The dapper man picked up a penny. Having stopped, he was hit by an unsuspecting driver who failed to see him get skewered by the starting handle from the high cab of the grocer's van. At first I smiled for having placed the coin, specially bought at auction 68 years from now. And then… absolutely nothing happened.
When SciFi authors tell you of the Grandfather Paradox, don't believe a bloody word. I'd spent a fortune, and most of my adult life pushing the boundaries of Quantum Symmetry, SuperStrings and a host of other areas of Science and Technology. All for nothing.
Oh sure, I'd invented a practical functional time machine. Mainly because the Pope and the Bible had made it clear I wouldn't go to heaven if I killed myself. Because God had left a loophole. Kill your Grandfather (or rather allow to be killed) and you'd not only take out two vindictive bullies, you'd end your own existence as well.
Well, that didn't work out so well. And now I've got to track down the past of an adulterous, strangely widowed Grandmother now. I wish I'd never been born…
The dapper man picked up a penny.