TURA
After
———
After, he would think back on what she might have done if she had foreseen how he would have gone back to tell her what had been about to have happened but for her earlier appearance just before they would have travelled back to before it would all become the dead past.
They would live happily ever after, they would struggle against adversity. They would travel to the stars, they would make paradise on Earth, they would conquer an empty universe, they would hold commerce with aliens.
But in a world with time machines, all tenses are merely future conditional.
RICHARD
After the explosion
After the explosion there was… Nothing.
After the flash of brilliant white light, we were blind; corneas burned out, eyes -sightless and useless.
After the shockwave, we were deaf; eardrums burst, hearing lost forever.
After the searing heat, there was no pain. Nerve endings destroyed, all feeling and sensation lost. Nothing to tell us our flesh had melted and our bones had charred.
No sight.
No sound.
No feeling.
Yet some still live, if that’s what you can call it.
But we are the last of them.
And we will not survive.
And there will be nobody to come after.
SERENDIPIDY
It was a lovely service, the old girl would have loved it. Those old, rousing hymns, and such a beautiful, heartfelt eulogy.
Packed church too. I’m not sure whether it was because she had so many friends, or whether everyone wanted to make sure she really was gone.
She’d have laughed at that!
It was while we were lowering the coffin, after the service had ended, that you might have imagined a muffled thumping from inside the casket.
It was probably just your imagination.
Trust me, there’s no cause for concern.
I made sure to weld that sucker tightly shut!
TOM
What Could Go Possible Wrong 007
Parker press through the door of the Arms. Without a pause he got to competing offers of engagement. A table of his mate deep into their fourth pint, and the bartender beckoning him forward. Not one to forgo a pint nor one to shirk his duty to his faculty advisor, Paker raised a finger to his mates and dropped in the stroll in front of the Barkeep. “Your Parker.” half a question half a statement. The underclassman noded. Across the bar an ancient parchment slide. Had to be over 200 years old. Inside it read: Parker don’t binge.
What Could Go Possible Wrong 008
When Ford entered the taxi door everything went back. But in that moment, he was able to get a short: FU Arnesto. Normally all our Afters accrue in a tide line awaiting our arivial, and equally cued up behind us. Not so much when you’re in a temporal taxi with the 1st Time Lord to the Queen. 200 years of After mushed up into 45 seconds is never a pleasant experience. It was one of the many reasons he was only the second TLOQ. When After stopped at now he grabbed for Cervante’s neck. “Not Happy.” he raged. “Sorry Mate.”
NORVAL JOE
Billbert hung in the air, two feet above the ground, baffled after such an unspectacular reaction from Sabrina. He lowered himself back down, shaking his head. “What do you mean, so? I can fly.”
Sabrina rolled her eyes. “You weren’t flying. You were probably standing on a box. People are always trying to impress me with cheap parlor tricks.”
Billbert reached for her hand, but she jerked it away.
“What are you doing?” Sabrina challenged.
“You don’t believe me,” Billbert said. “Just take my hand.”
Tentatively she placed her hand in his. An instant later, the ground was far below.
JARED
Escape
I held what used to be my undershirt around my arm. I had made it into the car, but not without cost. Opening the door and getting in had allowed that monster to get close enough to slash at me, catching my arm just before I closed the door.
The rain pelted the windshield as the darkness engulfed us. Neither of us knew this road, but we knew our only hope of escaping whatever it was that was after us would be to turn off the headlights and hope it couldn’t see in the dark well enough to track us.
PLANET Z
You’ve been driving a while, but you’ve got a long drive ahead.
The streetlights turn on a little before the sun goes down.
If you’re driving into the sun, and you’ve got your sunglasses on, you might still need to flip your visor down.
You’ll turn on your lights, unless you’ve got automatic lights.
And your dashboard sensor will change from day to night mode.
To keep the glare off of the inside of the front glass.
Stop at a gas station. Fill it up again.
Take a few minutes. Rest your eyes.
As the sun heads under the horizon.