The strange man presented it to me
A device that would allow me to travel
To any point in the past

Being an archaeologist
I marveled at this opportunity
And took the mechanism from him

He gave me instructions
That I only half listened to
I was far to excited to pay attention

Before I knew it he was gone
I stood alone with the device
Cupped into the palms of my hands

It seemed simply enough to use
So I walked out the door
And turned it back 100 years

Unsurprisingly I was standing in a field
With no buildings to be seen for miles
After all this city had only been built recently

I also realized I could chose a location
So naturally I chose ancient Egypt
And set it back 1000 years

I stood before the great pyramids
Still standing 1000 years ago
Albeit a bit less weathered

For a time I simply watched
Perhaps I was there for an hour
Perhaps several years I could not tell

As I watched I got an ingenious idea
I would go back and see
The very construction of the pyramids

So i re-calibrated the device
And set it back another 2000 years
The world warped around me

When I arrived I saw the great structures
Still standing in their majesty
No sign of any recent work on them

So I traveled back another 1000 years
To a date that many historians
Believe was the starting point of their construction

And there they still stood
Though something seemed odd about them
What it was I could not say

I thought about how far to go back again
While I contemplated this
A figure approached in the distance

It looked as though
They were reaching out to me
Though they shouldn't be able to see me

Before I knew it they were upon me
I quickly turned the dial
In a maddened panic

My thumb slipped
The dial slid back uncontrollably
Going back more that 50,000 years

I tried to stop it
But to no avail
The dial kept turning, kept going back

Farther and farther
I lost all track of space or time
Until finally, the device stopped

I looked at the machine
It did not display a year
In fact it seemed quite broken

I looked up and to my surprise
I still saw those ancient monoliths
Yet now they stood over a lush forest

The sky was dark
Illuminated only by a far off red
Emanating from the beyond the stars

And then I saw it
That primordial creature
That appears within all our dreams

I knew now that I was outside of time
And so was this timeless titan
That stood before the great pyramids

It stood tall over the earth
With outstretched arms
A low hum came from within it

And I recognized the sound
And it filled me with dread
It was the sounds we all hear

The sound when we are alone before sleep
The droning in our heads
When all else is quiet

I covered my ears
Before those towering monoliths
That stood here, long before time began

That is how he kept us
Trapped within this thing
That we call time

And we would never be free
The droning continued
And it would for all eternity

Always gnawing
In the back of our minds