Clive's Time-Travelling Adventure

The ship landed — or rather, fell slowly — into the Egyptian desert, sending up a plume of sand that could probably be seen from the Nile. Clive stepped out into heat that felt like standing inside a mouth.

The builders spotted him immediately. Work stopped. Thousands of people, mid-haul on massive stone blocks, turned to stare at the woolly figure emerging from a craft that had just fallen from the sky.

Then the kneeling started.

"Not again," Clive groaned.

But it was too late. Word spread faster than Clive could walk. By the time he reached the construction site, a delegation was already waiting — priests in white robes, soldiers with spears, and a man in a golden headdress who could only be the Pharaoh.

"The woolly god descends!" the Pharaoh declared, arms spread wide. "As the prophecy foretold!"

"What is it with prophecies?" Clive muttered. "Does every civilisation have one about a sheep?"

The Pharaoh didn't hear him. He was too busy ordering a feast, a parade, and what sounded like a new wing of the palace, all in Clive's honour.

They put him in a room with gold walls. Actual gold. Clive sat on a chair that was worth more than every forklift in the world combined and wondered how his life had arrived at this specific point.

The Pharaoh wanted wisdom. Of course he did. They always wanted wisdom. Clive was led to a chamber full of scribes with reed pens and blank tablets, all waiting for him to say something profound.

Clive picked up a stylus and drew what he always drew: squiggles. Spirals. A sheep. A banana, because at this point the banana was basically his signature.

The scribes copied everything with frantic devotion. One of them held up Clive's banana drawing and announced, "The divine symbol of sustenance and cosmic truth!"

"It's a banana," Clive said.

"COSMIC TRUTH!" the scribe repeated, louder.

Clive's doodles became hieroglyphs. His random squiggles were carved into temple walls. Centuries later, archaeologists would spend entire careers trying to decode them, writing papers with titles like "The Mysterious Sheep Glyph: Agricultural Symbol or Astronomical Map?" The answer, of course, was neither. It was just Clive, being Clive.

The Pharaoh, thrilled with his new divine consultant, put Clive in charge of pyramid construction. Clive tried to explain that he wasn't an architect, but the Pharaoh had the selective hearing of a man who'd never been told no.

So Clive drew in the sand. Wavy lines, mostly, because he was trying to explain the concept of ramps. The chief architect squinted at the drawing for a long time.

"Inclined planes," the architect said slowly. "To reduce the force needed to move the stones vertically."

"Sure," Clive said. "That."

It worked. The ramps revolutionised the construction. Workers moved faster, stones went higher, and Clive was credited with solving a problem that had been plaguing the project for years. They carved his face into a wall. It looked nothing like him — more like a potato with ears — but the thought was nice.

He was starting to enjoy himself when the ground shook. The familiar swirl of a wormhole opened in the middle of the Pharaoh's court, scattering priests and knocking over a table of offerings.

"Oh, come on," Clive said. "I was just getting comfortable."

The wormhole pulled. Clive grabbed for something — anything — but there was nothing to hold. The Pharaoh waved goodbye, tears streaming down his face.

"Farewell, Woolly God! Your wisdom shall echo through eternity!"

"I DREW A BANANA!" Clive shouted as the wormhole swallowed him.

He tumbled through time again — briefer this time, more like being shoved through a revolving door than falling down a tunnel. When he landed, it was on a wooden floor, in a room full of lenses and parchment and the smell of old books.

A man with wild hair and a beard that had clearly never met a comb spun around from his desk.

"By the heavens!" the man gasped. "What manner of creature—"

"Let me guess," Clive said, picking himself up. "You think I'm divine."

"I think you're extraordinary! I am Galileo Galilei, and you have just appeared in my observatory through what I can only describe as a miracle of celestial mechanics!"

Clive sighed. "Close enough."