I didn’t understand the logic of this short story, which is part of
Nature’s
Futures series of short, short sf stories. The grandfather, Hubert, is traveling forward in
time, begging his grandson to kill him so that he won’t invent a time machine that he’s
already invented—but I can’t see how killing him after the fact will do any good. Please
explain it to me!
In any case, thank you to the kind librarian at the Norlin Library who
made an electronic copy for me when we couldn’ttrack down a hard copy of the journal.
With its logical basis wrecked, the Universe would resolve the paradox by excising the
time machine, and snap back to a consistent history in which Hubert married Rosie, with
all of its consequences.