Magpie tale: hourglass

My office was located on the 3rd floor of a nondescript college building. My classes however were not normal. I had a vast amount of experience in cryptozoology and abstract physics, pertaining to time travel and alternate dimensions and such. My department had recently received much academic attention for the recent discovery, by two of my professors, of a walking stick that allowed one to transverse dimensions. Sadly, upon further testing, the jeweled walking stick had turned out to be far less practical than previously thought and now served as a teaching tool in the history department (authors note: the story of the walking stick can be found at http://jpbeaty.blogspot.com/2010/04/i-sat-in-contemplative-silence-chin.html#comments)

Even so I had given that professor free reign in the basements of all the buildings. Earlier I had received a call saying he had found another more practical solution to the time travel paradox and I now awaited his arrival. As soon as I picked up some work and began to flip through my awaited person came crashing through the door, a brown package in his hand. We exchanged the obligatory hellos and then got down to business. The item he had found was an Egyptian hourglass made around the same period of time as the walking stick. I asked him to show me. He pressed some jewels set in the gold and than in a vortex of sand we went up up up.... When the world reformed itself we found ourselves in the middle of a roman Coliseum. Across the arena from us was a lion. It would suffice to say it wasn't happy. The news wasn't much better when I turned around. Standing there in face paint and armor was a barbarian warrior meant to fight the said lion. The crowd however based on the massive amount of cheering didn't mind if It were us or the lion that was attacked. As I thought, this the warrior charged me and my friend. In an act of plain stupidity my companion stuck out the item he happened to be holding. The problem was that that item happened to be the hour glass. As the barbarian's sword plunged into the hour glass we snapped back to our own time. When I looked the top part of the glass was shattered, sword still in it. That night in my nondescript office on the third floor my professor friend and I sat gluing together pieces of glass.

this is a magpie tale http://magpietales.blogspot.com/