No Second Chances
It’s time for Friday Fictioneers, which is announced on a Wednesday but dated on a Friday – so this week I am both a day late and a day early.
Time confusion! And that is the subject of today’s story. Which, I admit, is a bit confusing especially now that I had to remove 50 words to get even close to the 100 word target. But that’s time travel for ya! Confusing.
This week’s photo was provided by fellow Friday Fictioneerer Claire Fuller. I got to thinking about who might be inside and what they might be doing.
Rochelle is our host here at Friday Fictioneers club. Why not give it a go yourself? Click on the little blue frog to see all the other contributions.
Copyright Claire Fuller
“These are the space/time coordinates. Pretty unassuming for the workshop of the man who is about to create time-travel.”
“Everyone changing the past, destabilising the time stream. We stop it now, before it begins.”
The Time Agents threw their grenades into the workshop.
Time travel was never created so…
… Time Agents never came back to kill the creator of time travel so…
… time travel was created so…
… Time Agents came back to kill the creator so…
The Universe stalled and… paused. Earth vanished, seven billion people deleted from history. The Universe resumed, the temporal paradox erased.
The Universe is good at correcting mistakes. No second chances.
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draliman on life 
Great Post!!
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Thanks!
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Oh very good! That was very clever.”If you get to the gate before me, put a rock on the post. If I get there first, I’ll knock it off.”
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Aargh, all this paradox stuff makes my head hurt 🙂
I’m glad you liked it!
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LOL I know, but I liked yours much better 😉
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A great idea, and well written. You’d have thought those time agents would have worked that out already.
Claire
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I don’t think they thought it all the way through! I’m glad you liked it 🙂
Ali
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Oh, wow! This one made me think (in a good way) 🙂
Another good one!
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This sort of thing makes me think too, but not for too long or my head goes kablooie 🙂
I’m glad you liked it!
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clever and succinct which makes it clever …:-D
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Thanks, I’m glad it still worked after the editing!
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Very clever, and a complicated concept for 100 words, so you did well to consolidate it down. Well done.
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Thanks! It was pretty tricky to cut it down and still retain some sense of what was happening.
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That’s funny! I had co-ordinates in my first line as well but I couldn’t finish it because the TV was too loud in the other room. Might try again later, great little story Ali. 🙂
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Looking forward to reading yours once you get some peace and quiet!
I’m glad you enjoyed mine 🙂 I watched “Interstellar” on Tuesday and it put me in the mood for some weird time nonsense.
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Ali, Is that why someone will tell someone else in a movie like “Back to the Future” not to let anyone see them and not to change anything? Scary concept.
and well written. 🙂 — Susan
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Susan, yes that’s the reason. Anything could happen! It scares the bejeebus out of me but can make for a good story 🙂 Ali
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Another clever bit of storytelling 😉
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Thanks! I’ve been doing some strange ones recently. I miss the old days of simple decapitations and whatnot 🙂
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I love time travel. It bends my mind into a pretzel, then unravels even that. Give me MORE!
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It does the same to my mind! Then I try to think about it, and overthink it trying to reach an explanation which doesn’t exist and then I get a headache 😦
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You’re right no second chances on that score. You did well cutting out 50 words! This works beautifully.
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I’m glad it still worked after all the editing. Maybe I could go back in time and ensure it’s a 150 word challenge… 🙂
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Still laughing….and thinking!
DJ
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Don’t think too hard – this kind of thing can give one a headache!
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If you went back in time and killed your father before he married your mother…could you even come back? Where’s my Advil?
DJ
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Oh DJ, I warned you not to think too hard about this…
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Brilliant idea and well executed with limited words.
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Thanks!
So sorry my reply is so late. Somehow you fell into my spam folder 😦 Fortunately I always check through my spam so I rescued you back out 🙂
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Thanks. It was dark in there :-0
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Love your story and time travel. Needs a headache warning before reading.
If he goes back and kills his father then he would die also, poof. I think?!?
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Yep. Except if he goes back, kills his father and therefore ceases to exist then he never existed to go back and kill his father… and it all begins again! Headache indeed.
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Thank you, I did think that but only after I posted, a day later,
I’m slow.
This is a prime example for the use of birth control. Ha!
Problem solved.
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Time travel is just too confusing 😦
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Great job, Ali. An Escher-esque idea carried out wonderfully.
janet
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Thanks! I was thinking about having an Escher print on my wall but I fear that would give me a headache as well 🙂
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nice take on the prompt. quite a departure from the normal scheme of things. but it worked.
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It was a bit more “out there” than the usual, but I’m glad you liked it.
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Time travel paradoxes make my brain hurt.
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Mine too. The Universe wasn’t impressed either.
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Shew, that wore me out! lol
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It was a bit of a mind-twister 🙂
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Bah… I think the universe should just let this play out as an infinite loop. Life will be so much better the 9,374,927,783,784,999,028,943,884,721st time around….
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Sooner or later we’ll hit the perfect world. And you have calculated the magic iteration! Just got to stop it when we reach it…
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Dear Ali,
I think my brain locked into neutral reading this. Very clever.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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Dear Rochelle,
That’s probably for the best. One can get a headache thinking too hard about this sort of stuff 🙂
Ali
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I couldn’t read your piece – somehow it was deleted. But I’m sure it was good.
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I did wonder, if the Earth was deleted, then I never wrote the story, so the Earth was never deleted, so… aargh!
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Dear Draliman,
Now this is a great story! I love a good time travel story and this one is out of sight. I wish I’d written it. Very Douglas Adams-ish, or should I say Draliman-ish. Well done.
Aloha,
Doug
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Dear Doug,
Wow, thanks so much! That’s very high praise, I’m glad you enjoyed my story. There’s something about time paradoxes and the sheer mind-bending nature of them that always makes for a good story.
Ali
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There are so many paradoxes in time-travel.. so there has to be some way to correct them… really a good one.
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I reckon the universe can look after itself. It won’t allow mere humans to mess it all up.
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Oh! That Universe is a tough taskmaster…I don’t think I’ll be doing much time traveling – though I wouldn’t mind going back a century or two.
Ellespeth
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I sometimes think going back a bit would be nice. Then I think of all the nasty diseases and lack of medical care and I change my mind 🙂
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Really enjoyed this. The short sentences make the was/wasn’t situation so much more dramatic. Cleverly done.
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Thanks, I’m glad you enjoyed my mind-bending little story!
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Fun. One must be careful of what one changes when traveling back into the past.
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Indeed – you would have thought trained Time Agents would have known better! Maybe it was their first day.
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Mmmm … better trained … reminds me of a management problem. They never know what’s going on.
Oh, I hope you’re not in management. ;0)
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No, I’m not in management. I’m a worker monkey 🙂
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Well if it wasn’t for us monkeys there’d be nothing for management to do.
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Head-spinning stuff. Very clever. Am I still here?
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Are any of us still here? Were we ever? (Dum dum DUM)
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Love the story … and so cool how the Universe solved the stale-mate!
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Well, the Universe had to do something, that was getting silly!
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I do so agree .. an interesting solution , we might want to ponder a bit before doing such a silly thing! 🙂
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You’d think Time Agents would have known better!
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They should have .. silly chits.
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This reminds me of the new movie Intersteller… my brain is all in knots! Very clever!
In the 2nd line of dialogue, should it be everyone’s (as in everyone is)?
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I think I had this sort of thing in mind, as I watched Interstellar the night before 🙂
“Everyone” without the apostrophe “s” works in dialogue in a “clipped” sentence, as many people would talk like that, especially when they’re disapproving or complaining, but thanks!
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Got it! I read it differently, so thanks for explaining. 🙂
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🙂
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All of a sudden I had Professor Farnsworth (Bender’s Big Score) in my head:
“I know a paradox when I see one!”
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I’m not sure I’ve seen that episode, though that line rings a bell.
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That’s OK. It wasn’t an episode. Rather, it was a movie based on the animated series, and it went straight to video. You get points just for knowing who and what I’m talking about. 😀
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Yay 🙂
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Oh, this is clever. I love anything related to space and science fiction, so this is a real treat for me.
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I’m also a big fan of the genre. I’m glad you enjoyed my story!
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