John roamed around Super-Victorian London for a couple of hours, running on pure enthusiasm. Their force fields held back the putrid atmosphere and pumped refined oxygen into the streets.
But enthusiasm and raw oxygen can only keep a man high for so long. After the couple of hours his feet swelled up and his syndrome had him shaking. A visit to hospital was no good; language had so mutated that he couldn’t communicate, and as best he understood the nurses were unimpressed with his lack of an ID chip. Either that or they refused to service anyone who didn’t wear retro-Renaissance gear.
So he returned to the street with his faded Inu Yasha t-shirt and sat on the corner. He didn’t beg; it seemed these Super-Victorians pumped nutrients into their oxygen currents and he was left with a perpetually mildly sated belly. Less than a day with time travel, and John was doing what he would have done had he stayed in his present: sitting and thinking about weird things that would make no sense to anyone around him.
I'd love to find out what history was really like. If the time machine didn't allow travel to before the machine was built, then I'd probably end up doing what I do now, thinking of a way to bend the rules of physics and go somewhere else.
ReplyDeleteThis is excellent! I loved it. :)
ReplyDeleteKinda like people who go on vacation and only swim in the hotel pool...
ReplyDeleteKind of sad and funny at once. I would hope for some kind of adventures, or to find some time where the diseases of today are cured.
ReplyDeleteBut who am I kidding? If I traveled through time, I'd probably be doing the same thing as I am now: trying to take notes so I can write about it.
John! John! I have to tell you about your future!
ReplyDeleteRandall wins the day for his Doc Brown reference. I'll go get shot now.
ReplyDeleteLaura, I'll have you know I stayed in a hotel three nights last week and my greatest regret was not swimming in that pool. It looked so fun.
David, there's so much history back there that you'd go old before you'd seen nearly anything. Then you'd be history. It's the trouble with travel - or one of the troubles.
Cassie, glad you liked it!
TS, I'm a big note taker as well. No shame in it. It's not like anybody around me will understand what opportunities I'm wasting.