Revisited
He stopped at the entrance, an unpretentious brownstone. They had to be discreet, he thought, what with attacks on the TimeTravel clinics bringing back memories of the attacks on the cloning research institutes of yore. A drunk lounged at the entrance. He dropped a coin into his tin, and the drunk’s words followed him:
“Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know
Through the world we safely go”
Loser, he thought. Went in, registered at the reception. Signed forms that stated he had read reams of small print. Listened as the flight stewardess went through the motions. “ You shall arrive at the time you were prescribed”, she droned. “Please remember that you shall arrive with no knowledge of the future. Your first knowledge of this trip will be when you have the opportunity to choose it again. This is mandated by the present laws. Have a pleasant life as you redraw it and do visit us again”. She smiled and he savagely thought “Not if I can help it, idiot”. He had taken a lot of care in choosing the precise point of time he wanted to go back to. Old enough for maturity and young enough to have a lot of potential mistakes ahead of him. Some of the choices were still not so clear to him, of course. But others? Oh, the others. The friend who went out of touch. The criminal hesitation in telling her. The utterly needless outburst that wrote off his career. Oh, there were a lot of things he’d redo totally.
He felt the snap of the restraints as they clamped him into the chair. The descending darkness, and then oblivion.
He stopped at the entrance, an unpretentious brownstone. They had to be discreet, he thought, what with attacks on the TimeTravel clinics bringing back memories of the attacks on the cloning research institutes of yore. A drunk lounged at the entrance. He dropped a coin into his tin… and déjà vu struck him. Had he really repeated every single step? The drunk cackled “Here’s a free one for you, pal”:
He felt the snap of the restraints as they clamped him into the chair. The descending darkness, and then oblivion.
He stopped at the entrance, an unpretentious brownstone. They had to be discreet, he thought, what with attacks on the TimeTravel clinics bringing back memories of the attacks on the cloning research institutes of yore. A drunk lounged at the entrance. He dropped a coin into his tin… and déjà vu struck him. Had he really repeated every single step? The drunk cackled “Here’s a free one for you, pal”:
“With Earth's first Clay They did the Last Man knead,
And thereof the Last Harvest sow'd the Seed:
And the first Morning of Creation wrote
What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read.”
Mechanically, he dropped a coin into the box and tried to grasp what he’d just heard. Even as he turned away and began slowly to retrace his steps, the drunk’s words arrested him:-
“Joy and woe are woven fine,
A clothing for the soul divine.
Under every grief and pine
Runs a joy with silken twine.”
And suddenly, he was smiling, then laughing aloud as he walked away.
mind blowing !
Posted by
Anonymous |
July 23, 2006 9:39 AM
Sigh. Now someone is going to accuse me of being anonymous too, in addition to all other ids.
Thankee, Naanimouse.
Posted by
?! |
July 23, 2006 10:08 AM
So sweet!
Did he choose now to seek out friend, confess to 'her' and make the right supressions at career? Redo all? And could he?
sweetsweetsweet
Posted by
Shankari |
July 23, 2006 11:15 PM
deja vu*....Phillip K Dick???
*(am not gonna go to all the effort of finding the nightly accented symbol)...
Posted by
Anonymous |
July 23, 2006 11:57 PM
ahh well...have read this before...by you? elsewhere? by someone else? or pkd - there is one story thats quite similar...
Posted by
Anonymous |
July 24, 2006 11:17 AM
again, I get. and am far more thrilled with the fact that I get than with the fact that this is quite nice.
Posted by
Anonymous |
July 25, 2006 12:43 AM
somebody has been churning 'em out I see, and so thought-provokingly so.
Posted by
GratisGab |
July 25, 2006 12:50 AM
Picky : Sigh. Yes, tis a recycling of an old article. Yen thaan ippidi maanatha vaangaraangalo.
Nonnymouse (assuming you are diff mouse) : I discern familiar notes of sarcasm in that... baat karte hain.
Ms G: Thankee kindly ... and nice to have you here. (Garcon, the champagne now).
Posted by
?! |
July 25, 2006 7:21 AM
sarcasm?????what sarcasm? wholesome appreciation only
Posted by
Anonymous |
July 26, 2006 11:42 AM