A moment later, I was standing face to face with this small, weak person from the future. He came straight up to me and laughed into my eyes. He was not afraid of me at all. Then he turned to the two others who were following him. He spoke to them in a strange, sweet, and musical language.
Soon, a small group of about eight or ten of these beautiful little people stood around me. One of them spoke to me. I felt that my voice was too loud and deep for them, so I just shook my head and pointed to my ears. He stepped forward and touched my hand. Then, I felt soft little hands on my back and shoulders. They wanted to make sure I was real. I did not feel afraid. These pretty little people were gentle and relaxed, like children. However, they looked so weak that I could easily push them all away. Suddenly, I saw their little pink hands touching the Time Machine. I remembered a terrible danger, so I quickly took out the small metal levers that started the machine. I put them in my pocket so they could not turn it on.
When I looked closely at their faces, I found out more about them. They were very pretty. Their curly hair stopped at the neck. They had no hair on their faces, and their ears were very small. They had small mouths with thin, red lips and large, gentle eyes. However, their eyes looked a bit empty, and they did not seem very interested in me.
Because they did not try to speak to me again, I started the conversation. I pointed to the Time Machine and to myself. I wanted to explain time, so I pointed to the sun. At once, a pretty little man in purple and white clothes copied my movement. Then, he surprised me by making the sound of thunder.
For a moment, I was shocked. Did he think I came from the sun in a thunderstorm? I had always believed that people of the future would be incredibly intelligent. I expected them to know everything about science and art. But this question showed that he had the mind of a five-year-old child! I felt a deep disappointment. For a moment, I thought I had built the Time Machine for nothing.
I nodded, pointed to the sun, and made a loud thunder noise. It frightened them a little, and they stepped back. But then, one of them ran towards me with a bright smile. He put a beautiful chain of flowers around my neck. The others laughed and clapped. Soon, they were all running around looking for flowers. You have probably never seen such beautiful plants, which were the result of thousands of years of care. They threw them on me until I was completely covered. Next, someone decided they should show me to the others in the nearest building. They led me away from the Time Machine and towards a huge grey stone building.
The building had a huge door. We went inside, and I felt very strange. I was a man in dirty nineteenth-century clothes, covered in flowers, and surrounded by a laughing crowd of little people in bright clothes. We entered a great hall. It was quite dark, and the windows were made of colored glass. The floor was made of hard white metal, but it was worn down because thousands of people had walked on it for years. There were low stone tables everywhere, covered with huge piles of strange fruits.
There were many cushions on the floor. My new friends sat down on them and told me to sit, too. They began to eat the fruit with their hands, throwing the skins into round holes in the tables. I was hungry and thirsty, so I was happy to join them. While we ate, I looked around the hall. The most surprising thing was that the building was broken and old. The colored windows were broken in many places, and the curtains were thick with dust. Even the stone table near me was broken. Still, it was a beautiful scene. About two hundred people were eating in the hall, and many of them watched me with bright eyes.
I soon found out that these people only ate fruit. In this distant future, all the animals—cows, sheep, dogs, and horses—were dead and gone forever. So, while I was with them, I had to be a vegetarian too. Although I missed meat at first, the strange fruits were actually very sweet and delicious.
When I finished eating, I decided to learn their language. I held up a piece of fruit and made questioning sounds. At first, they just stared at me in surprise or laughed loudly. But in the end, a little man with blonde hair understood what I wanted and told me the word for it. My attempts to copy their sweet, musical words made them laugh even more. However, I went on trying like a teacher with a group of children. Soon, I knew a few words for things, and even the verb 'to eat.' But it was slow work. The little people quickly got tired and wanted to play instead of teaching me. I realized that I had never met people who were so lazy and got tired so easily.