Friday, January 09, 2009

Entry #36

Good Times, Bad Times
by Manan Gupta


"Where are you going dude?"
"I am going to 4850 A.D."
"Oh cool! That's nearly 200 years back! Since when did you become interested in history and all? "
"Naah..nothing like that. Just felt like traveling."
"Oh ok. Then why not go further back. Say 3000s or even 2000s"
"No man. Those were boring times, dangerous times- Politics, wars and too much of self obsession. Nowadays nobody travels to those times"
"Yeah that is true. I travel only to the future anyway. I mean, what's the point of going back to what you have left behind?"
"Curiosity, I guess."
"I guess. But don't you just love these new Traveloxers. Just step on them and zoom!"
"Yeah man! Much more convenient than those spherical Time Travel Pods. Those gave me backaches."
"These Traveloxers have such a brilliant design. Only Malcolm-the-Superior could have thought of these. No wonder he is considered the first citizen. He is a genius."

Suddenly, they sense a commotion around. People are running helter-skelter. They manage to stop a guy:

"What's going on man?"
"You don't know! There are riots in the city. They even burned down the temple of Malcolm-the-Superior"
"Why!?"
"Some rogue who traveled to 2000s is claiming that Traveloxers existed then. It wasn't Malcolm-the-Superior's original idea. He COPIED the DESIGN!"
"That can't be!"
“Yes. It seems they weren't used for time travel but for altitude travel. But they were everywhere - shopping arcades, airports, everywhere. And they had the exact same design."
"I feel sick."

21 comments:

JR's Thumbprints said...

I've heard that Traveloxers are used for boarding spaceships as well. Interesting piece.

Sameera Ansari said...

Woo!Nice take :)

Loved the concept of time travel here.Good one!

Lena said...

interesting concept here. Very different. Well done. :)

Anonymous said...

lol! nice one man.

JaneyV said...

Lovely humour here. If only escalators could bring us to another time eh?

Rachel Green said...

Amusing piece!

Catherine Vibert said...

Delightful! I love SF stories of time travel. Very creative idea here.

wrath999 said...

Cool. Nice vision and imagination here.

BernardL said...

Very humorous look into the future. :)

K.Lawson Gilbert said...

fresh and original - kudos

Anonymous said...

ah, nice!! love this one

laughingwolf said...

rats, you caught me enjoying it :)

Sarah Hina said...

Very cool concept, and natural dialogue. I enjoyed the inventive take!

Manan said...

Thank you all :)

Patsy said...

I've never been keen on escalators, but now I've heard using one as 'altitude travel' I want to rush off and go on one! That's brilliant - are you in marketing?

RiverSoul said...

Kudos to your creativity dude
Awesome work
:)
Best of luck
:)

PJD said...

LOL, dude. Love the voice of this. And the fact that there are riots over leisure product design in the future.

Esther Avila said...

:) great ending - loved it.
Good job.

bluesugarpoet said...

That was funny! Leave it to the 2000s to even mess up the hope for peace in the future... Great story!

jana

ceedy said...

Veery interesting. Nice take on the concept.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for being a wonderful part of the contest!