flavour of the day and blueberry cheesecake and malt with fresh blueberries and peaches
Story: Timeless { backstory | index }
Title: Figments
Rating: G
Challenge: FOTD: oppugn, Blueberry Cheesecake #28: scratch the surface
Toppings/Extras: malt, fresh peaches, fresh blueberries
Wordcount: 680
Summary: Adam Kirby’s theories don’t get more extreme than this.
Notes: Adam, get away from the fourth wall before you hurt yourself! Oppugn: to call in question; dispute. BtS PFAH: Adam : but if you left it up to me every day would be a holiday from reality. Peaches: Tonight’s moon stimulates extra thoughtfulness. Blueberries: Most of us yearn to comprehend how we got here, and why-which is to say, most of us ache to know the love of our creator.
With a grimace, Robyn leapt from the top of the machine. The sleeves of her shirt were rolled up to the elbows and her toned forearms had a few shallow scratches on them. Throwing herself into what was supposed to be Cassidy’s seat in front of one of the control panels for the time machine, she slung one of her heavy boots over the other, legs crossing at the ankles, and watched the rest of her team exit the time machine.
“Do you want to know what I think, Adam?” she asked. The light-haired scientist turned to face her, having been utterly engrossed in what looked like a tangle of rubber bands and some machinery. He smiled brightly.
“What do you think, Robyn?”
She blew a feathery strand of hair out of her face.
“I think that time-travel was never intended to happen. Ever.” She raised an eyebrow. “Whatever it was that created the world, I don’t think time-travel was in their plans.”
“Why ever not?”
“Maybe because of the bloody demon dimensions?” Bradley suggested brightly.
“Don’t call them that,” Robyn said to him with a grin; after all, she’d been the one to coin the term. Taisy pulled off a beanie hat with a flourish and let her short hair tumble down the sides of her angular face. Victor was tapping one of his many watches, looking a little crestfallen. Time-travel tended to mess with them. Fortunately, Adam was working on a time-travel-proof watch.
Robyn didn’t even want to know how that one would work.
“Time-travel was always the intention of our creator,” Adam said brightly. “Well, if my theory is correct, anyway.”
“You’ve been making theories about the creator of the universe?” Robyn asked. “Uh, you realise you work for a food company, right?” The incredulous arching of one of her bold eyebrows seemed to have no effect on Adam’s ever-present enthusiasm for this type of oddity.
“That’s immaterial,” Adam said, waving an arm. His face took on a familiar expression: softened and distant, brimming with optimism and understanding. “We are mere figments of the imagination, you and I.”
“Not this again,” Bradley muttered, kicking off his own boots. Copper-coloured mud dripped from the soles.
“You actually think we have a creator?” Taisy asked, tossing her beanie hat from one hand to the other and back again. Behind her, Cassidy was checking over the gleaming capsule of the machine, frowning as he touched a finger to a rounded indentation, like a bowling ball had been slammed into the side. “I thought scientists aren’t meant to believe that sort of thing.”
“Scientists are meant to believe whatever it is that appears to be the truth to them based on the evidence they see or find.” Adam finished fiddling with the rubber band contraption and held it up to inspect. After a moment, he pulled back one of the bands and snapped it back into place. It shot out of his hands and embedded itself into the ceiling.
All of them looked up at it for a moment.
“So if you’re so convinced of this, why aren’t you telling other people?” Bradley asked, going on to shrug exaggeratedly. “Is it because… oh, I don’t know… everyone will quite rightly say that you are absolutely bonkers?”
“I think people will be made to feel insignificant by the fact that they were created by a teenage girl who broke her ankle and had nothing better to do,” Adam said, voice drifting as his mind did. Sometimes he seemed scarcely aware that there were other people in the room-as though he were talking to himself. “You know?”
Even Victor was looking at him oddly now.
Meanwhile, the contraption Adam had accidentally embedded into the ceiling fell with a clatter to the floor. It left behind a large dent in the plastic panelling.
“OK,” Robyn said. She looked around at her team and then back to Adam. She nodded slightly. “Uh, OK?”
He gave her his oblivious, flyaway beam and then picked up a screwdriver.
And that pretty much summed up Adam Kirby.
Title: Figments
Rating: G
Challenge: FOTD: oppugn, Blueberry Cheesecake #28: scratch the surface
Toppings/Extras: malt, fresh peaches, fresh blueberries
Wordcount: 680
Summary: Adam Kirby’s theories don’t get more extreme than this.
Notes: Adam, get away from the fourth wall before you hurt yourself! Oppugn: to call in question; dispute. BtS PFAH: Adam : but if you left it up to me every day would be a holiday from reality. Peaches: Tonight’s moon stimulates extra thoughtfulness. Blueberries: Most of us yearn to comprehend how we got here, and why-which is to say, most of us ache to know the love of our creator.
With a grimace, Robyn leapt from the top of the machine. The sleeves of her shirt were rolled up to the elbows and her toned forearms had a few shallow scratches on them. Throwing herself into what was supposed to be Cassidy’s seat in front of one of the control panels for the time machine, she slung one of her heavy boots over the other, legs crossing at the ankles, and watched the rest of her team exit the time machine.
“Do you want to know what I think, Adam?” she asked. The light-haired scientist turned to face her, having been utterly engrossed in what looked like a tangle of rubber bands and some machinery. He smiled brightly.
“What do you think, Robyn?”
She blew a feathery strand of hair out of her face.
“I think that time-travel was never intended to happen. Ever.” She raised an eyebrow. “Whatever it was that created the world, I don’t think time-travel was in their plans.”
“Why ever not?”
“Maybe because of the bloody demon dimensions?” Bradley suggested brightly.
“Don’t call them that,” Robyn said to him with a grin; after all, she’d been the one to coin the term. Taisy pulled off a beanie hat with a flourish and let her short hair tumble down the sides of her angular face. Victor was tapping one of his many watches, looking a little crestfallen. Time-travel tended to mess with them. Fortunately, Adam was working on a time-travel-proof watch.
Robyn didn’t even want to know how that one would work.
“Time-travel was always the intention of our creator,” Adam said brightly. “Well, if my theory is correct, anyway.”
“You’ve been making theories about the creator of the universe?” Robyn asked. “Uh, you realise you work for a food company, right?” The incredulous arching of one of her bold eyebrows seemed to have no effect on Adam’s ever-present enthusiasm for this type of oddity.
“That’s immaterial,” Adam said, waving an arm. His face took on a familiar expression: softened and distant, brimming with optimism and understanding. “We are mere figments of the imagination, you and I.”
“Not this again,” Bradley muttered, kicking off his own boots. Copper-coloured mud dripped from the soles.
“You actually think we have a creator?” Taisy asked, tossing her beanie hat from one hand to the other and back again. Behind her, Cassidy was checking over the gleaming capsule of the machine, frowning as he touched a finger to a rounded indentation, like a bowling ball had been slammed into the side. “I thought scientists aren’t meant to believe that sort of thing.”
“Scientists are meant to believe whatever it is that appears to be the truth to them based on the evidence they see or find.” Adam finished fiddling with the rubber band contraption and held it up to inspect. After a moment, he pulled back one of the bands and snapped it back into place. It shot out of his hands and embedded itself into the ceiling.
All of them looked up at it for a moment.
“So if you’re so convinced of this, why aren’t you telling other people?” Bradley asked, going on to shrug exaggeratedly. “Is it because… oh, I don’t know… everyone will quite rightly say that you are absolutely bonkers?”
“I think people will be made to feel insignificant by the fact that they were created by a teenage girl who broke her ankle and had nothing better to do,” Adam said, voice drifting as his mind did. Sometimes he seemed scarcely aware that there were other people in the room-as though he were talking to himself. “You know?”
Even Victor was looking at him oddly now.
Meanwhile, the contraption Adam had accidentally embedded into the ceiling fell with a clatter to the floor. It left behind a large dent in the plastic panelling.
“OK,” Robyn said. She looked around at her team and then back to Adam. She nodded slightly. “Uh, OK?”
He gave her his oblivious, flyaway beam and then picked up a screwdriver.
And that pretty much summed up Adam Kirby.