When Professor Henry Hassel discovers his wife in the arms of another man, he does what any mad scientist would do: build a time machine to go back and kill his wife’s grandfather. He has no trouble changing the past, but any effect on the present seems rather harder to achieve.
“While I was backing up, I inadvertently trampled and killed a small Pleistocene insect.”

“Aha!” said Hassel.

“I was terrified by the indicent. I had visions of returning to my world to find it completely changed as a result of this single death. Imagine my surprise when I returned to my world to find that nothing had changed!”

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  1. “The Men Who Murdered Mohammed” by Alfred Bester, Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, October 1958.
    2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by Alfred Bester