start working with determination; there was nothing quite like having a guaranteed success within a year to keep his motivation up.
                Although the institute persisted in demanding progress reports and papers from Dr Avi on what would surely be a revolutionary discovery, Bernard kept his work closely guarded. No matter how many junior members of staff they threw at him to share the workload, his infallible argument of ‘I know best and I know it works out’ helped him to stay the course of isolation. Nobody had any idea of what he was building. There wasn’t a soul who could even speculate on what he was theorising. All the director knew was that almost one year to the day of the original success, following an awful lot of silence, Bernard appeared with a beaming grin and a mysterious contraption, which also had a beaming grin on account of prominently featuring a TimeTech ‘Jolly Jimmy the Clown Clock’.
                The director immediately asked Bernard how he’d done it, of course. The only reply he got was a smug “All in good time”.
                Hamish got less still of an explanation when Dr Avi finally arrived at his farm on the day of the grain transport, but that didn’t bother the farmer too much. He was too preoccupied with a tiny seed of worry that had been nurtured over the springtime, and blossomed into a fully-fledged concern by the end of the harvest.
                “Bernard…” he’d finally said as the doctor got out of his car.
                “Hello Hamish. Good to see you again.” Bernard replied, opening the rear door and lifting his grinning machine from the back seat.
                “… I was thinking about this grain stock I have.” Hamish finished.
                “Good. I’m glad you’ve been thinking about it because that means it’ll be a decent harvest, I’m sure.”
                “Oh, no I haven’t been thinking about that bit of it.” He said. “I was more thinking about the way that we’re going to be sending it away soon.”
                “Yes. You need it to be able to not starve to death over the year just gone.” Bernard reminded him. From what he recalled, Hamish could forget details like that.
                “But that’s just the problem. I won’t starve last year, but won’t I now starve this year? I mean, I’m about to give away all the grain.” The farmer persisted, following Dr Avi away from the car and towards the open silo doors.
                “And how do you think, Mr Green, we might be able to solve that problem?”
                “I could keep the grain instead.” Hamish suggested proudly.
                “It’s already happened and we both know it, Hamish. We’re just doing the admin at this stage. But there is another solution that you’re not thinking about.”
                Hamish pulled a penny-based arcade face that Bernard recognised immediately.
                “I mean that next year’s harvest can serve you this year, Hamish. We’ll still have the machine next harvest, and it’ll still work.”
                Mr Green slowed to a halt. He hadn’t considered that, and it sounded convincing, but he couldn’t help feeling that there was still a problem with that line of reasoning.
                “I think I need to go and get Paula.” He said, scurrying off in the opposite direction.
 
                Dr Avi crouched at the upper entrance of the grain silo, staring down at the smiling time machine. Undoubtedly it was a miraculous piece of technology, one with almost limitless potential, but he just wished he understood how it worked. He could feel the folded note in his back pocket, pulling the fabric tighter than it should have been.
                ‘So there were some bad assumptions, and I’ll be the first to admit that.’ It said. ‘Principle among them is that I can reliably keep a promise, even one I make to myself. Here’s our time machine, Bernard. We finish it, but not quite within the year. You’ll have it cracked within eighteen months, so not too far away from the year in the scheme of things. Best wishes, Bernard.’
                That was just like himself, Bernard thought. Too proud to let himself fail, not quite proud enough not to break the rules. Just somewhere in that nice middle ground of interpreting promises in the way that let him do what he liked. He wanted to promise himself that he’d send back instructions when he got to that point, but it was already obvious that such a promise would be broken.
                He turned the machine over in his hands. For something powerful enough to affect a silo several thousand times larger than itself, it didn’t look entirely imposing. If he hadn’t known better, he’d have said that he was just holding a Jimmy clock with parts of an old microwave bolted to it. Multi-coloured wires looped in and out of the mass like tentacles without any obvious purpose, and Bernard harboured suspicions that they were just there for the look of the thing. The only buttons or other controls he could see were those that had always been on the Jimmy. Bernard shrugged. According to the clown’s teeth it was approaching time for the grain to disappear, so there was at least a comfort that whatever Bernard decided to do, it would be the right thing.
                “What’re you doing up there pointdexter?” Paula shouted up. Reverberations rang up and down the staircase as two pairs of feet started to ascend in his direction.
                “Good afternoon, Paula. I’m just getting the machine set up.” Bernard called back nervously.
                “I hear Hamish voiced his concerns to you about this grain disappearance.”
                “Yes. But it’s fine. They’re unfounded concerns.”
                Bernard’s hands shook as he placed the machine down on the metal balcony, facing Jimmy’s indomitable smile towards the grain, and tried to think about how he would most logically set up the controls.
                “I can’t help but feel you’re not giving them their dues, though. We know full well that some grain appeared last year, but we don’t know that this grain was it. It seems like a big risk to send it away.” She continued, not sounding amused.
                Fingers of panic started to reach into Bernard’s mind and chest, but he didn’t understand what he was afraid of from either of them. It might just have been the pressure of switching a temporal manipulation device off for the first time. It could easily have been sitting at the top of a flimsy metal walkway. Whatever the cause, though, there was an overwhelming desire to get the time machine primed before anything or anyone could stop him.
                “It’s the most logical solution. Who else would give you all this grain but you?”
                “We’ve got friends. Could be one of those unknown benefactors we hear so much about. Fact is, though, that when this goes we don’t know that any more comes in.” Paula rebutted. Her voice was getting closer and her footsteps more rapid. “I mean, when will it stop? You nerds might have solved things in the short term, but eventually there’ll be a year when there’s nothing to send back. What then?” she questioned.
                “Yeah, what then?” Hamish added, sounding perfectly sincere in his request for clarification.
                “Then something else. It’ll be the future. We’ll have sorted it out by then.” Bernard assured. The alarm button didn’t seem like the right move; being alarmed was never good. It wouldn’t be connected to the brightness either.
                “And what if the future decides to double-cross us?”
                It was obvious when Bernard saw it. The ‘Set Time’ button. Jimmy kept time so well that it never needed to be adjusted by even a second, so the button could be re-purposed without risk. It even had a name that was perfectly appropriate for the new function.
                Paula’s face loomed into view through the gaps in the metal walkway below him, almost at the top of the steps.
                “Then they would be double-crossing themselves, and thereby not be able to survive long enough to double-cross you.” Bernard said, pushing the soft, rubbery button.
                One by one Jimmy’s teeth started to light up with a powerful green light.
                “But one day there won’t be a farm. One year is going to be the last year sooner or later.” Paula growled. It seemed to Bernard that she didn’t appreciate his lack of engagement with her worries.
                “Yes, that’s true…” he said, thinking about it. “…so we probably don’t want to make a habit of doing this.”
                Jimmy’s smile was half-way green and giving the grain a disturbing, otherworldly aspect.
                “Exactly. So I don’t want an egghead like you turning up here every year and making trouble.” She said emerging onto the platform.
                An electrical whine picked up from the clock. Bernard stared askance at it. No Jimmy had ever made a noise like that before.
                “This is the last time then. I agree.” Dr Avi said, holding his hands up.
                “Thank you and all, but I think that I rather wa-.” Paula started, before her gaze was redirected onto Jimmy as its final tooth began to glow.
                There was no great flash of light or crackling of lightning, just a thundering ‘whoomp’ sound as several tonnes of grain disappeared, and the surrounding air rushed in to occupy the void it had left. The wind struck like a sudden gale, whipping hair and clothing into a frenzy of activity at the top of the silo. Paula and Hamish braced themselves against the stairs and the handrail, looking even less pleased at Bernard following the most recent development. Dr Avi saw his machine slide across the metal flooring, its disturbingly low mass offering no resistance to the gust. Lunging forwards, he was quick enough to grab the Jimmy, but not quick enough to grab the handrail, as the rushing air sent him lurching through the open doorway and into the now empty silo.
                He just had enough time to think ‘Bugger’ before starting to fall.
                As suddenly as the wind had started, it ceased again. Paula and Hamish re-established their balance and rushed over to the door, being greeted by a ‘whump’ sound.
                Dr Avi looked upwards, having landed surprisingly softly on a new pile of grain, which had blinked into existence below him and was only slightly smaller than the one which had just disappeared.
                The panicked faces of Paula and Hamish appeared in the open doorway above.
                “Last time, was it?” Paula accused. Whatever worry she’d been experiencing was long gone, replaced by indignant disappointment at Bernard.
                “Maybe it’ll happen once more then…” Dr Avi muttered. The world’s first demonstration of time travel should have opened up limitless possibilities, he lamented to himself, but instead he was left knowing exactly what the future held.