- Thomas
- Richard
- Serendipidy
- Norval Joe
- Tom
- Planet Z
THOMAS
Caught In Time
Every Tuesday, Miriam brought my Walmart groceries, her bonnet crisp, her voice soft. This week, she sneezed twice as she handed me my bags. I nodded, uneasy. By Thursday, my throat burned. By Friday, fever.
I lay in bed, certain I’d caught something from her—something plain, Mennonite, unvaccinated. The irony struck me: I, a man of modern medicine, felled by a woman still baking bread in a wood stove.
I’d called Walmart to report it. Then came regret. Had I damned her? Had I let fear twist my judgment? Caught in time, but too late to take back. Damn!
RICHARD
— Flashback —
It was unexpected.
I almost missed it amongst the paperwork during the clearout.
The photograph fluttered to the ground, freed from the pile of old newspapers and random leaflets that had accumulated over who knows how many years.
I retrieved it and flipped it over, and suddenly realised what I was holding.
A precious moment, from so long ago, caught in time by the camera’s lens and kept for posterity. Not just a picture, but a cherished memory.
So long forgotten, and I’d almost thrown it away.
Now it sits in pride of place, in a frame on my desk.
SERENDIPIDY
The question is not so much what did I do, but whether it was caught in time?
You know I developed the virus.
You are well aware by now that I released it into the wild.
And you certainly understand the consequences of what I’ve done.
But it’s going to take time to develop an antidote.
Research and development are costly, complex, and are unable to come up with a solution overnight.
But, overnight may well be the only time you have.
And even then, it may be too late.
I know the answer, of course.
But, I’m not telling!
TOM
984
TimeY WyMe
Not easy being a Time Lord. Hard enough to catch a falling anvil. Try catching the most important moment in a person’s life. Knowing the exact place to be and just the right level of interaction. Not easy my friend, sometime it goes way-way south and you spend eons backtracking in the Time Loop to set things right. Take this here butterfly, looks like a normal butterfly, yes. Well, no this butterfly is actually every butterfly or more to the point “butterfly is an illusion.” A single soul caught in time. Trend lightly in her presence less the unraveling begins.
861
Remote
In the olden day there were only seven channels available on the Tv set. To watch these Tv stations one had to arrange a set of “Rabbit Ears” into a reasonable representation of modern art a top your set next to the ceramic Leppard. Wish to bring joy to your grandparents? Use “Rabbit Ears” in a complete sentence. Proper verb optional. To change stations, one had to turn a dial, but at some point, the remote control was created, but the signal was sent by banging two pieces of metal together. Think a single note wind chime in your hand.
862
Rubegoldbergian
I love games as a child. Drove my parents crazy to get the next kid centric boardgame. Hands down the must kinetic game was Mouse Trap. Not much on plot, high on execution. One would think the limited number of moves would bring on a sense of boredom. Nope fun every time. Little did I figure out at the time this would prepare me for the endless twisted path the modern world cast in my path. I only wish that each of life’s machination was a brightly colored piece of plastic that could be neatly disassemble back in the box.
NORVAL JOE
On his way home from school, Billbert stopped by the hospital to see how Mr. Withybottom was doing. The nurse told him Linoliamanda and her mother had just left with their driver, but he might find them in the parking lot if he caught them in time. Unfortunately, they were already gone. Disappointed, Billbert continued home.
As he passed his fence, he heard Sabrina whisper from his back yard. “Billbert. Don’t look at me, so that if anyone asks, you can say you haven’t seen me. Just go unlock the back door so I can sneak up to my room.”
PLANET Z
Nobody remembers the actress Sapphire Frankel.
Her raspy Southern drawl ensured an end to her career in the talkies era.
All of her films were on nitrate stock, none were preserved.
The studio records building burned up in a warehouse fire in the fifties.
Promotional posters all lost to the dustbin, not a single one in the hands of a collector.
She had an aversion to merchandising, never wrote a memoir.
No children, no family.
No affairs with Hollywood legends, not even Tallulah Bankhead or Marlene Dietrich.
Not even a gravesite, her ashes scattered by a studio secretary long ago.