Once, in Beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway.
Passersby ignored the frail, shivering thing, their eyes never dropping, their heads never turning. She might have been a doll in a window, or something someone left behind. She wasn't any of their business.
A little round boy with a little round face in his little grey jacket wrapped around his little round belly poked at the girl with his little round foot.
The girl, who wasn't much older than he, looked up from the protective valley of her arms and smiled at him. The little...
The city was empty. I lost my way back in the dark unfamiliar landscape, absence of neon flashing landmarks to guide, silence unnerving me like nothing ever had in my one hundred and eighty years on this planet. Since immortality was the norm, the world had changed beyond all imagination, people no longer wishing to stay cramped so scattered around the galaxy, Earth abandoned, unloved, only a few of us remained as guardians. But in essence we were prisoners of our grandparents greed, innovation and biological advances.
I am a very lonely man. We all are.
"I'm not stalking you, I swear," she said to him as he stared across the produce section in the grocer.
"Oh? The coffee shop by your office I could understand. The subway too. Maybe we live on the same line. The movie theatre might have been a coincidence. And the cologne section at Macy's could be justified. I'm a little concerned that you'd appear in the same Casino, the same bar and the same strip club, but to each their own. So that you'd even say you're not stalking me, here, in a grocery store, the most obvious place for...
“You’re looking down in the mouth.” Teddy had said. Earnest waited. He knew more was coming. More was always coming. Teddy sidled up to it.
“Bill and I were just saying… ‘Ernie is looking *decidedly* down in the mouth.’ he said to me.”
Earnest, who *decidedly* didn’t like anyone, least of all Teddy, calling him Ernie, sighed and waited some more.
“You need a pick me up. A tonic. Bill and I both use Blinko-wide-awake(TM)… and you can get 5% off. Just tell ‘em I sent ya…!”
“Are we done he…” Earnest started to say.
“Remember, that’s Blinko…!” his work...
A mysterious box was sitting on the doorstep. I mean really, the box couldn't have been more mysterious, it was meant to be mysterious. It was a dark blue, almost black, with silver question marks that sparkled all over it. Two feet on each side making a cube, it wasn't wrapped, the box itself was crafted this way, some sort of plastic that fit together tightly.
It took me ten full minutes to figure out how to open it, some sort of complicated locking mechanism that open elegantly, like a Chinese puzzle box. Inside the box was a mish mash...
I held it at arms length. A scruffy business card in battered Russian. Something like “путешествие во времени”
(“puteshestviye vo vremeni” in my mother tongue. It had been a long time. I was rusty.)
“So, you’re telling me th…”
“That time travel is possible. Probable. Inevitable. Yes.”
“Ok, old man. I’ll give you a beer. Spill…”
“Well, Sonny… that would be a waste of good beer.” The ‘old man’ smiled. “Yes, yes. I know what you mean.” He shrugged.
“We know the universe is expanding, right? And that expansion is accelerating, yes?”
“Dark energy.” I snorted.
“Precisely, and no one...
Find within yourself the path to truth, and you will never steer yourself wrong.
Good Lord, what a load of crap, he thought, sharpening the shovel again.
Rely on my own internal frame of reference to tell me what is the true path? Hell, if I thought my internal compass was true, I'd be in a better place now. Isn't that right, Jenny?
No, I guess you wouldn't have much to say about it, would you?
I never thought we'd be in this position, Jen. I honestly thought we'd make it. But I followed my heart, and that led me...
2070. Je regarde par la fenêtre. Les douze coups viennent de sonner à l'horloge. Sur la place, dehors, des petits chalets de toile sont montés, et regorgent de victuailles et de boissons pour les fêtards. La foule se presse, danse au son des violons, et s'embrasse et s'embrasse pour se souhaiter la bonne année.
Je tends la main vers la petite table, j'attrape mon bol de tisane et le porte à mes lèvres. Ma main tremble, ses veines sont saillantes et sa peau fripée. Les tâches qui la parsèment sont le décompte des années.
2070, le monde n'a pas changé....
Her eyes were green.
No, not just green.
Emeralds, yet infinitely more precious.
Like the sea, though far more deep and turbulent.
Greener than freshly blossoming thyme or the scent of mown lawns in summer.
More intoxicating than the green of absynthe.
Greener than jealousy.
Greener than the grass on the other side.
They stared into the grey of me.
And I knew those eyes would never be mine.
The world is a thin, hollow place.
One wrong step, and you break through the shell, and you go tumbling, tumbling down.
It is oft repeated to students that an exam is not the be all and end all in their lives, that many opportunities await all in this bountiful land of plenty.
These words are reassuring, it gives hope, and puts your life into place in comparison to all the many other people in the world, with no opportunity to even sit an exam. In some ways, it makes you feel lucky for your high, pedestalled position.
Until you...