Tag: future

Bob

~ Richard Schulte ~ 2 Comments

Bob was an artificial intelligence. Bob owned and managed Life Corporation.

Life Corporation developed the world’s most advanced robots.

When Nana heard how a Life Corporation lifeguard saved her grandchild from drowning at the community pool, she wanted to show her appreciation. So she baked one of her scrumptious apple pies.

A regional Life Corporation facility was located several blocks from her home. Nana walked over with her warm apple pie and looked for a building entrance.

She walked clear around the fenced complex but could see no office or front door. It was like Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, she mused. Not a sign of life. It must be operated by Oompa Loompas.

A gate opened as a truck pulled away from the facility, and Nana dashed through it with her pie. Several trucks were backed up to an immense loading dock.

“Hello?” Nana called at one end of the loading dock. The automated loaders kept at their work.

“You are not authorized,” spoke a voice behind her.

Nana turned.

She faced a tall security guard.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t know what to do,” Nana explained. “I’ve brought a gift and I don’t where to go.”

The security guard looked down at the pie in Nana’s hands. “What is that?”

“Oh, it’s an apple pie. Doesn’t it smell heavenly? I made it myself this morning. From scratch. I wanted to give it to all of you because one of your lifeguards saved Ronnie, my grandchild.”

“Is that a delivery?” asked the security guard.

“Well,” Nana laughed, “if you put it that way, I suppose it is!”

“Set it down over here.” The guard pointed to a specific place on the loading dock. “I must ask you to leave now.”

“Oh– Well– Please let whoever’s in charge here know that I’m so very thankful. Ronnie is doing fine. I really don’t know how to thank you enough. Will you let everybody know?”

“I must ask you to leave now.”

What an inhuman place, thought Nana as she left. But she was grateful, nevertheless.

Ten days later the apple pie rested in its place on the loading dock, waiting to be received.

Bob smelled nothing. Nor did Bob mind the flies.

Backward Man

~ Richard Schulte ~ 3 Comments

Two men rode the morning train. They sat opposite each other. One sat facing forward, the other backward.

“I don’t like riding backward,” said the first man.

“When you sit backward and look out the window you can see what’s coming,” explained the second man.

“How’s that possible? You have sit facing forward to see what’s coming.”

“It’s easy,” replied the backward facing man.

The train emerged from under a bridge and passed behind a row of ramshackle houses. The train passed one backyard that contained a small inflatable pool and a tree with a swing.

“I see a school bus ahead at a railroad crossing,” said the backward man.

“You do!” smiled the forward man.

The train passed a skateboard park with a lone skater, who must have been ditching school.

“I see a young man speeding on his motorcycle to the mall,” said the backward man.

“That wouldn’t surprise me.”

The train passed a churchyard. A wedding arbor stood empty in a plot of flowers.

“I see someone walking into a store to buy rice,” said the backward man.

“That’s funny.”

The train passed a fire engine parked beside a city park. Firefighters in rain jackets were jogging down a winding path that followed the train tracks for a short distance.

“I see an open bay door at a fire station,” said the backward man.

The train passed a liquor store, its red neon sign flashing. The morning rain was picking up.

“I see people walking down sidewalks, staring at reflections in puddles,” said the backward man.

“I don’t like trains,” explained the forward man, “but my car broke down. If I have to ride the train, I need to see what’s coming. I don’t want to miss my stop.”

The train passed behind a large car lot. The new cars were brightly polished.

“I see a car crashed in a ditch,” said the backward man.

“Obviously you can’t see any of that. Because I don’t,” asserted the forward man.

The train passed a flagpole that rose above a brick fire station that had one open bay door. The morning wind was rising, whipping the flag wildly under black clouds.

“I see a lightning strike ahead,” said the backward man.

“It’s not in the forecast,” laughed the forward man, who looked straight ahead at the backward sitting man.

The backward man turned his eyes from the train window. He looked back at the forward man, directly into his eyes.

The train passed a cemetery. Headstones covered newly green grass.

“I see a ghost.”

A Half Dozen Odd Things

~ Richard Schulte ~ 3 Comments

Agatha purchased a mystery at the swap meet. Glued to paper, pressed behind glass in a dusty frame, were a half dozen odd things.

A lottery ticket. A feather. A bus ticket. A one dollar bill. A bit of red yarn. A bookmark.

The seller at the swap meet knew nothing.

Agatha took possession of the mystery for five dollars. The frame by itself was worth almost that.

“What do you think this is?” she asked her husband after returning home.

“Another piece of junk.”

“What do you think this is supposed to be?” she asked her visiting sister.

“Looks like somebody framed their memories. You’d have to ask the person who made that what it means.”

Uncertain where to place the mystery, Agatha temporarily leaned the dusty frame behind the kitchen blender. Out of the way, but still in the range of her curious eyes.

Whatever those memories were, thought Agatha, together they were art. They were a stranger’s work of art.

But why had it been sold?

Did the lottery ticket represent a dream of the unknown stranger? Did that dream ever come true?

And what about the bus ticket? Why did the person take that particular journey? What happened then? Did they return?

Was the feather found on a special day?

Did the one dollar bill change a life?

A bit of red yarn…

A bookmark…

Bookmarks, Agatha mused, are found in stories that have more pages to turn.

Bookmarks are like brief moments in a life. They are like a lottery ticket . . . a bus ticket . . . a one dollar bill.

Bookmarks! That’s what these half dozen things were! A framed collection of used bookmarks!

From a story that had finally come to an end.

Agatha understood.

She picked up the frame, turned it over, opened it, and carefully removed the contents. She kept the frame and threw now useless things–the lottery and bus tickets–into the garbage.

Later that day she put a photo of her grandchildren inside the frame.

She placed the feather on her building’s front step for someone to find.

She dropped the one dollar bill in the hat of a man strumming his guitar on the street.

The ordinary bookmark she placed in a borrowed library book.

The bit of red yarn she also used.

Agatha loved to crochet and donate small things she made to charity. She’d work that bit of yarn in somewhere.

What the Giant Saw

~ Richard Schulte ~ 1 Comment

According to ancient legend, a giant had piled rocks on the bank of the river, creating a dark mountain. The mountain was a cairn, placed by the giant so that one day he could find his way back from the frozen North, to take revenge on the knights of old.

One morning the returning giant suddenly appeared over the mountain. He placed his hairy hand atop the rocky peak and sat down, cooling his feet in the trickle of river.

“What’s this?” he asked with a voice like thunder.

Across the river there had been a strange change. The castle had vanished. No knights in bright armor charged out to meet him.

Before him lay a postpostmodern city. Ant-size automated cars traversed a network of unpeopled streets, moving in straight lines from one point to another, then to another, then to another, then to another. The self-driving cars moved with perfect regularity between rows of identical, windowless edifices. The pod-like cars were also windowless, designed to deflect dangerous sunlight and conserve precious energy. They transported their minuscule cargoes with perfected efficiency.

The giant stared for a few minutes at the lifeless scene. None of it seemed real.

He soon lost interest.

As he stood up to return north, the clumsy giant accidentally knocked down a stone from the top of his useless cairn.

The catastrophic flood was beyond understanding.