oncoming_storms 96.2: Quote - ....the future is not what it used to be.
The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be.
- Paul Valery
He used to know the future. Well, know it more or less. At times the future decided it wanted to be in flux and things could get quite confusing. Nevertheless, he was fairly decent at his history, he knew the past and the future. The details might change here or there, but Hitler always lost the war, unless of course you changed something in the past that shouldn’t be changed. That always means the Germans ends up winning. Or perhaps not, maybe that is just something he read online. Either way, his knowledge of the future at this point isn’t even as useful as an internet anecdote that may or may not exist.
2012. He knows the year. There once was a Dalek in a museum underground, but time had gone into flux and the thing probably ended up there more or less, despite the flux. He wasn’t sure. There should be Olympics happening in London, except the Olympic games no longer exist in this universe. These are things he more or less has come to terms with. A future that isn’t that he knows it should be, but he was prepared for that.
Other things though, other things still catch him off guard.
A plane should have crashed in the Alps three months ago. A well known politician and her family died. The world mourned, it was very big news. It shaped a few world events, political upheaval all those things. Except that wasn’t happening here. She traveled by zeppelin instead. The trip was twice as long but she arrived alive and well. There were no uprising or governments overturned. A war or two were avoided, although now he had no idea what event might take its place. Maybe something worse, maybe something better, maybe everything would stay the same. He couldn’t say and he didn’t dare to guess quite yet. For the moment it seemed the world would continue turning as it had the day before and the day before that. The only difference for him was that strange nagging thought of what should have happened. He wasn’t sure there was room for the word should at this point, the words of a madman to anyone who lived forever in this world of zeppelins.
A scientist in Germany should have made a breakthrough in the cure of a very well known disease last year. That scientist was never born by some twist of fate. He isn’t quite sure yet how that happened. Someone will find that cure eventually, but not in time, because he knows fifteen years from now another well known scientist in Finland will have made a revolutionary discovery that will lead Earth into the space age. The true space age, beyond landing on moons and sending satellites next door. Except of course this scientist would contract this very well known disease in six years time. In one world he was cured. It was hard to say if he would have that same chance in the world he lives in now. Science and progress can’t be stopped though, and eventually those things will come together. He just wonders how long the world will take to catch up to the way he knows it should be. Still the word should doesn’t have any room here in a world whose scientists are missing or will be forgotten before they can do anything to be remembered by.
He’s been waiting two years for a certain song to come out, he’s hummed it in his head in anticipation. Except that band has not formed, and may never form because after some research it turns out their lead singer is a very succesful acountant in Buffalo. And that book he loves, it did come out. Except the ending was all wrong. He should’ve turned left and instead he turned right and the girl turned out to be all wrong and it wasn’t at all like he remembered. It was wrong in all the right places and right in all the places he never quite expected. He wasn’t sure if he hated it or just didn’t understand it, but it could use further re-reading just to be sure.
That natural disaster still happened. The one that shocked everyone and whose body count was never quite known. He had been hoping it would be one of those events that didn’t carry over. It had. He was pleasantly surprised by the response though, much better than history had said it would be long ago in another universe. There was also a nifty gadget which he had just bought at an electronics store which never existed anywhere he knew. He couldn’t quite put it down, a strange excitement at something truly, really, completely unknown.
There was a song on the radio, that he had never heard of, he liked it quite a lot and it was something that sometimes replaced that song he had been waiting all these years to hear again.
An obscure businessman died in a car accident last week. In another world he committed heinous enough acts that this human Doctor couldn’t help but feel glad the man had died. There was a moment of guilt, but it went away.
He visited the site of a wonder of the ancient world that somehow survived the tests of time and wars and human progress where it hadn’t once upon a time in another universe. It was strange to see something so completely out of time be so perfectly in time.
He used to know the future and sometimes he can’t forget that. He’s not sure if it’s better or worse, this other world with everything turned slightly askew. Like a portrait on a wall, sometimes he wants to straighten it out, make it neat and straight again. But sometimes something strikes him at this strange angle and he is startled by the novelty and wonder of a brand new world.
The future isn’t what it used to be, but neither is the past. He can’t help but admit it’s oddly appropriate that the man observing this isn’t quite what he used to be either.
- Paul Valery
He used to know the future. Well, know it more or less. At times the future decided it wanted to be in flux and things could get quite confusing. Nevertheless, he was fairly decent at his history, he knew the past and the future. The details might change here or there, but Hitler always lost the war, unless of course you changed something in the past that shouldn’t be changed. That always means the Germans ends up winning. Or perhaps not, maybe that is just something he read online. Either way, his knowledge of the future at this point isn’t even as useful as an internet anecdote that may or may not exist.
2012. He knows the year. There once was a Dalek in a museum underground, but time had gone into flux and the thing probably ended up there more or less, despite the flux. He wasn’t sure. There should be Olympics happening in London, except the Olympic games no longer exist in this universe. These are things he more or less has come to terms with. A future that isn’t that he knows it should be, but he was prepared for that.
Other things though, other things still catch him off guard.
A plane should have crashed in the Alps three months ago. A well known politician and her family died. The world mourned, it was very big news. It shaped a few world events, political upheaval all those things. Except that wasn’t happening here. She traveled by zeppelin instead. The trip was twice as long but she arrived alive and well. There were no uprising or governments overturned. A war or two were avoided, although now he had no idea what event might take its place. Maybe something worse, maybe something better, maybe everything would stay the same. He couldn’t say and he didn’t dare to guess quite yet. For the moment it seemed the world would continue turning as it had the day before and the day before that. The only difference for him was that strange nagging thought of what should have happened. He wasn’t sure there was room for the word should at this point, the words of a madman to anyone who lived forever in this world of zeppelins.
A scientist in Germany should have made a breakthrough in the cure of a very well known disease last year. That scientist was never born by some twist of fate. He isn’t quite sure yet how that happened. Someone will find that cure eventually, but not in time, because he knows fifteen years from now another well known scientist in Finland will have made a revolutionary discovery that will lead Earth into the space age. The true space age, beyond landing on moons and sending satellites next door. Except of course this scientist would contract this very well known disease in six years time. In one world he was cured. It was hard to say if he would have that same chance in the world he lives in now. Science and progress can’t be stopped though, and eventually those things will come together. He just wonders how long the world will take to catch up to the way he knows it should be. Still the word should doesn’t have any room here in a world whose scientists are missing or will be forgotten before they can do anything to be remembered by.
He’s been waiting two years for a certain song to come out, he’s hummed it in his head in anticipation. Except that band has not formed, and may never form because after some research it turns out their lead singer is a very succesful acountant in Buffalo. And that book he loves, it did come out. Except the ending was all wrong. He should’ve turned left and instead he turned right and the girl turned out to be all wrong and it wasn’t at all like he remembered. It was wrong in all the right places and right in all the places he never quite expected. He wasn’t sure if he hated it or just didn’t understand it, but it could use further re-reading just to be sure.
That natural disaster still happened. The one that shocked everyone and whose body count was never quite known. He had been hoping it would be one of those events that didn’t carry over. It had. He was pleasantly surprised by the response though, much better than history had said it would be long ago in another universe. There was also a nifty gadget which he had just bought at an electronics store which never existed anywhere he knew. He couldn’t quite put it down, a strange excitement at something truly, really, completely unknown.
There was a song on the radio, that he had never heard of, he liked it quite a lot and it was something that sometimes replaced that song he had been waiting all these years to hear again.
An obscure businessman died in a car accident last week. In another world he committed heinous enough acts that this human Doctor couldn’t help but feel glad the man had died. There was a moment of guilt, but it went away.
He visited the site of a wonder of the ancient world that somehow survived the tests of time and wars and human progress where it hadn’t once upon a time in another universe. It was strange to see something so completely out of time be so perfectly in time.
He used to know the future and sometimes he can’t forget that. He’s not sure if it’s better or worse, this other world with everything turned slightly askew. Like a portrait on a wall, sometimes he wants to straighten it out, make it neat and straight again. But sometimes something strikes him at this strange angle and he is startled by the novelty and wonder of a brand new world.
The future isn’t what it used to be, but neither is the past. He can’t help but admit it’s oddly appropriate that the man observing this isn’t quite what he used to be either.