Welcome to the eighty-seventh Weekly Challenge, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.
The topic this week was selected by Tony Folino.
It’s Time Travel
The excellent theme music is by Guy David
VOTING
Go ahead and listen to them by clicking on the grammophone thingy there in the left column and then vote for your favorites (multiple selections are allowed):
HEDGIE
I stepped into the machine simply labeled time travel and was carefully warned to stay hidden. I watched my child grow from a silly 5 year old to the astronaut he always dreamed he would be. I watched my Husband grow older and happier with time. I saw family members pass on as new ones came along. Family vacations, graduations and simple celebrations came and went. When my time in the machine was up I emerged with tears in my eyes and a smile on my face. I was given a chance to see what I would never experience�my future.
STEVE
Finally! Me and Kathy in my back seat! She was a real bitch, but what a body! Then my condom broke as I put it on. Damn! Oh well, just this once. What are the odds? Suddenly, there was a bright flash outside. A man appeared and knocked on my window. He looked like me, only twenty years older.
“Thank God it worked!” he said. He handed me a condom. “Trust me,” he said. Then he vanished.
“C’mon, dammit!” Kathy whined. Bossy bitch. I threw the condom out the window and got busy. Just this once.
Who was that guy?
GUY DAVID
The kid was staring at me with wide open curious eyes. I was the stranger he had never met, but boy was I familiar in ways he couldn’t begin to understand, in ways he wouldn’t understand for many years. I just stood there and stared back, in lost for words, and what could I say? I’m all grown up now, made good of my life, and the child I once was is gone, but then, there he is, staring at me with the wonder of a three years old. I looked at my watch.
�My time is up. Bye kid.�
TOM
God thought
“I think I�ll go on vacation”
Pssmispuushhehhiiee
“What do you mean there�s no where to go?”
Pssmispuushhehhiiee
“Well then I�ll just have to create space.”
Pssmispuushhehhiiee
“Your telling me I need to create time too.
Damn the devil is in the details.”
Pssmispuushhehhiiee
“I know he doesn�t have anything to do with it.
It just a saying.
How about
I just do them that at the same time
I�ll call it time/space
sort of a grand unification things.”
Pssmispuushhehhiiee
“Where I am I going?
I going back to the future.”
Pssmispuushhehhiiee
“Oh, the food is much better there.”
ELISSON
Malachi Mavis climbed into his Time Machine and pressed the lever. After
what seemed like hours of loud vibration and a disconcerting nauseous
sensation, he arrived in Far Futurity. Success!
Exiting the machine, Mavis found himself in a beautiful glade, flanked
by shining glass structures. White-robed men and women strode by and
smiled at him.
A cherubic oldster explained that disease, hatred, and warfare had been
swept away millennia ago, after the Pod Wars.
�So, we won?� offered Mavis.
�Depends on what you mean by �we,� kemosabe,� said the oldster. �We�re
from Epsilon Eridani. You�re what we call �indigenous protein.��
TONY
I was struggling desperately to stay afloat. The boat had capsized suddenly in the stormy sea. One by one I watched as my fellow passengers took their last breathe and disappeared below the surface of the water. I realized my time was limited and pressed the green button on my watch. I was immediately transported back in time and I heard the woman on the other end of the phone say, “Sir, I’m confirming your cruise on…” I stop her and politely said, “On second thought let’s go with that safari trip instead.”
PHIL
�Keto-7,� Freddie said, �Say’s his name is Keto-7. I never seen no one so old in my life. He’s gotta be ninety-nine. Bonkers, too.�
Hank looked down the length of the bar and there sat Keto-7. He was dressed in head to toe tin-foil–a walking baked-potato. Gray eyes looked out from face that was impossibly wrinkled.
�What does he want?� Hank asked and lit a Pall Mall.
�Says he needs a buck forty-five so he can get back to the year 2085.�
Hank called down the bar: �Hey Keto-7–what’s in 2085?�
�My youth,� he answered, his voice flat.
JD
Hi Ho and all that rot…..just a little story on time travel
I stooped and picked up a broken bit of glass from the dust of the gravel road.
The glass is green and slightly curved.
The edges are sharp and, while I hold it
the thin sliver cut through the skin of my finger.
I focus on the pain as a line of blood emerged.
The memory of a time long past floated up to the center of my mind.
A golden haired young boy standing on a dirt road, a bit of broken green glass in his hand, a cut finger.
Strange that my time machine only works in reverse.
HOUSTON KEYS
This is Lieutenant Dan. Leave me a message.
Lieutenant Dan, this is Forrest, Forrest Gump. I have something to say
to you through the miracle of Cher.
If I could turn back time,
I’d get Lieutenant Dan his legs.
I’d shoot back at the Cong who hurt you,
And you’d stay.
If I could drive a car,
I’d drive over to see you.
And you’d love me, love me love me,
I’d give my legs to you�
I’m not a smart man, but I know what love is, I love you like a man
loves another man.
Platonically of course.
LAIEANNA
After I killed Scruffy, the only way my husband could cope was to get
another dog. I was reluctant, but watching Sally closely, I
determined she was normal. That was till the socks situation. At
first all my whimsical socks were disappearing from the drawer. Days
later new socks made of strange space age material were appearing.
While sifting through the pile of unusual foot warmers for the fifth
time one day, I glimpsed Sally walking by the doorframe in a pair of
black socks with rotating red suns. I’ve had it with dogs. Tomorrow
we get a guinea pig.
PLANET Z
Ned’s time machine was built out of a supercomputer and an old portable toilet.
Every time Ned tried to go back in time to visit some historical event, he’d hear a loud bang and some flashing lights, but he was still in the present.
After a week of testing and adjusting, Ned eventually gave up on the time machine and dismantled it.
Back in time, from the crucifixion of Jesus to the assassination of JFK, the torrent of random explosions of human excrement and chemicals suddenly stopped.
The fact that none of this made the history books, well, that’s life.
Gee, where’s JD’s story.
OOP. ACK.
Fixing it now.
Elisson takes the lead!